Bio: Helbling, Rollin & Dolores McCarthy

Contact: History Buffs

 

Surnames: Gordon, Helbling, Makerheide, McCarth, McCarthy, Melbinger, Musolf, Shelly

 

----Source: Autobiography by Dolores McCarthy

 

Rollin & Dolores (McCarthy) Helbling

Contributed by Lani Bartelt

 

Rollin & Dolores Helbling

 

My mother Dolores McCarthy Helbling wrote this autobiography when she was about about fourteen years old. It must have been for a class project as Very Good is written in red pencil in the right hand upper corner. The reference to "I would have rather gone to a Catholic Hospital." just shows how very Catholic her family was, and still is to this day.  The Grandparents she refers to "living with" when her family first moved to Milwaukee are Benjamin and Edith (Melbinger) McCarthy. The "loco" she refers to in her eye operation and the misspelling of the word anesthetic as "antesteptic" are not typos; but rather, the way she spelled them as are other misspellings.

 

My Autobiography

By Dolores McCarthy

On the thirtieth day of May in the year nineteen-hundred and twenty-five in Brighton, Wisconsin Mrs. Emmet McCarthy gave birth to a seven pound daughter. She was the second child in the family, Gerald, two years old being the first. This child incidentally was I. I was named Dolores Edna.

When I was three weeks old I was baptized by Reverand Father Makerheide in St Bernard's Catholic Church in Thorp, Wisconsin.

We moved to Rib Lake, Wisconsin when I was in my first year and one day I crawled through a hole in the screen door and fell off a two foot step and broke my left arm. The doctor who set my arm set it crooked. I think it still crooked. While I still had my arm in the sling I broke out with measles.

At three years I had whooping cough. It was this age when my sister Audrey was born on January 17,1928.

At the age of four I started Kindergarten. At this age my eyes grew crooked as a result of measles as the doctor said. I have worn glasses since I was four years old.

We moved to Unity, Wisconsin where I started first grade at the age of five. At the end of the school year they wouldn't pass me. They said I was too young to pass into second grade. So I passed into the second grade at the age of seven. Again I stop to say that it was here my sister Mildred was born on September1, 1932.

Then at the age of seven we moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin on March 6, 1933. We stayed with my Grandparents until May 30 on my birthday. We then moved to our present place of residence. I was then registered at Holy Rosary School from which I graduated recently. It was then my brother Emmet Jr. was born on February 18,1937.

This year I made an appointment with Doctor John Gordon, an eye specialist to have an operation on my left eye. He said the right eye would correct itself. On July 9,1939 one Thursday night I went to Columbia Hospital. I would of loved to have gone to a Catholic Hospital but he wasn't working at any. On the following Friday morning at eight o'clock I was operated on with loco as the antesteptic and for two weeks I wore a bandage on my eye.  I only had to stay in the hospital two days. After the bandage was taken off I had to exercise my eye by putting a black patch over my right eye and using my left eye. Now my eyes are pretty straight and by exercising my eye I hope to improve in my eyes greatly. I have an appointment with Doctor after the thirtieth of November. I start Riverside High School at the beginning of this year taking up the Science Course. I passed every subject the first "mark day".

Family Album

 

 


1

Gerald & Linda McCarthy

2

Gordon & Audrey (McCarthy) Musolf

3

Frank & Milly (McCarth) Starich

4

Emmet & Olive (Shelly) McCarthy

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© Every submission is protected by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998.

 

Show your appreciation of this freely provided information by not copying it to any other site without our permission.

 

Become a Clark County History Buff

 

Report Broken Links

A site created and maintained by the Clark County History Buffs
and supported by your generous donations.

 

Webmasters: Leon Konieczny, Tanya Paschke,

Janet & Stan Schwarze, James W. Sternitzky,

Crystal Wendt & Al Wessel

 

CLARK CO. WI HISTORY HOME PAGE