Delbert

Delbert and Nellie Helle; as told by their son Dwight.

A most unlikely couple by most standards. She was emotional, self centered, the

spoiled only child of an alcoholic father and a Victorian mother. He was Stoic to a fault. I

watched him raise 8 kids and in all that time, the only time I saw him cry was at his daughter's

funeral. Never saw him hug a kid or say I love you.

He was a brilliant man, I cannot tell you how many times I have heard his brothers

admit that Delbert was the smartest of the clan. Most people either are artistic and musical or

pragmatic and good engineers. He was the only man I ever knew who could walk both sides

of the street. A gifted musician, raised orchids, grew tomatoes from seed, ran a greenhouse,

and yet designed machinery, wired battery chargers and generators, owned two patents, lead

the wood products industry in design and innovation. His kids seem to pick up on some of his

talents. As I was his last, I got the engineering side. I can't carry a note in a bushel basket

and I can't tell weeds from seeds in a flower garden. (I can repeat the quadratic equation from

memory and tell you what the tilt is on the earth's axis, however.)

Delbert learned the sawmill business from his dad who got an old mill from a fellow

that owed him a fee for some custom thresher work he did in the early 1920's. When he

married Nellie and began raising a family they needed a place to live. Well, Fred Hayes, his

father-in-law was one of the three surviving nephews of a fellow by the name of John Hayes of

Nashville, Tennessee. Old John was an engineer on the railroad and WSM wanted to show off

the new radio technology so they put a microphone on the side of the tracks. On Saturday

nite, during the Grand Ole Opry on radio, they would announce "Here comes John" and he

would blow the whistle on the train and you could hear it on the radio. (note to engineering

types: This was the first example of the Doppler Effect). Well, when old John passed away in

1941 he was quite wealthy and he left $3,000 to Fred and a like amount to his cousin. Fred

took that money and purchased 13 acres of land 2 miles east of Farmington, Illinois. It had a

barn and good fences and a typical frame house, and a well.

Delbert, Nelllie, Fred, and 6 kids moved in in August of 1941 when Phyllis was just a

newborn. They told a tale that they couldn't get a key to the place so Fred put his foot

through the door so that his daughter's baby would have a place to stay. Delbert soon built a

sawmill on the site to supply lumber for the war effort as WWII started a few months later

with the infamous bombing of Pearl Harbor. Delbert was 34 but spared from the war as he had

a business that was necessary for the war effort. During the war Nellie would give birth to two

more kids, for which this author is eternally grateful.

After the war the older boys, Gordon, Lawrence, and Maurice would help in the

sawmill and it prospered until the recessions of the fifties. By 1958 when the real recession hit,

the sawmill had suffered several fires and Delbert was developing another business that would

take him around the country hammering saws for other mills. Sort of a "blacksmith-like" trade

that was needed at the time.

Delbert was a great engineer but a lousy bookkeeper and he tended to trust other

people too much. Many times he made poor decisions because he felt that a handshake was a

man's bond. Less scrupulous people tended to take advantage of him. One such collection of

humanity's dredges took over the operation of his dry kiln and lumber yard in the fifties and

left him broke and with a sick daughter. When Phyllis eventually died of idiopathic

thrombosytic purpura on August 15th, 1960 he didn't have two nickels to rub together.

Brothers of his pitched in to fly his son Maurice back from Phoenix where he lived at the time.

At this time, Verle had finished high school and I was spending summers on Courtney's

farm and working for $1 per hour at Ehresman's Garage. 6 days a week, 10 hours a day, for

$60. (Taxes were $12, meals were $9, uniforms were $8, and I paid Joann and Larry $15 per

week plus working evenings and weekends for them. Didn't leave much.) Delbert lost all

interest in the sawmill and Gordon took it over for a few years until it burned in 1963. By then

Delbert had developed the log turner which he was selling while traveling to mills hammering

saws. After the fire, he had to make a living, so him and Gordon incorporated as Sawmill

Hydraulics, Inc. and I joined the Navy a year later.

Thru it all Nellie stood by his side. I really think that she didn't have much choice.

What with all those kids and old "Gramps" as we lovingly called him. He got to drinking a lot

and by the late 50's he had to be kept in what was called an "insane asylum." He suffered from

what we now know is Alzheimer's. He died in 1962. Nellie often said that his drinking cost

her a college education, but most of us could read a calendar and know that making babies was

more the issue here.

Nellie did have a love of the written word. She was a stickler for spelling and to this

day when I see a misspelled word, it jumps off the page at me. (As my three kids will testify)(ME TOO). She read her Bible and was a good Methodist. She went to church enough to keep her

membership in the lady's society in good shape. Dad went to funerals and weddings but

believed in God and had a healthy respect for all things natural. Mom was more into material

things. It is paradoxical that we were always poor in my memory but Mom had the best

sewing machine, best kitchen appliances, best TV, that money could buy. At one time she

even drove a Cadillac.

Thru it all, they never took a dime of welfare or government subsistence in any way.

Didn't believe in it. I remember once around 1958 or 59 when the mill was not running much

and we were about out of food. A man came to the door and asked if he could rent some

space to park an 18 wheeler. Dad asked him what he had in mind and he said $15 per month,

with 3 month in advance. Well, let me tell you, in the late 50's you could fill the back seat of a

47 Chrysler with $45 worth of groceries. And that is what we did.

Social life, such as it was in the post war years was the Saturday night barn dance at

Babylon Bend. Dad played the fiddle and Joann played the piano. That is where she met her

husband, Larry Courtney. She was all of 15 and he was 19. They fell in love and got married

a month before Joann was 16. They raised 4 kids on a farm in Fulton County. Dad always

said that the only thing that farm was good at raising was kids.

Gordon stayed with the sawmill business in its various forms until 1976 when he

created his own business making little wooden rubber band guns for kids. Lawrence dropped

out of high school to work in various sawmills. He retired after many years as a sawyer.

Maurice saw the light and got out of the wood products business, making a big splash in a new

business called television.

Adajune got a college education and married an engineer and lived happilly ever after in Ohio.

Verle stayed in the wood business and works with me in the sawmill manufacturing business. I joined the company after spending 4 grand and glorious years finding myself in the Navy from 64 to 68.

In the process I found a bride in a beautiful far away place called New Zealand. After returning stateside and mustering out I went back to college and got an engineering degree from Bradley after 7 years of night school.

Three kids and one granddaughter later I am writing this story on a word processor that was only dreamed of when I was a student. I often wonder what Delbert Helle could have accomplished

if he had had a computer. It fairly boggles the mind.

Dwight Helle

a poem sent in by by Dwight

Delbert and Nellie with their family

taken 1939-1942

Delbert Vernon Helle 15th gen

born March 1907

married 25 Jan 1932

died Aug 1990

Nellie Adelaide (Hayes) Helle

born Feb 1912

died April 1995