Helene Barbara Schenck was born on April 1, 1896, so today would be her 130th birthday. Helene was the daughter of John and Barbara (Fassold) Schenck. A few other stories have already been written on this blog about some of Helene’s siblings. Helene was baptized at Immanuel Lutheran Church in Perryville. An image of her baptism record from that congregation’s books is displayed below.

Helene is the name on her baptism record, but most of her life, she went by the name, Helen, and that is what I will use. She is found in the 1900 census at the age of 4. Her father was an engineer in Perryville, Missouri.

Helen was confirmed in 1909 at Immanuel, Perryville. We see her in this list of confirmands for that year in the books of that church. You will see plenty of surnames on this list that have shown up on this blog before, including 4 different Bergmann’s.

Helen is not living with her parents when the 1910 census was taken. She was living in St. Louis in the Joseph Singer household and working as a servant at the very young age of 14. The Singer’s had 2 young children, so Helen may have also been helping take care of them in addition to other household chores.

I was unable to locate Helen in the 1920 census. I do know that she was not living with her parents in Perryville. My best guess is that she was living in St. Louis, but it is often difficult to locate someone in a census from a large city like that. So, the next census I am able to show for Helen is the one taken in 1930. She was 34 years old, and was once again living with her parents. However, her household includes several other people, which can be explained by the fact that her father is called the proprietor of a hotel. In addition, Helen’s brother-in-law, Harry Fritz, who had married her sister, Gertrude, was called a co-proprietor of that hotel. Helen was cooking at that place of business.

The story of Helen’s sister, Gertrude, was told in the post, Hotel Perry – A Family Business. As you can see in the title of that post, that hotel was called Hotel Perry. Below is a photo of that hotel, which was located on the town square in Perryville. The church behind the hotel is Immanuel Lutheran Church.

I think it may have been around this time that Helen had this photo taken. On Ancestry.com, it is captioned as Helen and Marie Schenck. Marie Schenck was the wife of Helen’s brother, Alfred Schenck. Since the caption is written that way, I figure that the woman on the left would be Helen.

Helen’s father died in 1937, so he is no longer the proprietor of Hotel Perry when the 1940 census was taken. In the entry that includes Helen for that year’s census, we see that her brother-in-law, Harry Fritz was the proprietor. Helen was called a waitress in the dining room of the hotel. You can also see Helen’s brother, Alfred, in this list, and he is called divorced. Alfred is called a common laborer doing sewer work. There is only one household on this census page, and that page is described at the top with the term, Hotel Perry.

Helen Schenck never married. At least, I found no evidence that she did. The above census entry does not only call Alfred divorced. It also has a “D” in the marriage status column for Helen. I think that is mistaken.

The last census we can view is the one taken in 1950. At the age of 54, Helen was a cook at a restaurant. This time, I am puzzled by the fact that the marriage status column says Helen was a widow. I do not think that was the case either.

Helen died in 1983 at the age of 87. The church records we can view from Immanuel, Perryville only go up to 1974, so we cannot view a death record for her. She also died too recently to view a Missouri death certificate. Helen Schenck is buried in the Immanuel Lutheran Cemetery in Perryville.

If Helen was a cook and waitress in the dining room of the Hotel Perry on the city square, and local folks could come in and dine there in addition to the hotel residents, then I have to think that Helen was a well-known person in Perryville. I know that I get to know the cooks and waitresses in the local eating establishments that I go to regularly here in East Perry County. And I know that my conversations with them go way beyond just talking about the food. Perryville is a rather small town as well, with local folks getting to know each other quite well. In Helen’s case, she likely also got to know other visitors from elsewhere who stayed at the hotel.