BIO: William HELPER, Clearfield County, PA Contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by Judy Banja & Sally Copyright 2005. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/clearfield/ NOTE: Use this web address to access other bios: http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/clearfield/1picts/swoope/swoope.htm _____________________________________________________________ From Twentieth Century History of Clearfield County, Pennsylvania, and Representative Citizens, by Roland D. Swoope, Jr., Chicago: Richmond-Arnold Publishing Company, 1911, pages 858 & 859. _____________________________________________________________ WILLIAM HELPER*, general farmer and manager of a tract of 194 acres, lying two and one-half miles west of Grampian, in Penn township, Clearfield county, Pa., was born in Penn township, March 11, 1870, and is a son of Charles and Annie (Sharp) Helper. Charles Helper, who now lives retired on a well improved little farm of twenty acres, at Grampian, Pa., was born May 30, 1844, in Madison county, N. Y. He is a son of E. and Augusta (Robby) Helper, the former of whom was born in France and the latter in Germany. Charles was the fourth born in their family of seven children. His father died in 1851 and his mother at about the same age and their burial was in Onondago county, N. Y. Charles Helper worked on a farm until the outbreak of the Civil war, when he entered the Union army, becoming a member of the 157th N. Y. Vol. Inf., which was organized and drilled at Hamilton, N. Y. At the battle of Gettysburg, Mr. Helper was wounded below the left knee and this injury became very dangerous on account of blood poisoning, for it must be remembered that at that time the best of surgeons knew little of the preventives in the way of antiseptics as they are in use at the present day. After much suffering he recovered and continued with his regiment until the close of the war, when he returned to Madison county, N. Y. In 1866 he came to Clearfield county, reaching Curwensville, in Pike township, early in March of that year and continued in Pike township for two years after his marriage. He then came to Penn township and for seventeen years rented the farm which now is the property of James D. Wall. Mr. Helper then purchased his present place and conducted a license hotel at Grampian until 1895, when his eyesight failed and at the present writing he is blind. In politics he is a Democrat. On May 3, 1866, Mr. Helper was married to Miss Annie Sharp, who was born April 24, 1839, at Bell Landing, a daughter of James and Jane (McCracken) Sharp, of Bell township, Clearfield county, Pa., and four children were born to them, namely: Norman, who died at the age of sixteen years; William; Dora, who is the wife of William Woods and is a school teacher at Grampian, resides at home and has three children - Vane A., Inez and Daisy; and Timothy Jerome, who resides at home. William Helper attended school at Pennsville, Pa., until he was fourteen years of age and then went to work in the lumber camps and although but a boy in years, did an amount of hard labor that would have been creditable in a man. Since his marriage, in 1897, Mr. Helper has been manager of the farm on which he lives and has it well cultivated, thirty acres of the place being yet in timber. He also operates a first class dairy and produces fifty pounds of fine butter a week. He is a quiet, industrious man, looking carefully after the interests of his business and family and is held in general esteem by the community. He votes the Republican ticket and is now serving as a member of the school board of Penn township. On June 30, 1897, Mr. Helper was married to Mrs. Lovenia (Norris) Wall, widow of Truman J. Wall and daughter of John Norris, Sr., of Pike township. Mrs. Helper was born in Pike township, November 28, 1856, and was married first, in Colorado, September 1, 1876 to Truman J. Wall who died January 29, 1891. Seven children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Wall, namely: Sarah, who was born in Colorado, married John Lienell and they live in Maine and have two children - Norris and Frank; Ord, who married Lois Spencer, a daughter of Irwin Spencer, is a clerk in the superintendent's office of the B. R. P. Railroad, at DuBois; Elizabeth, who is the wife of Leslie Merl, resides in Maine; Alice, who married Boyd Crissman, who carries on a blacksmith business at Curwensville, and they have one daughter, Mabel; Cecelia, who is the wife of Charles Stockridge, of Gary, Ind.; Truman J., who is a school teacher at Bell Run, Clearfield county; and Irwin Clark, who died at the age of one year and nine days. Mr. and Mrs. Helper have one daughter, Mildred, who now attends school. Mrs. Helper and her daughter are stockholders in the Curwensville National Bank.