----Source: Greenwood Library Scrapbook Collection, Marshfield News Herald 08/ /1956

Blecha, Elmira Emma (1913 - 1956)

GREENWOOD--Funeral services will be held here Thursday for Miss Elmira Emma Blecha, 42, Houston, Texas, a native resident of this area, who died at a hospital in Houston Friday night following a sudden illness.

The body will repose at the Stabnow Funeral Home from Wednesday noon until Thursday noon, when it will be taken to Zion Evangelical and Reformed Church, where rites will be conducted at 2 p.m. that day. The Rev. Charles Koch will officiate.

Interment will be made in the Greenwood Cemetery.

Miss Blecha was born in the Town of Eaton, Clark County, Nov. 13, 1913, graduating from Greenwood High School in 1931 and from Stevens Point State College in 1935. She received a master's degree from Wayne University, Detroit, Mich.

At the time of her death she was employed as an instructor of dietetics at a Veteran's Hospital in Houston. She previously engaged in research work at University Hospital, Ann Arbor, Mich., and worked in Lima, Ohio, for a time.

Her father, Frank Blecha, died here Dec. 26, 1918, and after the death of her mother, Bertha Vollrath Blecha, which occurred Oct. 6, 1925, she and her twin brothers, Lee and Lynn, made their home with an uncle and aunt, Mr. and Mrs. James Metcalf, Greenwood. Mrs. Metcalf is a sister of their mother. Le, who served with the Navy during World War II, was officially declared dead after being missing in action since Oct. 9, 1943.

Survivors include her brother and sister-in-law, Capt. And Mrs. Lynn Blecha, and two nieces, Carolyn and Barbara, all of Byron, Texas her foster parents three foster brothers, Leroy Metcalf, Greenwood, Dale Metcalf, Princeton, and Everett Metcalf, Brookings, S.D. and a foster sister, Mrs. Ben (Bertha) Dallman, Greenwood.