His name was William but he was called "El", an abbreviated version of his middle name, Ellsworth. Ellsworth Helfrich was the first son of William and Cora Ellen Helfrich, and brother to my grandma, Melva, and his sister Grace, and brother Harold (aka Hans). He also had a little brother, Claud, who died at 10 months old.
The info about his public life is low key: he made the newspapers in 1921-1922 for activities with his Bible class at Trinity Reformed in Allentown, where he also served as vice president. He and his brother Harold were ushers at the 1923 marriages of their sisters Grace and Melva. In 1921 to 1923, he had some position of responsibility with the Allentown Fair that made his name appear in a list of other such people. In late 1939, he and his siblings were mentioned in the probate of their father's estate. In 1942, his name appeared among a list of drafted Eastonians who were taking a 2 week furlough before reporting for duty. November of 1955, he's on the list of Nevadans for whom a forwarding address is required for sending a tax refund. After that, newspapers across the country don't mention him until his brother had his ashes shipped home for burial.
El doesn't leave a trail of much substance. He may be seen with his parents and siblings on the 1910 census in McAdoo, age 9. In 1920 he is 18 and at home with his parents in Allentown, the city to which his family had moved. At the time of this census he was an assembler of motors. His mother would die that year in October, and his father married once more in 1924. By 1930 El is down in Philadelphia, living with his mother's sister, his aunt Della (nee Schollenberger) Woertz (who had also hosted his sister, my grandma Melva for some time after their mom died). Ellsworth is on the 1940 census where he is a single man living as a lodger in Easton, PA, working as a salesman of wholesale candy. Following that, his draft card tells us that in 1942, he was 5'5", grey eyed and bald, with a light complexion, presently unemployed. His request for WWII compensation tells us he served September 1942 to January 1943 with no overseas service.
"Uncle El" was something of a mystery to my living family. He was suspected to have had issues with alcohol and gambling. He left Pennsylvania and went out west and was purportedly working as a cook when he died. No one alive seemed sure where he was; the consensus seemed to be Las Vegas, or maybe Reno. These cities are between 400 and 500 miles from each other, so this memory sheds no light on the county of El's passing which would have been Clark or Washoe respectively. I did find a 1955 newspaper mention of a tax refund being due to a man in Reno with his name. His obituary appeared in the Allentown Morning Call on February 3, 1964.
His brother Harold had Ellsworth cremated in Nevada, and the ashes sent back home for burial. Ellsworth shares a plot with his baby brother Claud. It's a strange sharing. You have a child less than a year old whose burial place was moved when his family relocated, sharing space with his wandering, worldly big brother. One innocent, one not, both well-traveled in their way.
To the best of anyone's knowledge, Ellsworth never married and had no children. There is a vague recollection from one of my mother's cousins that my grandma (Ellsworth's sister Melva) got a call from El's female companion at the time to tell her that El had died, and apparently my grandma had had her brother Harold take it from there.
What I find interesting is two-fold; perhaps you don't tell a child about uncles like El, but I never heard about him until I was far into adulthood, and I wonder how it is he never came up before. The other thing is that with my mom's cousin remembering that my grandma got the call when El died, it suggests that my grandma had retained a relationship with El after he left.
If your paramour dies and his family is far away, and you need to call them but don't know them, back then you'd have used an operator to find people in town with your honey's last name and hope one was related, or you'd have tried to remember his brother's first name. Still, El's lady called my grandma, who was no longer a Helfrich since she'd married, and thus less easy to find. That certainly suggests that El's poor startled companion must have known my grandma or her name on some level. Whether she actually had spoken earlier with my grandma or just picked my grandma's name off an envelope of a sent letter, clearly grandma and El had stayed in touch. Sad as the story is, I am glad to think El still had family who cared, and I'm proud of my grandma for not having cut him out of her life despite his purported problems and having moved far away.
Why did he go to Reno after a lifetime in Pennsylvania? Maybe because it was the then-capital of gambling and a happening town.
This memorial needs updating but for now I'll add this: in 2018, I located the family descendants who owned the boarding house where El lived and ultimately died. They kindly put me in touch with the owners' still living daughter. In El's final years there, the boarding home was conducted by a widow of a Basque family. Through her daughter, I learned that the widow had been the person who found El. He'd not responded when she'd knocked the previous day to do the daily cleaning and linen change, so the following day, again getting no response, she let herself in. This lady was understandably shocked, and she shared this story with the daughter who I spoke with. This daughter remembered her mom's great surprise at finding El. I too experienced great surprise; after so many years of El's later life and passing being murky, I was speaking with a person whose mother was present, and it all finally came into sharp focus and lent closure.
I learned a lot about this lovely family that ran the house, the father who was a noted baker and his hardworking charming wife, and their daughters. Somehow it felt very good to know El was in a good place and in good hands, and to know how his story played out. I fail to understand how it is that I can miss people I never knew, but I do, and am glad to be able to end his tale with greater clarity.
The info about his public life is low key: he made the newspapers in 1921-1922 for activities with his Bible class at Trinity Reformed in Allentown, where he also served as vice president. He and his brother Harold were ushers at the 1923 marriages of their sisters Grace and Melva. In 1921 to 1923, he had some position of responsibility with the Allentown Fair that made his name appear in a list of other such people. In late 1939, he and his siblings were mentioned in the probate of their father's estate. In 1942, his name appeared among a list of drafted Eastonians who were taking a 2 week furlough before reporting for duty. November of 1955, he's on the list of Nevadans for whom a forwarding address is required for sending a tax refund. After that, newspapers across the country don't mention him until his brother had his ashes shipped home for burial.
El doesn't leave a trail of much substance. He may be seen with his parents and siblings on the 1910 census in McAdoo, age 9. In 1920 he is 18 and at home with his parents in Allentown, the city to which his family had moved. At the time of this census he was an assembler of motors. His mother would die that year in October, and his father married once more in 1924. By 1930 El is down in Philadelphia, living with his mother's sister, his aunt Della (nee Schollenberger) Woertz (who had also hosted his sister, my grandma Melva for some time after their mom died). Ellsworth is on the 1940 census where he is a single man living as a lodger in Easton, PA, working as a salesman of wholesale candy. Following that, his draft card tells us that in 1942, he was 5'5", grey eyed and bald, with a light complexion, presently unemployed. His request for WWII compensation tells us he served September 1942 to January 1943 with no overseas service.
"Uncle El" was something of a mystery to my living family. He was suspected to have had issues with alcohol and gambling. He left Pennsylvania and went out west and was purportedly working as a cook when he died. No one alive seemed sure where he was; the consensus seemed to be Las Vegas, or maybe Reno. These cities are between 400 and 500 miles from each other, so this memory sheds no light on the county of El's passing which would have been Clark or Washoe respectively. I did find a 1955 newspaper mention of a tax refund being due to a man in Reno with his name. His obituary appeared in the Allentown Morning Call on February 3, 1964.
His brother Harold had Ellsworth cremated in Nevada, and the ashes sent back home for burial. Ellsworth shares a plot with his baby brother Claud. It's a strange sharing. You have a child less than a year old whose burial place was moved when his family relocated, sharing space with his wandering, worldly big brother. One innocent, one not, both well-traveled in their way.
To the best of anyone's knowledge, Ellsworth never married and had no children. There is a vague recollection from one of my mother's cousins that my grandma (Ellsworth's sister Melva) got a call from El's female companion at the time to tell her that El had died, and apparently my grandma had had her brother Harold take it from there.
What I find interesting is two-fold; perhaps you don't tell a child about uncles like El, but I never heard about him until I was far into adulthood, and I wonder how it is he never came up before. The other thing is that with my mom's cousin remembering that my grandma got the call when El died, it suggests that my grandma had retained a relationship with El after he left.
If your paramour dies and his family is far away, and you need to call them but don't know them, back then you'd have used an operator to find people in town with your honey's last name and hope one was related, or you'd have tried to remember his brother's first name. Still, El's lady called my grandma, who was no longer a Helfrich since she'd married, and thus less easy to find. That certainly suggests that El's poor startled companion must have known my grandma or her name on some level. Whether she actually had spoken earlier with my grandma or just picked my grandma's name off an envelope of a sent letter, clearly grandma and El had stayed in touch. Sad as the story is, I am glad to think El still had family who cared, and I'm proud of my grandma for not having cut him out of her life despite his purported problems and having moved far away.
Why did he go to Reno after a lifetime in Pennsylvania? Maybe because it was the then-capital of gambling and a happening town.
This memorial needs updating but for now I'll add this: in 2018, I located the family descendants who owned the boarding house where El lived and ultimately died. They kindly put me in touch with the owners' still living daughter. In El's final years there, the boarding home was conducted by a widow of a Basque family. Through her daughter, I learned that the widow had been the person who found El. He'd not responded when she'd knocked the previous day to do the daily cleaning and linen change, so the following day, again getting no response, she let herself in. This lady was understandably shocked, and she shared this story with the daughter who I spoke with. This daughter remembered her mom's great surprise at finding El. I too experienced great surprise; after so many years of El's later life and passing being murky, I was speaking with a person whose mother was present, and it all finally came into sharp focus and lent closure.
I learned a lot about this lovely family that ran the house, the father who was a noted baker and his hardworking charming wife, and their daughters. Somehow it felt very good to know El was in a good place and in good hands, and to know how his story played out. I fail to understand how it is that I can miss people I never knew, but I do, and am glad to be able to end his tale with greater clarity.
His name was William but he was called "El", an abbreviated version of his middle name, Ellsworth. Ellsworth Helfrich was the first son of William and Cora Ellen Helfrich, and brother to my grandma, Melva, and his sister Grace, and brother Harold (aka Hans). He also had a little brother, Claud, who died at 10 months old.
The info about his public life is low key: he made the newspapers in 1921-1922 for activities with his Bible class at Trinity Reformed in Allentown, where he also served as vice president. He and his brother Harold were ushers at the 1923 marriages of their sisters Grace and Melva. In 1921 to 1923, he had some position of responsibility with the Allentown Fair that made his name appear in a list of other such people. In late 1939, he and his siblings were mentioned in the probate of their father's estate. In 1942, his name appeared among a list of drafted Eastonians who were taking a 2 week furlough before reporting for duty. November of 1955, he's on the list of Nevadans for whom a forwarding address is required for sending a tax refund. After that, newspapers across the country don't mention him until his brother had his ashes shipped home for burial.
El doesn't leave a trail of much substance. He may be seen with his parents and siblings on the 1910 census in McAdoo, age 9. In 1920 he is 18 and at home with his parents in Allentown, the city to which his family had moved. At the time of this census he was an assembler of motors. His mother would die that year in October, and his father married once more in 1924. By 1930 El is down in Philadelphia, living with his mother's sister, his aunt Della (nee Schollenberger) Woertz (who had also hosted his sister, my grandma Melva for some time after their mom died). Ellsworth is on the 1940 census where he is a single man living as a lodger in Easton, PA, working as a salesman of wholesale candy. Following that, his draft card tells us that in 1942, he was 5'5", grey eyed and bald, with a light complexion, presently unemployed. His request for WWII compensation tells us he served September 1942 to January 1943 with no overseas service.
"Uncle El" was something of a mystery to my living family. He was suspected to have had issues with alcohol and gambling. He left Pennsylvania and went out west and was purportedly working as a cook when he died. No one alive seemed sure where he was; the consensus seemed to be Las Vegas, or maybe Reno. These cities are between 400 and 500 miles from each other, so this memory sheds no light on the county of El's passing which would have been Clark or Washoe respectively. I did find a 1955 newspaper mention of a tax refund being due to a man in Reno with his name. His obituary appeared in the Allentown Morning Call on February 3, 1964.
His brother Harold had Ellsworth cremated in Nevada, and the ashes sent back home for burial. Ellsworth shares a plot with his baby brother Claud. It's a strange sharing. You have a child less than a year old whose burial place was moved when his family relocated, sharing space with his wandering, worldly big brother. One innocent, one not, both well-traveled in their way.
To the best of anyone's knowledge, Ellsworth never married and had no children. There is a vague recollection from one of my mother's cousins that my grandma (Ellsworth's sister Melva) got a call from El's female companion at the time to tell her that El had died, and apparently my grandma had had her brother Harold take it from there.
What I find interesting is two-fold; perhaps you don't tell a child about uncles like El, but I never heard about him until I was far into adulthood, and I wonder how it is he never came up before. The other thing is that with my mom's cousin remembering that my grandma got the call when El died, it suggests that my grandma had retained a relationship with El after he left.
If your paramour dies and his family is far away, and you need to call them but don't know them, back then you'd have used an operator to find people in town with your honey's last name and hope one was related, or you'd have tried to remember his brother's first name. Still, El's lady called my grandma, who was no longer a Helfrich since she'd married, and thus less easy to find. That certainly suggests that El's poor startled companion must have known my grandma or her name on some level. Whether she actually had spoken earlier with my grandma or just picked my grandma's name off an envelope of a sent letter, clearly grandma and El had stayed in touch. Sad as the story is, I am glad to think El still had family who cared, and I'm proud of my grandma for not having cut him out of her life despite his purported problems and having moved far away.
Why did he go to Reno after a lifetime in Pennsylvania? Maybe because it was the then-capital of gambling and a happening town.
This memorial needs updating but for now I'll add this: in 2018, I located the family descendants who owned the boarding house where El lived and ultimately died. They kindly put me in touch with the owners' still living daughter. In El's final years there, the boarding home was conducted by a widow of a Basque family. Through her daughter, I learned that the widow had been the person who found El. He'd not responded when she'd knocked the previous day to do the daily cleaning and linen change, so the following day, again getting no response, she let herself in. This lady was understandably shocked, and she shared this story with the daughter who I spoke with. This daughter remembered her mom's great surprise at finding El. I too experienced great surprise; after so many years of El's later life and passing being murky, I was speaking with a person whose mother was present, and it all finally came into sharp focus and lent closure.
I learned a lot about this lovely family that ran the house, the father who was a noted baker and his hardworking charming wife, and their daughters. Somehow it felt very good to know El was in a good place and in good hands, and to know how his story played out. I fail to understand how it is that I can miss people I never knew, but I do, and am glad to be able to end his tale with greater clarity.
The info about his public life is low key: he made the newspapers in 1921-1922 for activities with his Bible class at Trinity Reformed in Allentown, where he also served as vice president. He and his brother Harold were ushers at the 1923 marriages of their sisters Grace and Melva. In 1921 to 1923, he had some position of responsibility with the Allentown Fair that made his name appear in a list of other such people. In late 1939, he and his siblings were mentioned in the probate of their father's estate. In 1942, his name appeared among a list of drafted Eastonians who were taking a 2 week furlough before reporting for duty. November of 1955, he's on the list of Nevadans for whom a forwarding address is required for sending a tax refund. After that, newspapers across the country don't mention him until his brother had his ashes shipped home for burial.
El doesn't leave a trail of much substance. He may be seen with his parents and siblings on the 1910 census in McAdoo, age 9. In 1920 he is 18 and at home with his parents in Allentown, the city to which his family had moved. At the time of this census he was an assembler of motors. His mother would die that year in October, and his father married once more in 1924. By 1930 El is down in Philadelphia, living with his mother's sister, his aunt Della (nee Schollenberger) Woertz (who had also hosted his sister, my grandma Melva for some time after their mom died). Ellsworth is on the 1940 census where he is a single man living as a lodger in Easton, PA, working as a salesman of wholesale candy. Following that, his draft card tells us that in 1942, he was 5'5", grey eyed and bald, with a light complexion, presently unemployed. His request for WWII compensation tells us he served September 1942 to January 1943 with no overseas service.
"Uncle El" was something of a mystery to my living family. He was suspected to have had issues with alcohol and gambling. He left Pennsylvania and went out west and was purportedly working as a cook when he died. No one alive seemed sure where he was; the consensus seemed to be Las Vegas, or maybe Reno. These cities are between 400 and 500 miles from each other, so this memory sheds no light on the county of El's passing which would have been Clark or Washoe respectively. I did find a 1955 newspaper mention of a tax refund being due to a man in Reno with his name. His obituary appeared in the Allentown Morning Call on February 3, 1964.
His brother Harold had Ellsworth cremated in Nevada, and the ashes sent back home for burial. Ellsworth shares a plot with his baby brother Claud. It's a strange sharing. You have a child less than a year old whose burial place was moved when his family relocated, sharing space with his wandering, worldly big brother. One innocent, one not, both well-traveled in their way.
To the best of anyone's knowledge, Ellsworth never married and had no children. There is a vague recollection from one of my mother's cousins that my grandma (Ellsworth's sister Melva) got a call from El's female companion at the time to tell her that El had died, and apparently my grandma had had her brother Harold take it from there.
What I find interesting is two-fold; perhaps you don't tell a child about uncles like El, but I never heard about him until I was far into adulthood, and I wonder how it is he never came up before. The other thing is that with my mom's cousin remembering that my grandma got the call when El died, it suggests that my grandma had retained a relationship with El after he left.
If your paramour dies and his family is far away, and you need to call them but don't know them, back then you'd have used an operator to find people in town with your honey's last name and hope one was related, or you'd have tried to remember his brother's first name. Still, El's lady called my grandma, who was no longer a Helfrich since she'd married, and thus less easy to find. That certainly suggests that El's poor startled companion must have known my grandma or her name on some level. Whether she actually had spoken earlier with my grandma or just picked my grandma's name off an envelope of a sent letter, clearly grandma and El had stayed in touch. Sad as the story is, I am glad to think El still had family who cared, and I'm proud of my grandma for not having cut him out of her life despite his purported problems and having moved far away.
Why did he go to Reno after a lifetime in Pennsylvania? Maybe because it was the then-capital of gambling and a happening town.
This memorial needs updating but for now I'll add this: in 2018, I located the family descendants who owned the boarding house where El lived and ultimately died. They kindly put me in touch with the owners' still living daughter. In El's final years there, the boarding home was conducted by a widow of a Basque family. Through her daughter, I learned that the widow had been the person who found El. He'd not responded when she'd knocked the previous day to do the daily cleaning and linen change, so the following day, again getting no response, she let herself in. This lady was understandably shocked, and she shared this story with the daughter who I spoke with. This daughter remembered her mom's great surprise at finding El. I too experienced great surprise; after so many years of El's later life and passing being murky, I was speaking with a person whose mother was present, and it all finally came into sharp focus and lent closure.
I learned a lot about this lovely family that ran the house, the father who was a noted baker and his hardworking charming wife, and their daughters. Somehow it felt very good to know El was in a good place and in good hands, and to know how his story played out. I fail to understand how it is that I can miss people I never knew, but I do, and am glad to be able to end his tale with greater clarity.
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