Helbling Family (Click for Family Tree)
Actually, this mystery has been solved, even before it was published.
Here is what was written last week:
This image was shared by a cousin, but I do not have a record of who the man in the center might be. I checked my emails, because that is where I would have received the image, but many of the emails I exchanged with this cousin have disappeared from my mail service. (WHY??) It reinforces the fact that one needs to document well, and save to their hard drive, the cloud, or even such an archaic thing as paper. We can no longer expect these companies to keep things available to us forever, and WE are the losers if we do not ‘back-up’ information in a format that cannot be easily eliminated by a computer. And don’t forget to share– LOCKSS— Lots Of Copies Keep Stuff Safe.
Back to the photo- do you know this mystery man? He looks to be younger than Edgar, who would have been about 26 when this picture was taken; as a guess, perhaps our Mystery Man was born around 1915?
Edgar did the driving on some family trips to Illinois and other places. Note the car to his right- does that belong to the Helblings? Or to the Mystery Man?
It is hard to tell where the photo may have been taken- was it St. Louis and they were being visited, or were they off visiting somewhere? Checking the old Helbling photo albums to see if there is another picture of this young man or the background might give us more information.
Please do let us know if you can tell us the identity of our ‘Mystery Man!’
An email to what I thought might be an old, defunct address of the cousin actually worked! It has been a number of years since we corresponded, but she did answer the above questions. I still thought it might be helpful to list some of the thought process that one can go through in trying to identify a photo. Posting information about LOCKSS is important, I think, as well.
So back to our photo. Our dear cousin Mary Lou, who so generously shared her detailed research on the Helbling family (all done the hard way- before the internet!), explained that the man in the center was Robert Albert “Bob” Geier. He was the son of Laurelda Colette Helbling and her husband Bernard Adam Geier. Laurelda was the daughter of William Helbling, brother to our Francis Xavier Helbling (Jr.). So Bob’s mother and G.W. Helbling were first cousins. That makes their children, Bob Geier and Edgar Helbling, second cousins.
Mary Lou went on to explain that Bob drove across the country in 1935, so that is probably his car in the photo. He likely started in his hometown of Avalon, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania (near Pittsburgh), and one of his next stops was St. Louis to visit his Helbling cousins. Remember, the interstate highway system as we know it today was not built until Dwight D. Eisenhower was President, authorized in 1956 but not completed until 35 years later. So no four- or six-lane I-80 for Bob! He may have taken the Lincoln Highway west to the Chicago area and then south to St. Louis, or possibly just taken smaller roads that were more direct. (The Lincoln “Highway” was only two narrow lanes in some places back then, and just a dirt road in others, as paving was not completed until 1935. So there might not have been much difference in quality of the road back then between the two routes.) The St. Louis Helblings had travelled to Pittsburgh by car (as well as train), so they probably knew the best route.
From St. Louis Bob could have taken the famous Route 66 west to California.
What an adventure that trip must have been for a young man of 23!
Bob’s adventures continued, as he learned to fly small planes and started a flying school with his younger brother Bernard Geier. There was a story in a 1940 Pittsburgh newspaper about Bob’s plans to fly from Santa Ana, California, to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in a biplane that was 15 years old and only cost him $300. The story stated he was a superintendent at a fruit canning plant, but also held a commercial pilot’s license. He had been an aeronautical student at the University of Pittsburgh prior to his move to California.
Bob married and had children, and ran for Congress in Orange County, California.
Bob passed away 19 September 1990 in San Diego, California.
If you are a grandchild of G.W. Helbling, you are a second cousin once removed to Bob. It was nice to get to know one of our distant cousins!
Thanks, Mary Lou!
Notes, Sources, and References:
- Family treasure chest of photos.
- Robert Albert “Bob” Geier (1912-1990); Laurelda Colette Helbling (1888-1961); Bernard Adam Geier (1887-1961); William Helbling (1841-1896); Francis Xavier Helbling (1840-1919); Bernard Geier (1924-2007)
- Highways– https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_Highway_System, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Route_of_the_Lincoln_Highway
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