A Helbling-Geier Love Story
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…
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.
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:
- 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.
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