Norman Orville Helm

Written by Norman's third child, Joyce (Helm) Hastings-Loftis:

Daddy was a mountain of a man at 6'3" and I loved him even as a young kid but was also afraid of him because he gave really hard spankings. Since he died when I was only thirteen, many of my memories are "shaded" by what I've heard other people say. Daddy and his only brother, Herman, were very close. When they were young men, Daddy had the temper and even though Herman was the oldest, he could hold Daddy down but was afraid to let him get up. We laugh still about the story Uncle Herman told when he did let him up once, and Daddy threw a rock, smacking him right in the face leaving a permanent scar.

During the Great Depression, Daddy and Uncle Herman "rode the rails" (illegally facing railroad "bulls") to California looking for work. Not many stories were told about their time there but I expect they worked and played hard. Later they returned to Oklahoma. Daddy had a job as a Taxi driver in Wellington, KS when he met Mother. She was friends with Daddy's sister, Sybil and I expect they were pretty wild as well. They married in 1936-37, lived in Wellington for a time.

Daddy and his brother Herman as well as Grandpa Helm were all brick layers (masters of the skill). After their time on the farm in Keys, Oklahoma, with four kids in tow, they moved to Wichita where Daddy continued to work with his brother. He had to give up laying brick in the early 1950's and took a job as a city bus driver. I remember really enjoying riding the bus with him sometimes as his route went right by our house on Waco St. In around 1955-56, he bought two dump trucks, he drove one and hired a driver for the second one. It was undoubtedly hard economically for our family although I never remember going without anything we needed. He had numerous jobs that took him out of town for extended periods of time and it was one of these trips where he was so badly injured in the drunk-driver accident. My cousin, Marshall Davis, was driving when a drunk ran a stop sign and hit them at approximately 80 mph, broadside on the passenger side. Marshall nearly lost his leg and his life and Daddy died 6 months after the accident, never regaining consciousness.