Madge and Andy Winkel with their foster children Dorothy Grove and Gary Albright.
All of us that remember Elmer loved him deeply. A lot of family never got the privilege of knowing him so we are going to delve into to his past in this blog post. There may be several post just on Elmer.
As most of you probably know Elmer was a foster child of Wesley Andrew (Andy) and Madge (Albright) Winkel. They took him into their home when he was nine or ten and he remained with them until he married Evelyn Allbright. Evelyn’s Allbright family was a different family than Madge’s Albright family. Evelyn told me she thought they were very, very distantly related. Not that it matters since Elmer was a foster child. It sometimes made Evelyn and Madge wonder what people thought when they saw it in print. Dad loved Madge and Andy very much as we all did. They always treated us as loving family members even after Elmer passed away.
Elmer was born on August 12, 1913 and passed away on March 26, 1973. He did not know much about his birth parents, he knew his mother’s was Laura Wininger but did not know who his father was except rumors he heard through the years. When he worked at Winkel’s Garage in Shoals, Indiana many old men would come in telling him they were his father. He did not pay much attention to what they had to say because all they were wanting was money.
As a child I would always try to get him to talk to me about what he remembered about the foster homes he stayed in before Winkel’s took him but he would not talk to me about it. He would tell me all I needed to know was that Madge and Andy were my grandparents and that they loved me. I also loved Grandpa and Grandma Winkel very much but I always had a very soft spot for Grandpa Winkel, he was absolutely the sweetest man.
I am going to end this blog post now and the next post will be about what I found about Elmer’s mother.
I’ll never forget Grandpa and Grandma Winkel. They were very sweet. Will always remember their little house in Shoals IN.
They were the best!