Luta Lee Helton
birth: 15 APR 1868 in Tuscola, Illinois to Absalom Peter Helton and Elizabeth V. Clark
death: 12 OCT 1954 at Mary Alley Hospital, Marblehead, Massachusetts
burial: Linwood Cemetery, Haverhill, Massachusetts
marriage: 14 Jun 1893 in Indiana
Mark Shrum
birth: 26 JAN 1869 in Shoals, Martin County, Indiana to Frederick Orlando Shrum and Martha R. Horsey
death: 12 OCT 1954 in Marblehead Massachusetts
burial: Linwood Cemetery, Haverhill, Massachusetts
Children of Luta Lee Helton and Mark Shrum:
- Merah Durham Shrum 1895 – 1972
- Jeanette Matthews Shrum 1897 – 1988
- Frederick Orlando Shrum 1902 – 1975
Ancestor here lived in:
- 1876 – Shelbyville, Indiana
- 1880 – 1897 Bloomington, Indiana
- 1900 Patoka, Gibson, Indiana
Locations where person lived outside of Indiana:
- 1902 – 1940 Lynn Massachusetts
- 1940 – 1954 Marblehead Massachusetts
Other Information: From the diary of her daughter, Jeanette Shrum. “My mother Luta Lee Helton was born in Peoria, Ill. Her grandfather was Andrew Helton, an Englishman who founded Heltonville, Ind. Her father was Absalom and her mother Elizabeth Clark. She had a brother who died young. Her Mother also died young and her father married again to Nannie Saunders.
Her father sent her to the fashionable St. Mary’s of the Woods because it was the only boarding school and I guess his new wife didn’t want her around. She spent her vacations with an aunt in Bloomington, Mrs. Seward, and an an aunt in Booneville, Mrs. Hatfield. Mother was happy at the convent & her father visited her often taking her chocolate candy which she was not allowed to have- She slit the lining of her skirt & put the candy there so the nuns wouldn’t discover it. The girls were all curious to know if the nuns had their heads shaved & my mother volunteered to find out. The nuns washed up in a cellar room & one day my mother hid in an ash barrell and found that the nuns did have shaved heads. She was especially fond of one nun who left the order and married. There were several Protestant girls and no attempt was made to convert them. They had leisure time while the others were learning the Catholic religions. They had no sports, not considered ladylike in those days but ever afternoon they could walk in the garden and a nun would bring a big tray with bread & mollasses – (considered good for them). We have a picture of Mother with her cousin Frank Hatfield that was reproduced 50 years later in the Bloomington paper and they happened to print it when she was there on a visit.”
Submitted by:
Jenny Hawran
Email: JHawran@comcast.net