Helen Claudia Bucher

Helen Claudia Bucher, daughter of Claude Earl Bucher and Ethel Wales, was born 15 March 1916 in McConnell, Stephenson County, IL. She came into the world five and a half months after her father. Claude Bucher, a doctor, died in an automobile accident while making a house call. Prior to that tragedy, the Buchers had been living in Williamsville, Sangamon County, IL near Springfield, where Claude had only recently established his medical practice. Shortly after his death, while Helen was still in the womb, Ethel brought herself and her offspring back to the haven of her parents, Adam and Harriett Wales, who lived on a rented farm outside of Winslow, Stephenson County, IL. Confronted with the need to accommodate a larger household, Adam Wales built a new home near there in Waddams Township near the village of McConnell. This was the home that Helen would know for her early childhood. In addition to her mother and her grandparents, she shared it with her three older siblings, Earl, Ray, and Mary Bucher and for at least part of that time, her uncles Melvin and Edwin Wales.

When Helen was about to turn ten years of age, her grandmother Harriett Diveley Wales passed away. Given that Adam Wales was in his mid-sixties and ready to be relieved of the burden of caring for a farm, Ethel stepped up and took charge, moving herself, her kids, her brother Melvin, and her newly widowed dad to Freeport, the “big town” of Stephenson County, where she went to work packing spices and medicated powders for W.T. Rawleigh Company, a large household-goods, exotic-foods, and pharmaceuticals firm whose main factory was in Freeport. Ethel never remarried. She would be a fixture in Freeport until her death fifty years later.

In the early 1930s, Helen’s brothers both headed off to universities. Both would ultimately become medical doctors. Helen meanwhile entered Freeport High School. (Shown at upper left is Helen’s senior yearbook photo.) Another pupil in one of her math classes was Kenneth Martin Brobst, son of Daniel Isaac Brobst and Mattie Frankenburger, born 18 December 1915 in Orangeville, Stephenson County, IL. His family lived east of Orangeville along Brobst Road near Rock Grove. This was a somewhat remote rural part of northeastern Stephenson County and the trip into Freeport was logistically challenging to manage each and every school day, so Kenneth was boarding with his Freeport-based first cousin, Marie Kramer Rinehart and her husand Lyle Denney Rinehart. Helen and Kenneth were part of the same greater genealogical sphere. Lyle Rinehart’s great uncle Isaac Rinehart was married to Mary Jane Frame, a niece of Helen’s great-grandmother Hannah Strader Martin. However, Helen and Kenneth were probably oblivious to this distant connection (which is only one of those that could be mentioned). What mattered to them is they were a young man and young woman of the same age who got along well. Helen gave Kenneth math tips. Kenneth was gifted in math and was impressed by someone who knew it better than he.

Though it was this high-school connection that triggered Helen and Kenneth’s relationship, they took their time allowing their romance to culminate. First Kenneth took care of college and getting a job. With his degree in chemistry in hand, he went to work for A.E. Staley in Decatur, Macon County, IL, a firm specializing in corn processing for such products as high fructose corn syrup, ethanol, and starch for dry-cleaning and for paper products, etc. Kenneth would remain with this same employer for a full career of forty-four years. Once he knew he would be hired, marriage was on the table. He and Helen wed one another 14 November 1937 in Washburn, Wolford County, IL.

Helen did not attend college. After high school, she worked for Burgess Battery in Freeport, first in the pilot plant where they assembled batteries and then as a secretary in the office. She put in a total of three-and-a-half years until she became Kenneth’s wife. At that point she became a homemaker. A couple of years into the marriage she gave birth to a son. The couple had only one more child, a daughter born some fifteen years later when Helen was in her late thirties. Given the long gap between births, Helen was able to be a highly-involved parent, from her son’s elementary school activities and then helping with his fraternity-house functions after he had left home. Later she was a room mother at her daughter’s school. Her pastimes included sewing and gardening. She was known for her outstanding flower beds. She and Kenneth were both active members of Central Christian Church, which they joined soon after moving to Decatur.

Kenneth enjoyed a distinguished career. He became the head of the Analytical Chemistry Laboratory at A.E. Stanley and was a member of the American Oil Chemist Society and American Chemistry Society. He was able to enjoy a period of retirement, but it was not as long as would have been ideal. Kenneth perished at only seventy-three, his death taking place 21 December 1988 in Decatur. Helen went on to endure a lengthy widowhood. Most of it was spent in Decatur.

Like her mother, Helen survived to an impressive age, enjoying good health until she was well over ninety-five years of age. She finally passed away 25 January 2012 only seven weeks shy of her ninety-sixth birthday. The graves of Helen and Kenneth are at Decatur’s Graceland Cemetery.

Helen was one of the small handful of great-grandchildren of Nathaniel Martin and Hannah Strader who were still alive when this website was created, and was able to personally supply some of the information used in this biography.

In the late 1970s all but one of the surviving grandchildren of Elwood Bucher and Mary Lincoln “Tinty” Martin got together one day and this photo was taken of the generational group. The one missing surviving grandchild was Glenn Charles Ames, who was then living in California. Shown left to right are Dwight Cecil Buss, Phyllis Irene Claus Scott, Mary Alice Bucher Maynard, Thelma Eileen Ritter Welch, Evelyn Lois Claus Stoner, Estel Maynard Buss, and Helen Claudia Bucher Brobst.

Descendants of Helen Claudia Bucher and Kenneth Martin Brobst

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