Sisters Across Time: Helen Grosvenor and Faye Hanson
- Tanya Jensen
- Jan 8
- 3 min read
Updated: Jan 9
Recently, my daughter Onyka undertook the delicate task of restoring a treasured family photograph from around 1950. The image captures a moment between two remarkable sisters: my great-grandmother Helen Florence Grosvenor and her younger half-sister Faye Eleanor Hanson. Though they shared the same mother, their stories began nearly thirteen years apart, during a time of profound change in American history.
Helen Florence Grosvenor (1916-2000)
Helen Florence Grosvenor was born on May 25, 1916, in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, to Francis Jowitt Grosvenor and Lucy Ellen Forbis. Her early years coincided with significant historical events, including World War I and the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918. While still young, Helen's family relocated to Saint Paul, Minnesota, where she would spend most of her life.
Growing up during the Roaring Twenties, Helen witnessed the nation's prosperity and cultural transformation. However, this period of abundance was short-lived, as the Great Depression descended upon America in 1929, bringing widespread hardship to families across the nation, including Helen's.
At age 18, Helen married Jack Leroy Patraw on August 29, 1934, in Saint Paul. Together, they had twelve children: Russell, Jacqueline, Leroy, Gordon "Butch," Sandrea, Marie, Connie, Kenneth, Rodney, Diane, Linda, and Cindy.
Between 1940 and 1950, Helen and Jack owned and operated a bar near the markets in St. Paul known as "Jack and Helen's." However, the family faced a devastating setback in December 1951 when Jack, then 36, was involved in a serious criminal incident. According to The Winona Republican-Herald, Jack and another man, George Lehman, were arrested for the $2,600 robbery of the Brass Rail tavern in St. Paul. The incident, which occurred on December 14, 1951, was reportedly motivated by a desire to buy Christmas presents for their combined 16 children. A detective present during the robbery quickly alerted other officers, leading to Jack's immediate arrest and the recovery of most of the stolen money.
Faye Eleanor Hanson (1929-2008)
Faye Eleanor Hanson was born on August 6, 1929, in Saint Paul, Minnesota, to Olaf Hanson and Lucy Ellen Forbis. Her birth year coincided with the start of the Great Depression, which would shape her early childhood years. Her father Olaf, a Norwegian immigrant who arrived in America in 1901, had served as a private in the Spanish-American War and later worked as a bank employee and machinist.
Faye later married George J. Kraemer (1921-1985) and, like her sister, remained in Saint Paul throughout her life.
A Family's Journey
The sisters' early lives were shaped by significant changes within their family. Sometime after 1920, Helen's parents, Francis Grosvenor and Lucy Forbis, separated. Francis then made the mysterious decision to change his name to Fred Brown and relocated to Missouri. The reasons for this transformation remain unknown to this day. In the period that followed, but before 1929, Lucy married Olaf Hanson, who would become Faye's father.
Shared Joys and Sorrows
Despite their thirteen-year age difference, Helen and Faye's lives were deeply intertwined by both family bonds and shared experiences, including profound personal tragedies. In 1934, when Helen was 18 and Faye just four years old, their six-year-old brother Kenneth died tragically after sustaining injuries from an accident at the intersection of Western and Central Avenues in Saint Paul. The family was living at 419 North Western Avenue at the time, and this loss deeply affected them all during the already challenging years of the Great Depression.
Another devastating tragedy struck the family on February 25, 1963, when their sister Frances Mary (Grosvenor) Thelin was murdered by her ex-husband, David Thelin. Frances, who was 49 at the time, had gone to retrieve her glasses from his apartment at 272 E. Seventh Street in St. Paul, while their mother waited in the car. Frances left behind five children and twelve grandchildren, adding another layer of profound loss to the sisters' shared history.
Throughout these difficult times, the sisters maintained their close family bonds. Both remained in Saint Paul, witnessing together the nation's recovery from the Great Depression, the dramatic changes brought by World War II, and the postwar boom that followed. The restored photograph from 1950 captures them during America's postwar prosperity, preserving a moment between these resilient sisters who faced both joy and tragedy together.
Helen passed away on January 13, 2000. Faye followed her sister eight years later, passing away on June 18, 2008. Their story is not just one of sisterhood, but of resilience through personal and historical upheavals that shaped twentieth-century America.
Sources:
Family documentation
U.S. Census records 1920, 1930, 1940
Saint Paul city directories
Minnesota Death Records
Fort Snelling National Cemetery records
Helen Patraw's obituary, January 2000
Frances Thelin's obituary, February 1963
The Winona Republican-Herald, December 15, 1951
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