As the only brother, Franz Eilmansberger was lovingly cared for by his four sisters in his home town of Sarleinsbach. After graduating from the state high school in Linz at the age of 17, his dearest wish was to become a doctor. But in the Second World War he was drafted and – with a lot of luck – deployed as a radio test engineer. “From that point on, my father was fascinated by the technology. He always wanted to know how something worked right up to the end, and he repaired everything himself at home,” recalls his daughter Ursula Wirth. So it happened that after being a prisoner of war in northern Germany in 1946, he completed his studies in low- and high-voltage current technology in Graz and Vienna and from then on acquired a comprehensive knowledge.
As the first station in his career, Franz Eilmansberger got a job at Siemens, but it was not to be the last. From September 1952 until his retirement, Eilmansberger worked for Oberösterreichische Kraftwerke – today Energie AG – and took on the position of construction director and technical manager. One of his particular concerns was the expansion of the power plant network. In 1975 he was also appointed director of the Ennskraftwerke AG board.
family first
Although Franz Eilmansberger traveled a lot because of his work, his family – his beloved wife Martha and his three children Barbara, Ursula and Thomas – always came first. “Regardless of where our father traveled to, we always had a small souvenir with us,” says his daughter. Eilmansberger also always had an open ear for his four grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. “He was our rock, nothing could stop him.”
But his life was also overshadowed by many a stroke of fate. After about 40 years of marriage, his wife Martha died. During his daily visits to the cemetery, Franz Eilmansberger met a new love at the age of 78: his Maria, with whom he was happily married for another 22 years. He never quite got over the early death of his only son. And yet Eilmansberger was always satisfied and in good spirits – his secret, how he was able to celebrate his 100th birthday with his loved ones.
Source: Nachrichten
