According to his WWI Draft Reg Card Patrick Egan Nickel said he was born in Mobeetie, Wheeler County, Texas and gave his date of birth as January 18, 1891. He was married and living in Wichita City, Sedgewick County, Kansas at the time and was there for the 1920 census when he was working as a manager for a news company. They had no children and his brother George Nickel was living with them working as a laborer at an ice plant. In 1930 he and his family were in Pueblo City, Pueblo County, Colorado and he was working as a cook in a hotel. They had three children: Patrick E, age 8, born in Kansas, James L., age 5, born in Kansas, and Shirley D, age 10/12, born in Colorado. In 1940 Patrick was a head cook in a road construction camp near Dixon, Rio Arriba County, New Mexico and his family may have not been enumerated. He said that in 1935 he had been in Santa Fe, New Mexico. 1934 and 1936 city directories for Santa Fe showed him and Helga there and he was working as a lumberman.
Based on the 1930 census he married Helga E. Duncan about 1915. Census data indicates she was born around 1893 in Sweden and immigrated in 1896. In the 1905 Kansas census and the 1910 federal census for Kansas she is with William Sam Duncan and wife Louie. Helga is designated as daughter. However William Sam Duncan is born in Kentucky and wife Louie in Ohio. Helga's parents are said to be born in Sweden as she was. She may have been adopted. In the 1920 census Helga says she was naturalized in 1915. Helga was still alive in 1955 when she signed the application for a military headstone or marker for husband Patrick. Patrick died in El Paso, perhaps because his son Patrick Jr. lived there, but his usual residence according to his death certificate was Portales, New Mexico and that is the address his wife gave on his application for a military headstone.