By Lauren FitzPatrick
Staff writer
Helen Kelderhouse was a dyed-in-the-wool White Sox fan and wouldn’t have it any other way.
“She used to go up until they built the new park” in 1991, said her daughter Barbara Murphy. “She couldn’t see the ball anymore.”
Only the problem wasn’t with her eyesight.
“The seats she could afford were too high,” much higher than where she used to sit in old Comiskey Park, her daughter explained.
Mrs. Kelderhouse died Dec. 14 at age 85.
“She lived for the Sox to play the Cubs because they’d beat ‘em,” Murphy said.
Mrs. Kelderhouse (nee Heinichen) was one of seven children born to German immigrants. Her father had trouble holding down a steady job until he found a career as a butcher — so she learned her work ethic from her mother, who toiled to keep the large family afloat.
Mrs. Kelderhouse graduated from Lindbloom High School and moved from Visitation Parish at 55th and Halsted streets to Bridgeport after she got married, and she stayed there for 68 years.
The Kelderhouses lived in a cold-water apartment where they had to heat all their cooking and washing water on the stove. Mr. Kelderhouse worked at Goodman’s Manufacturing on South Halsted Street making Army equipment. His wife never worked outside the home; she had plenty to do raising four children and keeping the house clean.
Murphy said she remembered being poor.
“Those were tough times,” she said. “But her house was always spotless.”
Mrs. Kelderhouse needed two days a week just to do the laundry using an old washer with a manual wringer.
“She had a whole day where she washed clothes, a whole day where she ironed clothes,” her daughter said.
And the family didn’t have a clothes dryer, so laundry had to be hung up to dry. In winter, the lines were moved inside the apartment.
“I thought it was fun walking under lines of clothes in the kitchen,” Murphy said. “It was hard on her. Her hands showed it.”
Still, she took meticulous care of her family.
Dinner was on the table every day at 4 p.m., ready when Mr. Kelderhouse returned from work. “If you were late, you’d better have a good excuse,” Murphy said.
“She used to polish my shoes with white shoe polish; she used to put lemon juice in my hair to make it blonder,” she said. “She took such good care of us.
“We brought a dog home, and she had to take care of him.”
But Mrs. Kelderhouse could always escape to her favorite pastime.
In a South Side childhood sandlot, Mrs. Kelderhouse fell in love with baseball. She played softball with neighborhood kids and listened to Sox games on the radio.
It was a love that would follow her through life, one she would pass on to her grandchildren, whom she took to the ballpark. She was buried with a Sox pennant in her casket.
“Whoever the players of the day were, she was for them,” her daughter said. “She hated the Cubs. She didn’t want them to beat the Sox.”
Despite the Sox’s weak record in later years, Mrs. Kelderhouse would keep the faith and root for her players.
But her love wasn’t completely blind.
“She would say, ‘They stink! Turn it off!’ ” Murphy said. “But five minutes later, she’d turn it back on.”
Murphy said as Mrs. Kelderhouse grew sicker, so sick she had to leave Bridgeport to live with her daughter in Garfield Ridge, she would watch the televised games as best as she could.
Then on Tuesday, her heart stopped, her daughter said.
“She just didn’t have it to give anymore.”
But Mrs. Kelderhouse enjoyed her life, tough as it was sometimes.
“She wouldn’t have it any other way,” her daughter said.
Mrs. Kelderhouse also is survived by another daughter, Judy Kelderhouse; two sons, George Kelderhouse and Robert Kelderhouse; a sister, Ruth Duch; 11 grandchildren; nine great-grandchildren; and many friends.
Arrangements were by Ridge Funeral Home, (773) 586-7900.
Lauren FitzPatrick may be reached at lfitzpatrick@dailysouthtown.com or (708) 633-5964.
