This 1943 Supplemental Mileage Ration slip for gasoline in some kind of service to Eloise Hospital holds a few hidden gems in the story within the story.
During World War II gasoline and tires were rationed along with essentials from food to shoes by the Office of Price Administration. The name of the cardholder was an E. Stilson Kalmerton, a military veteran and police officer in Dearborn at the time.
While I obviously purchased it for its relation to Eloise there are a few humorous asides in the case of Mr. Kalmerton and his family and a final potentially ironic one. In regards to Klamerton, he was slapped with a lawsuit by his former mother-in-law Bertha Dorn over funeral expenses for his late wife Gertrude, which she paid in full with a promise for reimbursement.
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| Detroit News, February 4, 1944 |
In his response he denied the charge and claimed that she was a Nazi. A claim which had some circumstantial merit since she did own a copy of Mein Kampf at the time and was a "registered enemy alien." A classification which I'm guessing allowed FDR to throw Japanese Americans into internment camp. Mrs. Dorn claimed that Hitler didn't care about her and that the feeling was mutual. What she might have been more offended by was the widower Kalmerton's re-marriage in 1943, since her daughter had passed away several years beforehand in 1940.
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| Detroit Times, February 5, 1944 |
Another tidbit of obviously unintentional irony was that Mrs. Dorn's obituary a few years later stated that her deceased husband's name was Adolph. It must have been his middle name because their shared grave marker, her death certificate and the 1915 burial permit for him back in Milwaukee, where the family was from, all list him as Gustav. Or perhaps it was Mr. Kalmerton having some fun at his mother-in-law's expense.
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| The Detroit News, April 18, 1949 |
Regardless, I seem to have a knack with picking up artifacts that have rather interesting back stories. This $4.20 purchase turned into a rather amusing adventure. Edward Stilson Kalmerton passed away in 1960.
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| Milwaukee Leader, July 18, 1915 |
Any joy in the new Mrs. Kalmerton's marriage would be shattered in early 1945 when her son Richard Gibson was killed in action in the South Pacific.
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| Detroit Times, February 24, 1945 |
Bess lived to be 85 and was buried next to her first husband Harold Wilcox Gibson, whose Find-A-Grave location of death is listed as Eloise in 1953. And thus we've unwittingly come full circum.
Though, the obituary listed on his memorial states that he died in his daughter's residence, another from an Ann Arbor paper states that he died in Wayne, where Eloise was then located (it has since been incorporated into the city of Westland's boundaries). The stigma of dying at Eloise, which was a former insane asylum and poorhouse may have precipitated the first scenario. I have contacted the creator of the memorial to see what his source was for Eloise.
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| Ann Arbor News, April 6, 1953 |
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