Bruce Garver, who created this Memorial on July 20, 2020, and wrote the following "bio" of Helen Dorothy (Rentschler) Waldon (1890-1967), has three close relatives who were employed by the Hooven=Owen-Rentschler Corporation: Grandfather John Frederick "Fred" Garver (1881-1953), and maternal great-uncles William "Bim" Lotz (1864-1943) and Ernest Garfield Lotz (1880-1963).
* * * * *
Helen Dorothy Rentschler (Waldon) was born on July 3, 1890, at Hamilton, seat of Butler County, Ohio, to German immigrant George A. Rentschler, Sr. (1846-1923) and his second wife, Phoebe (Schwab) Rentschler (1861-1916), whose Schwab family owned the Republic Motor Car Co. of 1910 to 1916 in Hamilton, Ohio. Besides their daughter Helen, George and Phoebe Rentschler raised two sons of their own: Frederick Brant Rentschler (1887-1956), and Gordon S. Rentschler who would become Chairman of the Board of the National City Bank of New York. Frederick's, Helen's, and Gordon's half-brother, George A. Rentschler, Jr., succeeded their father, George A. Rentschler, Sr., as the president of the General Machinery Corporation, formerly the Hooven-Owens-Rentschler Company in Hamilton, Ohio.
* * * * *
In 1924, Helen Dorothy (Rentschler(=) Waldon's brother, Frederick Brant Rentschler (1887-1956) left the Wright Aeronautical Corporation in Ohio to reorganize and expand the Pratt & Whitney Machine Tool Co. of Hartford, Connecticut. in order to manufacture superior air-cooled radial aircraft engines which came to include the famous "Wasp" and "Double Wasp" engines of World War II. After the war ended in August 1945, under Frederick's leadership, the Pratt & Whitney Company gave priority to the development and manufacture of jet engines and became the American and world leader in their production, a tradition that Pratt & Whitney's successor, Raytheon Technologies continues into the third decade of the twenty-first century..
* * * * *
On June 27, 1928, Helen Dorothy Rentschler wed Colonel Sidney Dunn Waldon (1873-1945) who had been born in London, England, UK, and had immigrated during 1892 to the United States where he became vice-president and general manager of the Packard Motor Car Company. Given his extensive experience in helping to develop efficient internal combustion engines, Sidney Dunn Waldon during World War I became a colonel in the U.S. Army and helped to oversee the production of aircraft engines for the U.S. Army Air Corps. Helen Dorothy Rentschler and Sidney Dunn Waldon's marriage brought sadness only in the death of their newborn child "Baby Waldon" on the day of its birth, January 10, 1930, in Detroit, seat of Wayne County, Michigan. Baby Waldon was interred five days later on the Waldon family Plot at Hamilton's Greenwood Cemetery in Section C, Lot 89, Grave 06. Nearly thirty-seven years later, Helen Dorothy (Rentschler) Waldon would be interred in Grave 07 in between Baby Waldon in Grave 06 and Colonel Sidney Dunn Waldon (1873-1945) in Grave 08.
* * * * *
Helen Dorothy (Rentschler) Waldon continued to reside on the family estate built on her parents' farm in Fairfield Township of Butler County, Ohio, after the death there on January 20, 1945, of her husband Colonel Sidney Dunn Waldon, who was interred on January 23, 1945 at Hamilton's Greenwood Cemetery in Section C, Lot 89, Grave 08. According to the records of the Greenwood Cemetery Association, Helen Dorothy (Rentschler) Waldon died on September 11, 1967, at the age of seventy-seven in Hamilton, Ohio, and was interred there on September 14, 1967, at Greenwood Cemetery in Section C, Lot 89, Grave 07, "Original Interment # 39959 Owner: Rentschler, G. A." The records of the Greenwood Cemetery Association misspell as "Walden" the surname of Helen Dorothy (Rentschler) Waldon, Colonel Sidney Dunn Waldon; and their infant Baby Waldon; but all of Greenwood's other information about this couple and their baby is believed to be accurate.