Ralph Charles Lundberg was born on 3 Feb 1895, in Wausau, Wisconsin, to Friedericke "Ricka" Emilie Kufahl and Frans "Frank" Gustaf Emil Adamsson/Lundberg. He was the eldest of their four children and had one younger brother, Dell Frank and two younger sisters, Margaret Frances and Sylvia Emily. His father, an immigrant from Sweden, worked in a Wisconsin sawmill while his mother was a homemaker and raised their children. Settlers came to the Wisconsin area to work in the densely wooded northern and central parts of the state, with the industry dominated by Weyerhaeuser. However, by the turn of the century logging in Wisconsin began to decline forcing Ralph’s father to relocate
Ralph’s aptitude for a bigger life than that of a laborer was first recorded in The Virginia Enterprise 7 Jul 1911 when he was 16 years old. The announcement read: “Names of Pupils Who Passed the State High School Board Examinations with the Number of Certificates Received” There was Ralph’s name listed first with 10 certificates! The highest of any student who took the board examinations, with the next highest being an 8 and most receiving 5 or less.
June 1912 marked Ralph’s graduation from Roosevelt High School in Virginia, Minnesota. It was the largest graduating class yet with 27 seniors. Fourteen members of the graduating class were selected to take part in the closing exercises, which included speeches on one of two subjects. Ralph’s subject was “The Great Destroyer,” for which he presented his oration entitled “Abstinence and Efficiency.” (This was 8 years before prohibition.) He was also listed as excelling in his Latin Science Course and performing in the Senior Class Play.
By 1915 at the age of 20, Ralph was working with his father at The Virginia & Rainy Lake Company
sawmill as a tally man. Then on 13 Mar 1917 his father, Frank, died of a ruptured appendix at the age
of 52. With his brother, Dell, incarcerated in the Wisconsin State Reformatory (for reasons so far unknown) it was left to Ralph to care for his mother and 9-year-old sister, Sylvia. (His sister Margaret had died six years earlier of polio.) Life for Ralph had just taken an unexpected and challenging
turn. An then the following month the U.S. entered World War I.
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| 1st Army Artillery Park, Truck Co. C, France. Ralph is front row sixth from right. |
Ralph enlisted as a corporal with the 1st Army Artillery Park, Truck Company “C.” He was
deployed to Europe 29 Jun 1918 from New York on a French mail boat, the SS Chicago without a
convoy. Watching for submarines they arrived in Bordeaux, France 11 Jul 1918. There they met with Truck Companies A and B. From there they were ordered to a village called Neufchateau which
was 18 miles behind enemy lines where they remained until October when they were relocated to
a town called Recicourt. World War I ended 11 Nov 1918 and 18 days later they began their journey home. From Pauillac, France they embarked on the USS Canonicus for the return trip to New York 19 Apr 1919. They finally arrived home on 2 May 1919.
When Helen was 3 years old her mother, Jennie, died of complications of childbirth. Both her mother and the baby died. One year later her father, too, passed away from typhoid pneumonia, leaving Helen and her siblings orphans. The children were sent to live with various aunts and uncles in the Maxson and Baker families. Helen and Gussie were sent to live with their mother’s sister, Katherine, and her husband, Frank Miller, in Bayfield, Wisconsin. Uncle Frank was a machine salesman and Aunt Kate was a homemaker. Helen took the name “Miller” and in the 1910 US Census she is listed as “adopted.”
When Helen
met Ralph, a dashing Army veteran at work she was smitten, and they were married 25 Jun 1920 in Duluth, Minnesota. They settled in Ralph’s hometown of Virginia where he lived with his
mother and sister, Sylvia, supporting the family as a shipping clerk for The Virginia & Rainy Lake
Company. But by the turn of the decade the prime stands of white pine were vanishing and so were jobs. Sawmills began to close and Ralph had to look for work elsewhere. By 23 Oct 1921, his search had taken him to Stillwater, Oklahoma, where the oil boom caused the population to nearly double that
decade. It was here that their son, Ralph Donald (Don), was born. He was joined by a sister, Geraldine
Katherine (Geri).
By 1926 the family had moved to Topeka, Kansas, where Ralph worked as a draftsman for a
prominent architecture firm that had designed many of the buildings in Topeka. By 1928 he was working as an architectural engineer for the renowned architect David S. Castle, Sr., who was described by the Abilene Reporter-News as “the West Texas skyline maker.” He worked for Castle’s firm, designing buildings for Abilene and the surrounding area through 1931.
Ralph and Helen, who both had a childhood without one or both parents, finally seemed to achieved a
modicum of social and financial success. Ralph was employed by a well-known architectural firm and
belonged to the local businessmen’s association and rotary club. Helen was a member of Eastern Star and attended various other women’s clubs. However, it was soon to come to an end. The stock market crash of 1929 and the resulting Great Depression caused jobs to close and architectural contracts to dry up. Further Ralph’s health had been suffering due to heart problems and, presumably, the heavy use of alcohol. With nothing more available to them in Abilene, the family moved back to Minnesota where Ralph found work as an engineer with the Works Progress Administration (WPA), FDR’s New Deal agency that employed millions of out-of-work men to carry out public works projects, including the construction of public buildings. However, it was also about this time that his doctor discovered he suffered from pancreatic cancer. He had also been suffering from chronic pericarditis for several years. It was time to go home. He and Helen moved back to Duluth, Minnesota.
It was here in Duluth, St. Louis, Minnesota where the couple’s last daughter, Judith Helen, would be born on 26 Jan 1938. Sadly, less than a year later, Ralph died leaving Helen alone with their three children—just as her parents had left her as a young child 40 years earlier. The family remained in Minnesota through 1940, where Don finished his first year of college at the age of 18.
Helen eventually moved to Oregon where her sisters, Kathryn and Gussie, lived with their families. In 1940 she moved to Buena Vista, Polk, Oregon, where she worked at the Blue Lake Packers Company. Her daughter, Geri, married and lived about 20 miles north in Salem, Marion, Oregon. Her son, Don, married and eventually settled in Albany, Linn, Oregon, about 10 miles to her south. On 14 May 1970 Helen Maxson Miller died after being hospitalized for an illness. She is buried at the Restlawn Cemetery in Polk County west of Salem.
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