Elmer

ELMER

My brother Elmer has never married. We think that when he was in England he fell in love with an English girl and when it didn't work out he never got over it. In the army he was a specialist working on bomb sights. He had a very good brain in things like that. After the war he went to work as a carpenter for the contractor Pa was superintendent for. He never liked carpenter work. He tried it on his own as a contractor building garages with Frank Dournour. They also did some remodeling. I worked for him and Frank for a time. Frank grew up in our neighborhood on West 116th Street. He was an alcoholic. One day I brought him a bottle of beer which he drank. We didn't see him for a week because that one beer started him on a binge.  After Frank and Elmer split up, Elmer went in business with our brother, Norbert.  They started building houses and were doing pretty well at it. I worked for them as a cabinet maker and finisher for a time. They were trying to dry out one newly plastered house with an oil fired salamander. They left it on all night but something went wrong and it started to smoke. It smoked all night and left a thick layer of black film on the walls and ceiling. We washed the walls down with water but all that moisture and soot made it very tough to put the finish woodwork on. They built one house in an area with a very high water table. When they dug the basement it filled with water so fast that they had to put the dirt back in and make a basement-less house.

Elmer and Norb bought a large piece of property with a farm house on it on a busy highway in Montrose, Ohio. Norb and Rose had adopted several children, because they couldn't have any of their own, and with Elmer moved into the farm house. This gave Elmer a taste of family life. They bought an old horse for the kids to ride and I think a few chickens. One of the boys, Donny, was about five or six and was Elmer's favorite. They built a Dairy Queen on the road frontage and had some one else run it because they were too busy with their contracting business. They sold the property later at a good profit and it has been resold recently for a million dollars.

After they sold the property Norb went to work for a construction company as a superintendent and Elmer bought a fishing resort on an island in the middle of a lake in northern Canada in the province of Manitoba. It was a fly in resort because as far north as it was there were very few roads. He went to work improving the resort by adding a restaurant and many amenities. After a time he took in a partner and it looked like they were going to start making some money. The lake was full of lunker northern pike and things looked fine for their resort business. As it turned out however there was an Indian women on the island who had a daughter she wanted to marry off to Elmer. Having her daughter marry a white man would be very good for her family because it would make them important in the Indian community. Elmer would have no part of this and when the Indian women saw it wasn't going to work she turned against Elmer and used her influence against him with the ones in a position to renew the island resort lease. The land couldn't be bought because it was in a provincial park. Elmer couldn't get his lease renewed so, at a great lose, he was forced to sell to his partner. His partner was able to get a lease renewal because the Indian woman wasn't mad at him. Ralph said that because they hadn't heard from Elmer for a long time every one of the family in Cleveland was afraid the Indians had killed him and dumped his body in the lake but during this time he was trying to salvage what he could from the deal. Of course, he lost a great deal of money before he was out of it.

He returned to Cleveland and worked at the carpenter trade. A few years later he bought an apartment building in the run down part of the west side of Cleveland where the colored and Porto Ricans were moving in. I looked at the place on one of our visits home and wasn't impressed with the apartment. Later the place burned down with no insurance coverage. He was able to sell the land at a good profit to a McDonald franchise holder. We saw Elmer at Bob's house when we were in Cleveland For John and Rose's 50th wedding anniversary. He was not well at all. He had a hard time breathing and had to carry an atomizer to help clear his lungs. He appeared to be suffering from emphysema and from the look of his face and his general appearance he is in need of proper care and medical attention.                                

Ralph said that when they were kids if there was anything new to try out they would say, "Lets try it out on Elmer." Elmer could take electrical shocks and I've seen him stick his wet finger into a light socket to see if it was live. One time Ralph and Howard were trying an experiment and grabbing Elmer from behind squeezed all the air out the air out of his lungs. Elmer was knocked unconscious. They thought they'd killed him and of course were pretty scared until they managed to bring him out of it none the worse for it. Pa thought a lot of Elmer and made him and Ralph joint executors of his will. A few days before Christmas l986 Ronnie got a call from her brother, John, to tell her Larry's sister died at the age of 92 years. I called Vi the next day to see if we could send flowers but it was too late because the funeral was that day. She told me the latest that was happening to Elmer. He was in the hospital for a hernia operation. He had a double hernia but they were only able to operate on one of the hernias. When he was ready to leave the hospital Elmer called Larry to get a ride home. Vi told me she got mad and called Ralph and ask him how come with all Elmer's brothers he had to call Larry to get a ride home from the hospital.

It wasn't long after Elmer got out of the hospital that he moved to the rest home. It's the kind of home were the patients have to be able to do for themselves. Elmer is in real bad shape when it comes to breathing because of his emphysema but he doesn't need complete nursing care.  He's better off were he is because at least he'll eat right.

June 28 1987 Elmer was found dead on the floor of his room by his landlady. He was 75. He seems to have lost the will to live. Ronnie and I flew back for the funeral.  The funeral arrangements were handled by Corrigan Funeral Homes and he was buried at St. Mary’s cemetery.  It is a sad fact of life but at a family funeral is one of the few times we see many of our relatives.  Our aunts Angela and Frances, who took care of us for two years after Ma died until Vi finished high school, were there and  Aunt Alma who was 95 at the time and still on her feet.  At the cemetery there was a problem because human bones were found when they dug the grave. There was no record of anyone being buried in that location. Elmer was left above ground until a decision was made as what to do about the bones.