Frank Holsinger was born April 3, 1836 in Bedford County, Pennsylvania to George and Susan (Myers) Holsinger, of Pennsylvania German Dunkard descent. He went to Mt. Morris Seminary in Illinois in 1855 to study but, becoming interested in the populary soveignty issue and the free state cause, went to Kansas in 1857.

Holsinger staked a claim a few miles south of Lawrence, Douglas County, Kansas, and remained in Kansas fighting for the anti-slavery cause for a couple years before heading back east before the Civil War started. When war broke out, he initially enlisted with an Ohio company, where he was then residing; he transferred to the Pennsylvania Reserves.

Holsinger fought at Antietam, was wounded at Fredericksburg, and organized the 19th U.S. Colored Troops. He was wounded again at Petersburg, more severely this time, and never regained the use of his right arm. He was promoted to major at this point.

Holsinger went south to Texas, overseeing a Freedmen's Bureau there. After mustering out of the military in 1867, he went back to Pennsylvania to marry Frances (Fannie) Long. They moved to Kansas, settling this time in Wyandotte County, near what would become Rosedale, Kansas.

The Holsingers had 6 children who survived to adulthood: Gerald, Clarence V., George, Maude (Holsinger) Wilson, Edna Frances, and Mary Reichard (Holsinger) Rose, who married George Rose, whose family had come to Kansas from New York in the early 1870s and settled in Wyandotte County. George and Mary Rose's children included Helen, Sibyl Frances, Edith Mildred (Rose) Ruble, George Edmund, and Franklin Thomas (F.T.R.).

Holsinger became a staunch prohibitionist, was a strong supporter of education, and helped found the Kansas State Horticultural Society, serving at various times as both its president and treasurer.

Frank Holsinger died January 2, 1916.