Tag: Bernard Adam Geier

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A Helbling-Geier Love Story

Laurelda Collette Helbling and Bernard Adam Geier- Wedding Portrait, 23 Nov 1910.

HELBLING Family (Click for Family Tree)

Before we post more “Unknown” photos from the Helbling-Geier Family Collection, there is a bittersweet story to tell of Laurelda Collette Helbling (1888-1961) and her husband, Bernard Adam Geier (1887-1961).

If you are a good genealogical sleuth, just reading the above paragraph might make you pause- did you notice that they passed away in the same year?

Of course, that would lead to more research…

The Geier Family: Standing, from left- Edwin “Eddie” B. Geier, Laurelda Collette Geier,  Robert “Bob” A. Geier, Lillian May Geier, Mary Agnes Geier. Sitting, from left- Bernard Aloyisus Geier, Laurelda “Collette” (Helbling) Geier, Bernard Adam Geier, and Elizabeth Otillie “Betty” Geier. Little Bernard was born in 1924 and Betty in 1927, so this family portrait may have been taken about 1929.

Bernard and Collette would have been married about 19 years when the above portrait was taken.

Here is the family on 8 June 1937- they would be coming up on their 27th anniversary that November.

8 June 1937- The Geier Family: Geier House, Birmingham and Florence Avenue, Avalon, PA. Standing: Edward/Edwin Geier, Mary Geier, Lillian May Geier, Laurelda Geier, Robert “Bob” Geier.  Bernard Geier, Jr, Bernard A. Geier, Collette (Helbling) Geier, Betty Geier, and Private (youngest girl).

On November 23rd, 1960, Colette and Bernard celebrated their 50th Wedding Anniversary.

What happened that next year can best be told by a close family member (slightly edited):

It was Good Friday, March 30, 1961.  Collette, Bernard’s wife, was with her daughter Betty shopping for Easter.  They had bought tulips that day.  Betty drove Collette home and told her mother to stay in the car while Betty went around to the front door of the house so she could come through the house and open the side door so her mother could come in that way.  While she was standing on the porch a car came up Birmingham Avenue and the head lights shined for a second on the garage.  Betty saw something laying beside the garage door.  She ran down to the garage and found Bernard laying just outside the door not breathing.  He had parked his car in the garage and came out and locked the door before having a massive heart attack.  Betty then ran to the house to call for an ambulance and get her mother into the house.  The ambulance took him to Bellevue Hospital but the doctor said he had died instantly.

Collette had been just 22 when they wed, Bernard 23. They had been married to each other for two-thirds of their life- they had been married to each other about twice as long as they had not been married to the other.

Our cousin continued:

Laurelda had at least 50 pen pals and after her husband died she wrote all of them and said she would not be around long because she couldn’t live without Bernard.  He took care of everything for her.  They had been married 50 years.  Her sister-in-law Annie stayed with her after Bernard passed away but then went back to her home.  A few days later Collette was found laying between her bed and the wall.  She had a cerebral hemorrage of the brain and was unconscious.  She was taken to Bellevue Hospital.  The doctor said they were going to put her in the psychiatric unit and she could not have visitors for two weeks.  Her daughter Betty told the doctor that her mother would not be alive in two weeks.

At the time Collette’s youngest daughter was in the same hospital and had just given birth to a daughter.  A nurse came into her daughter’s room and said some patient asked if you had a kangaroo or a hippopotamus.  Her daughter started crying and said “That is my mother.”  Collette never saw her youngest granddaughter.

Collette’s daughter Betty was with her when she passed away.  She had been asleep and when she awoke she said that it felt like angels were in the room and then her mother was gone.

Collette died just three weeks after her husband Bernard.  She was laid out at McDonald’s funeral home in Avalon [PA] and had the same solid oak casket as Bernard.

 

Notes, Sources, and References: 

  1. Family treasure chest of photos and memories. Thank you again, dear Mary Lou, for sharing!

 

Click to enlarge any image. Please contact us if you would like an image in higher resolution.

We would love to read your thoughts and comments about this post (see form below), and thank you for your time! All comments are moderated, however, due to the high intelligence and persistence of spammers/hackers who really should be putting their smarts to use for the public good instead of spamming our little blog.

Original content copyright 2013-2019 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.

Family history is meant to be shared, but the original content of this site may NOT be used for any commercial purposes unless explicit written permission is received from both the blog owner and author. Blogs or websites with ads and/or any income-generating components are included under “commercial purposes,” as are the large genealogy database websites. Sites that republish original HeritageRamblings.net content as their own are in violation of copyright as well, and use of full content is not permitted. 
Descendants and researchers MAY download images and posts to share with their families, and use the information on their family trees or in family history books with a small number of reprints. Please make sure to credit and cite the information properly, i.e, reference this blog.
 Please contact us if you have any questions about copyright or use of our blog material.

Do You Know These Helblings? (or Geiers? Or Stupys?)

Unknown photo from the Helbling-Geier Family Photo Collection

Helbling Family (click for family tree)

We will be posting some photos in this and upcoming posts of some unknown family. These unlabeled images have been passed down in the Helbling line, and we hope someone out there also has one of these photos, and may be able to identify the people in it.

Here is a little background:

The current owner of these pictures, which were found loose, is a descendant of Laurelda Collette (Helbling) Geier, who lived in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania area. Laurelda was born in 1888, and married Bernard Adam Geier (1887-1961) on 23 Nov 1910; they both died in 1961, only 22 days apart.

Laurelda was a first cousin to Gerard William “G. W.” Helbling (1882-1971), husband to Anna May (Beerbower) Helbling (1881-1954), our direct ancestor. We have pictures of G.W.’s son, Edgar B. Helbling (1908-1994), with Laurelda’s son, Robert “Bob” A. Geier (1912-1990); they were second cousins.

G.W.’s father was Francis X. Helbling (1840-1919) and Laurelda’s was William Helbling (1841-1896), both children of Franz Xavier Helbling (1800-1876) and Mary Theresa (Knipshield) Helbling (1810-1891). F.X. (Sr.) and Mary were our German immigrants to the US, probably about 1835.

On to the pictures:

Lawrence and Flora (Helbling) Hyle family

The first picture in this article is not labeled with names of the woman or child. We do know that the photo directly above is a portrait of Laurelda’s sister, Flora Agnes (Helbling) Hyle (1867-1920), her husband Lawrence M. Hyle (1864-1921), plus other family members. (The Hyle name has also been spelled “Heyl.”) Although this is not a great image, it could be two or three sisters, their husbands and children, and an older woman who could possibly be their mother. The family thinks that the woman on the far right of the photo looks like the woman in the picture above, and may be one of the women in the following picture:

Unknown portraits- possibly Helbling or Stupy Family, from the Helbling-Geier Family Photo Collection

Could the above picture possibly be 4 generations of the family?

If this portrait was taken in 1897, as the cutout from what was probably the original photo card suggests, the little girl in the lower left could possibly be Laurelda Collette Helbling, who would have been 9 years old that year.

This picture appears to be the same little girl:

Unknown photo from the Helbling-Geier Family Photo Collection

Here is another adorable little girl- could this be the same person, just younger?

Unknown photo from the Helbling-Geier Family Photo Collection

It is always good to compare unknown pictures with those that are labeled, so here is a picture that includes Laurelda:

Helbling Family. Rear, from left: Regis, Millie, Mae, Essie. Front: Eliabeth B (Stupy) Helbling-mother, Laurelda Collette, and Flora Helbling.

What do you think? Could these unknown pictures be of Laurelda Collette (Helbling) Geier?

 

The fact that so many pictures of the same people were lovingly saved over almost 120 years (or more!) suggests that these ‘unknowns’ are truly family members, in the direct line of the person who now holds the images. Not having their names on the picture was logical at the time- their contemporaries all knew who was who.

Please use our contact form to let us know if you have these same photos- even without names, knowing the chain of persons they have been passed down through may help to eliminate or even to identify persons.

With names, of course, would be even better…

 

Notes, Sources, and References: 

  1. See “Mystery Monday: Who is Visiting with the Helblings?” for more info about Bob Geier
    http://heritageramblings.net/2018/03/26/mystery-monday-who-is-visiting-with-the-helblings/
  2. Histed Studio- there is an 1897 image from a studio by this name but at a different address in Pittsburgh: https://historicpittsburgh.org/islandora/search/catch_all_fields_mt%3A%28histed%29?f%5B0%5D=RELS_EXT_isMemberOfCollection_uri_ms%3A%22info%5C%3Afedora%5C/pitt%3Acollection.236%22&islandora_solr_search_navigation=0
  3. A special thanks to cousin Mary Lou who has done phenomenal research on the Helbling family- in the days before the internet!- and who has been a wonderful steward of these family treasures.

 

Click to enlarge any image. Please contact us if you would like an image in higher resolution.

We would love to read your thoughts and comments about this post (see form below), and thank you for your time! All comments are moderated, however, due to the high intelligence and persistence of spammers/hackers who really should be putting their smarts to use for the public good instead of spamming our little blog.

Original content copyright 2013-2019 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.

Family history is meant to be shared, but the original content of this site may NOT be used for any commercial purposes unless explicit written permission is received from both the blog owner and author. Blogs or websites with ads and/or any income-generating components are included under “commercial purposes,” as are the large genealogy database websites. Sites that republish original HeritageRamblings.net content as their own are in violation of copyright as well, and use of full content is not permitted. 
Descendants and researchers MAY download images and posts to share with their families, and use the information on their family trees or in family history books with a small number of reprints. Please make sure to credit and cite the information properly, i.e, reference this blog.
 Please contact us if you have any questions about copyright or use of our blog material.

Mystery Monday: Who is Visiting with the Helblings?

1935- Helblings. Gerard William “G.W.” Helbling (1882-1971) on left, his son Edgar B. Helbling (1909-1994) on right. Man in center is now known to be a cousin, Robert A. “Bob” Geier.

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.

Route 66 Map via Wikipedia, By Fredddie – USA map(GIS data), roads (GIS data), maps to help locate the route in GIS data, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=12499286.

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.

1961 advertisement for Bob Geier, candidate for Congress in Orange County, California. Family image.

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: 

  1. Family treasure chest of photos.
  2. 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)
  3. Highways– https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_Highway_System, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Route_of_the_Lincoln_Highway

 

Click to enlarge any image. Please contact us if you would like an image in higher resolution.

We would love to read your thoughts and comments about this post (see form below), and thank you for your time! All comments are moderated, however, due to the high intelligence and persistence of spammers/hackers who really should be putting their smarts to use for the public good instead of spamming our little blog.
 

Original content copyright 2013-2017 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.

Family history is meant to be shared, but the original content of this site may NOT be used for any commercial purposes unless explicit written permission is received from both the blog owner and author. Blogs or websites with ads and/or any income-generating components are included under “commercial purposes,” as are the large genealogy database websites. Sites that republish original HeritageRamblings.net content as their own are in violation of copyright as well, and use of full content is not permitted. 
Descendants and researchers MAY download images and posts to share with their families, and use the information on their family trees or in family history books with a small number of reprints. Please make sure to credit and cite the information properly.
 Please contact us if you have any questions about copyright or use of our blog material.

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