A Secretive Plumber

(Click on image to enlarge)
George Rhodes, date unknown.
Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

Late in July 1918 Helen Mackey revealed to an unsuspecting Hobart that in April she had married George Rhodes, the plumber. The secret ceremony had been held just over the state line in Benton Harbor, Michigan.

Why there, I don't know; possibly to help keep the secret, or maybe George's work had taken him there — for he had apparently left the partnership with Charles Lee and was now employed by the government in some plumbing capacity.*

So in April Helen had come home to Hobart a married woman, but no one knew it except Ruth Mackey, her mother. They kept the secret for over two months.

The only reason I can think of for all this secrecy was that Helen worked in the office of American Bridge Works in Gary; her employer may have held that Neanderthal policy of firing any female employee who married, and Helen perhaps wanted to go on earning money as long as she could.

But now George's government plumbing work took him to Erie, Pennsylvania, and Helen decided to join him there. Since she was quitting her job, she was safe from firing, and there was no longer any need for her to pretend not to be married. That's my theory, anyway.

The Gazette said that "although [Helen] stole a march on her friends they will wish her a full measure of happiness just the same."

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*I've already given away the ending: we know Lee & Rhodes eventually got back together.


Sources:
♦ "Local Drifts." Hobart Gazette 2 Aug. 1918.
♦ "Rhodes-Mackey." Hobart News 25 July 1918.