We knew that the Von Helms family, the original owners of Jacksonville’s 1860 Table Rock Billiard Saloon and the lovely 1878 Italianate style home at the corner of South Oregon and Pine streets, suffered several family tragedies. Three daughters died in epidemics. Another was murdered, but we’ve only recently come across more details. Not that we would gossip, but….
It seems that daughter Anna had married Frederick B. Martin, a salesman for the Pacific Biscuit Company. He was their Portland representative; she ran a fashionable Portland boarding house, the Ella, at the corner of Ella and Washington streets. Anna’s older sister Emma helped run the boarding house.
Reportedly, the Martins’ marriage was “stormy.” When Martin was “discharged” from the biscuit company in 1906, he abandoned Anna and left for California. When he returned to Portland at the end of the year, Anna refused to live with him or reconcile. Martin blamed his sister-in-law Emma for interfering.
On January 6, 1907, Martin went to the Ella and gained admission to his wife’s apartments. There he shot both Anna and Emma then went to the basement where he killed himself. Anna was wounded; Emma died. What transpired before the shooting is unknown since Anna was in hysterics.
Anna eventually remarried. Both Anna and Emma are buried in the Helms family plot in the Odd Fellows section of Jacksonville’s Pioneer Cemetery.