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It's been quite a while, nearly two years, since I sat down and wrote about Our Neighborhood. Time, it seems, really does fly by faster and faster the longer we live. Dion, in his song "Abraham, Martin and John", uses the line "it seems, the good, they die young". It's certainly been my experience that there are a lot of good people residing there.
Osmond Ellingson was born in Norway, Iowa in 1865. Schooling in Mt Vernon was followed by a college graduation from the University of Michigan Law School in 1892. Osmond moved to Webster City and practiced with Judge Kamrar for a short time and, later, became City Clerk. A short time later, he went into a wholesale produce business with his brother, E. M. Ellingson and a brother-in-law, P. M. Mathre.
In November of 1903, Osmond married Alma Stromgren, who was living in Webster City, having emigrated from Sweden when she was 16. Together, the couple had three children; Alvin, Elling and Julia. The Ellingson family lived on Seneca Street and the business was located nearby, in what had been an original part of Newcastle. Sometime later, E M Ellingson moved to Des Moines, becoming one of the richest men in Iowa from a very successful business making butter. Osmond began a partnership with Mathre and opened a grocery store located at 816 Seneca Street; the business remained in the family about 50 years.
In 1924, while attending West Concord High School, the eldest son, Alvin, died of a heart condition resulting from rheumatic fever a year earlier. He was a Senior and 19 years of age; the entire high school attended his funeral. His sister, Julia, graduated from Webster City and attended St Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota before getting a degree from the University of Iowa in 1930. Julia married Clifford Unz that summer and the two headed to Minnesota where Clifford was set to begin work as an electrical engineer.
In July of 1932, Osmond Ellingson passed away in Webster City, leaving the grocery business to his wife and son, Elling. A few months later, word came that Julia had died suddenly of a heart attack while in Tulsa, Oklahoma; she and Clifford had moved there a month after her father's death. Julia was 23 years old. I cannot imagine the level of grief that was felt by Alma and Elling following those short months.
Alma and Elling ran the grocery store until 1941 when Elling entered the military at the start of World War 2. Alma Ellingson died in 1961, moving to Our Neighborhood, where she joined Osmond, Alvin and Julia. Two years after the end of the war, Elling married Margaret Blue of Webster City. Margaret passed in 1995 and Elling followed her to Our Neighborhood a year later.
The building on Seneca Street was owned by several other enterprises until it was finally torn down in October of 1964, as reported by the Daily Freeman Journal.