✦ In Memoriam ✦
Helen Gladys Verhoek
née Robertson
August 24, 1907 – July 21, 1942
The middle sister · One of the three orphans
Helen Gladys Robertson, c. 1920s
The Little Miss Robertson
Helen Gladys Robertson was born on August 24, 1907, in Brooklyn, New York — the second child of Joseph Robertson and Mary Agnes Kenny, and the middle of the three children who would be orphaned in January 1924.
She and her older sister Lillian were close from the start — photographed together in their Sunday best, matching dresses and ribbons, the very picture of early twentieth-century girlhood. Family stories tell of summer vacations to Saugerties, New York, where "Aunt Marie MacKinney" welcomed the "little Misses Robertson" to her home.
When tragedy struck in 1924 — both parents dead within twelve days of each other — Helen was sixteen years old. She and Lillian, just two years apart, faced the future together, helping to raise their four-year-old brother Joseph Jay between their households.
Parents: Joseph Robertson & Mary Agnes Kenny
Siblings: Lillian Josephine Robertson (O'Brien), Joseph Jay Robertson
Married: Leslie John Verhoek Sr. · November 6, 1926
Children: Leslie John Jr., Janet (died in infancy), Mary Catherine
Died: July 21, 1942 · North Caldwell, New Jersey · age 34
Cause: Tuberculosis
Burial: Gate of Heaven Cemetery, East Hanover, New Jersey
A Family's Curse
Three generations lost to tuberculosis
Helen Gladys Robertson Verhoek died of tuberculosis on July 21, 1942, in North Caldwell, New Jersey. She was thirty-four years old.
She was not the first in her family to fall to this disease.
Her mother, Mary Agnes Kenny Robertson, had died of tuberculosis in January 1924 — just twelve days after her husband Joseph's sudden death from a cerebral hemorrhage. Mary Agnes was forty years old.
And before that, Mary Agnes's own father — John Kenny, the Brooklyn mat maker — had also died of tuberculosis. The disease that stalked three generations had finally claimed the middle daughter.
Helen left behind her husband Leslie, her son Leslie John Jr. (age 14), and her daughter Mary Catherine (age 10). A third child, Janet, had died in infancy in 1931.
Further Reading
Helen's story as biography and as methodology
The Women Who Stayed — Helen Robertson Verhoek
The full biography of Helen's thirty-four years — the Brooklyn girlhood, the 1924 orphaning, the Caldwell household, the Essex Mountain Sanatorium treatment, and the two children she would not see grow up. Episode 6 of The Women Who Stayed.
Read the Biography →Five Deaths, One Family, Seventy-Two Years
A BCG-standard case study tracking tuberculosis across five deaths in three generations — from George McKenney in 1870 Brooklyn to Helen in 1942 North Caldwell. Four death certificates obtained; the fifth, Helen's, blocked by New Jersey's records gap.
Read the Case Study →Leslie John Verhoek Sr.
September 17, 1904 – October 21, 1945
Leslie John Verhoek · Gate of Heaven Cemetery
Helen married Leslie John Verhoek on November 6, 1926. She witnessed her sister Lillian's wedding to Miles O'Brien in January 1928 as "Helen G. Verhoek."
Leslie was born in Newark, New Jersey, on September 17, 1904. He worked as an accountant at Curtiss-Wright Propeller Division in Caldwell. He was a former member of the Republican County Committee of North Caldwell and was captain of two bowling teams — "Air Port Rest" and "the Blues" of Curtiss-Wright.
Leslie survived Helen by only three years. He died on October 21, 1945, at age 41, at his home at 53 Grove Avenue in Verona. He had remarried to Estelle Kupckick sometime after Helen's death.
At his death, he was survived by his second wife Estelle; his children from his marriage to Helen — Leslie Jr. and Mary; his parents Mr. and Mrs. Oscar J. Verhoek; and two sisters.
Her Children
Three children of Helen & Leslie Verhoek
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Leslie John Verhoek Jr.
June 23, 1928 – 2009
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Janet Verhoek
August 1930 – March 3, 1931
✦ Died in infancy ✦
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Mary Catherine Verhoek
Born March 17, 1932
Later Hoffman, then Bradley
📸 More Photos of Helen
Additional photographs of Helen — from her Brooklyn childhood with sister Lillian through her years in North Caldwell — are preserved in the family photo archive.
Photo album coming soon
Stories & Memories
Remembering Helen
— Storyline Genealogy
— from the marriage certificate