Ellsworth Fromm

Ellsworth Hubbard "Hub" Fromm, age 100, passed away on Tuesday, August 28, 2012, in the Forrest Manor Nursing Center, Dewey, Oklahoma. Born August 14, 1912, in Chillicothe, Ohio, Hub has vivid memories of events that most of us only have read about. Just six years old in 1918 as World War I was winding down, he still remembers the global influenza pandemic that struck soldiers in nearby Camp Sherman with deadly impact. Almost daily from Hub's front yard one could hear caissons from Camp Sherman rumbling down the streets on the sad route to Greenlawn Cemetery. Young Hub, himself, became critically ill with pneumonia during this time. His doctor traveled by horse and buggy to make house calls. Hub's experiences of the 1920s reflect the general optimism of that decade. After the city extended water lines, Hub's father installed running water and the first indoor bathroom in the family home. And now, instead of a free-standing stove, the family had a new basement furnace that delivered heat to each room. Also, Hub's dad bought a two year old 1923 Buick sedan so that they no longer had to walk everywhere. Hub joined the original Chillicothe High School marching band, the orchestra and the glee club. With his $3.50 weekly salary from his after-school job in the mail room of the Chillicothe News-Advertiser, for which he had delivered newspapers since the age of eight, Hub used $2.50 to pay off the $125.00 cost of his new saxophone. He spent the remaining dollar for a weekly one-hour saxophone lesson. With friends he formed "the hottest dance band in town," Mac's Blue Moon Serenaders, who played in area dance halls, hotels and clubs. Those upbeat times didn't last. The Great Depression had hit before Hub graduated from high school in 1931. When his father died at 47 years of age in December, 1931, his family's funds were unavailable because of bank closure. With the help of a friend, Hub, now the family breadwinner, was hired as a tour timekeeper and payroll clerk by the Mead Pulp and Paper Company, where his father had worked as a machine tender. Hub's older brother, soon to be a chemical engineer, later went to work in the same plant. In 1939, Hub received a degree in mechanical engineering from Ohio State University, and was employed by Hause Valve Company, a manufacturer of submersible pumps in Montpelier, Ohio. On July 15, 1939, several weeks after employment, he married Margaret Marshall, a nurse he had met while hospitalized at Ohio State. Two weeks after the wedding, he was laid off. Hub and Margaret moved to Paterson, New Jersey, where he, physically disqualified from military service, spent most of the 1940s, the World War II years, employed in fuels and lubricants research for Wright Aeronautical Corporation. His position was terminated after the war. On February 1, 1948, Hub signed an employment agreement with Phillips Petroleum Company; and his wife and two young sons, John and Al, soon joined him in Bartlesville. Hub's employment with Phillips continued until his retirement in 1975. Hub's wife, Margaret, a nurse educator, died in 1979. She and Hub were grandparents to three children and step-grandparents to one. Hub's second wife, Meg (formerly Florence Margaret McCarthy), originally in this country as an English war bride, died in 2005. They had been married since 1980. Hub was preceded in death by his parents; his wife, Margaret; second wife, Meg; brother, George; and daughter-in-law, Julia Ann "Jan" Fromm. Survivors include two sons, John Hubbard Fromm and his wife, Gaby, of St. Louis, Missouri, and Alfred Joseph Fromm of Bartlesville; three grandchildren, Jens Fromm and his wife, Estelle, of Newberg, Oregon, Major Kevin Fromm of Fairfax, Virginia, Melissa Dawn (Fromm) Shehi of Bartlesville; one step-grandchild, Patricia Quesnel of Port Henry, New York; and four great-grandchildren, Kiren and Jeffrey Quesnel and Christiaan and Ashley Shehi.