Hello everyone! I hope you are well. As promised, today is the biography about Felix Nelles, my father's paternal grandfather. He was one of the great-grandparents I did not know. I hope you enjoy!
Felix was born on 20 June 1906
in Quincy, Grant, Washington. His
parents were Matt and Beata (Hoffman) Nelles.
Felix was the second of six children and the only one born in the state
of Washington. Early on the family
seemed to move quite a bit: Felix’s
sister was born in Minnesota in 1905, Felix in Washington in 1906, sister
Melitta was born in Minnesota in 1908, in 1910 they were enumerated in the
United States census in Washington, in 1912 back to Minnesota where brother
Clarence was born. In 1919, the family
went to Texas but did not stay long. The
land they invested in was worthless, Beata could not adjust to the climate, and
it is possible that Felix had a brush with rheumatic fever. Finally when the 1920s came around, they
settled in Wisconsin and stayed there.
One more brother, Max, was born in Wisconsin in 1923.
On 10 May 1927 Felix married
Esther Michels who was the daughter of Nickolaus and Tillie (Michaelis)
Michels. They were married at Corpus
Christi Catholic church in the town where they both resided. The 1930 United States Census for Lincoln
Township, Wood, Wisconsin, shows the family quickly growing. Felix and Esther are joined by sons Harold
and Dwaine. Also living close by are
Esther’s parents and grandparents. Felix
and Esther are renting their home for $12.
He is working as a blacksmith. The home that they rented was an apartment
above the blacksmith shop where Felix worked.
The owner of the shop was Esther’s father, Nick.
The 1930s kept Felix and Esther
busy as three more children joined the family:
Edward (my grandfather) in 1931, June in 1933, and Ethel in 1935. Felix became known as one of the best
mechanics in the area – he could diagnose the problem a car was having just by
listening to it drive up the road. Unfortunately,
he also suffered from a heart ailment possibly brought on by his brush with
rheumatic fever. My grandfather said
they called it a leaking heart back that.
He would easily get tired and have to rest often.
Tragedy struck the family when
in 1939 Dwaine got an ear infection which quickly turned into mastoiditis. Before antibiotics became more common in
1942, this was one of the leading causes of death in children. Unfortunately for Felix and Esther, it
claimed their son in January of 1940 shortly after his tenth birthday. The 1940 US Census finds the family still in
Lincoln Township. Felix is now listed as
a trucker for an ice and fuel yard.
Under the employment section he does state that for a time in the last
year he was unable to work presumably due to health issues. Children Ethel and Edward remember their
father being sick quite often and hospitalized.
If work required him to go up and down stairs, he would get winded fast
and have to take time off. According to
Edward, Felix also had to make regular trips to Milwaukee via bus to the draft
board. They would not take his doctor’s
word that he had a heart ailment, so would have to go for a physical every
thirty days in order to not get drafted into World War II.
On 3 December 1943, Felix was
admitted to the hospital. Edward
remembered him getting pneumonia from having to walk to a doctor’s appointment
in the rain. Apparently construction was
being done on the road and he was not able to drive on it. I do not know if this is what led to his
hospitalization or if this was earlier on.
Felix passed away on 13 December 1943 in Marshfield, Wood, Wisconsin, at
age 37. He was survived by his wife and
five children: Harold, Edward, June,
Ethel, and newest addition, Jerry who was only eleven months when his dad
passed. Felix is buried in Bakerville,
Wood, Wisconsin, at the Corpus Christi Catholic cemetery.
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