Helen Elizabeth Rhodes Gruwell 1870-1956

GRUWELL, RHODES, STORY, BYERLY

Posted By: Merllene Andre Bendixen (email)
Date: 10/1/2013 at 22:53:25

Last Rites Tuesday for Mrs. Gruwell
Funeral services for Mrs. G.W. Gruwell who died at 12:30 p.m. Saturday [December 1, 1956] will be held at 2 p.m. tomorrow at Sandin-Fuhrman chapel. The Rev. Thomas G. Melton of First Presbyterian church will officiate.

Pallbearers for the service will be Merton Mason, Harold Clayton, Francis Fitzgibbons, Howard Heidke, Harry Bauman and Leo Fitzgibbons. Burial will be in Oak Hill cemetery.

Friends may call at Sandin-Fuhrman Funeral Home until time of services.

Mrs. Gruwell, the former Helen Elizabeth Rhodes, was the daughter of the late Thomas and Sarah Rhodes. She was born April 29, 1870 on a farm near Union Grove, Wis.

She attended country school in Wisconsin and Valparaiso College, Valparaiso, Ind., coming to Estherville in 1892 where she taught school west of Wallingford and at the Jackson school in Estherville. She also worked for her brother, F.H. Rhodes in the First Trust & Savings Bank in Estherville.

United in marriage to G.W. Gruwell in 1903, Mrs. Gruwell and her husband moved to Dunnell, Minn., where they remained until 1912 at which time they returned to Estherville.

Mrs. Gruwell was a member of First Presbyterian Church and an active worker in PWO and Circle as long as her health permitted. She also was a member of the P.E.O. sisterhood.

Mrs. Gruwell is survived by her son, Willis R. Gruwell of Dubuque and her daughter, Mrs. Glenn L. Story with whom she had made her home for the past six years here in Estherville; two brothers, Charles and Henry Rhodes, both of Burlington, Wis.

She was preceded in death by her husband in 1930, her parents, two sisters and five brothers, including F.H. and Will Rhodes and Mrs. F.I. Byerly, former Estherville residents. (Estherville Daily News, Estherville, IA, December 3, 1956)