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Katherine Laurence Sellers Owen Provencio
The star on the Franklin Mountains was lit May 18 in memory of Katherine Provencio and in honor of her mother, Henrietta Owen, by Colonial Dames Mrs. Chloe King and Mrs. George Sullivan. Kathy’s death was caused by the Hepatitus C virus (HCV) from which she suffered for 10 years before she died on Mother’s Day.
“I’d like to remember Kathy as being adventurous, along with being extremely intelligent. She was different in her aims and what she did with her life,” said her mother, Henrietta Owen.
Katherine Laurence Sellers Owen Provencio was born March 11, 1947, in Santa Fe, N.M. Her parents were Henrietta Reynaud Sellers and Melvin J. Sellers. When Kathy was six years old, her parents divorced and a year later Newburn Owen became her stepfather. She attended both Crockett and Wainwright elementary schools during which time she won a medal from the Rotary Club for being an outstanding student. She attended Irvin High School, where she graduated in 1965.
Her choice of college was Arizona State University in Tempe, Ariz. She became a member of Pi Beta Phi sorority. The sorority recognized her as an A student when she graduated in 1970 with a bachelor’s degree in social science. Following college she worked at an art gallery in Hawaii, supplying them with turquoise jewelry made by Southwestern Indians.
“After three years she decided to make a trip around the world,” said her mother. “So she took her packing bags and went on. I was afraid for her every bit of the time. She rode trains and buses with the people in each of the 22 countries she visited in Asia, Africa and Europe and 18 in Central and South America. She wanted to meet people and see how they lived.”
After four years, she came back to El Paso where she met Ernie Provencio, a pecan farmer in Anthony, N.M., at a party held in the home of his sister Annette. They were married, Oct. 18, 1986, in a garden wedding and resided in El Paso before moving to the farm.
That first year they acquired a dog, Roscoe. On an Easter Sunday another abandoned dog came into the farmyard so Kathy adopted them both. She asked that, when they died, their ashes be saved so they could be combined with hers. Her wishes were granted. The ashes were divided in two parts, half being buried at the Williams West Memorial Garden at the St. Clements Episcopal Church, and the other half on the farm.
Henrietta also said that Kathy and her husband loved to go camping, even though she had been sick for five years. In March 1994, they visited Belize, in British Honduras. As they started home, Kathy began hemorrhaging while on the plane. A doctor aboard advised them to go to a hospital in Houston. There she was surprised to find her cousin, Charlie Ann Summers, as one of the nurses on duty. Kathy, who celebrated her 47th birthday there, was told that she had HCV, which has more than 30 subtypes coming largely from bad blood transfusions — and that the only treatment was a liver transplant. In 1996, Kathy received her transplant from Baylor University Medical Center.
Kathy, who died May 9 at age 52, was a member of the Pan American Round Table, Las Comadres, and the Bible Study Fellowship at the First Baptist Church. Her memorial service was scheduled so the class members could walk down to the church of St. Clement as a group.
Kathy is survived by her husband, Ernie Provencio, mother, Henrietta Reynaud Owen, stepfather, M. Newburn Owen, sister Patricia Ann Owen, father Melvin J. Sellers, and aunt Mrs. Ann Crombie Reynaud. At her funeral, the Rev. William Francis said, "I've not known of anyone who has suffered as much as Kathy and yet in the midst of it there was courage and there was faith."
Lucile Ponsford Tillman
Speak the name Ponsford and a host of memories will be triggered regarding the Southwestern pioneer family into which Lucile Ponsford Tillman was born on Dec. 10, 1906.
Her parents, Kate Jordan Ponsford and Henry Thomas Ponsford, married on Christmas Day 1890. Her father, born in Canada, was 9th in a family of 15 children. When Henry was 31 years old, he was cautioned by his physician to move to a dry climate because of his asthma. He chose El Paso. When he stepped off the train he exclaimed, “This is the place for me!”
His family of 5 boys and 4 girls lived in El Paso for 45 years and helped build the city. He created a construction company that included himself and five sons, which was eventually called Ponsford Brothers. His contracts included churches, schools, Army installations, industrial buildings, the Plaza Theater, the W.W. Turney home and many others.
Lucile was the youngest girl in the family of the 9 children and was 3 years old when the historic meeting in 1909 of Presidents Porifiro Diaz and William Howard Taft in El Paso was the social and political event of the day. All school children learned to sing the Mexican national anthem and waved tiny flags.
Lucile attended elementary school and El Paso High from which she graduated in 1923. She enrolled in Texas College of the Mines (UTEP), graduating in 1932 with the first class to contain women. While there she was president of the Zeta Tau Alpha sorority. Recently she was honored as a Golden Grad at UTEP.
She became an elementary teacher, teaching mostly second-grade in the Beall and Crockett schools. She was proud to say that Sandra Day O'Connor was a member of her class.
She met James Harold Tillman on a blind date and they were married June 17, 1939. Tillman was a sanitary engineer for the city-county health unit for 29 years. The new health unit building was named for him.
“My mother was definitely a party girl,” said her daughter Sara. “One of my favorite parties was a cookout in our back yard when I was in Girl Scouts.”
Daughter Kay Peyton said, “My mother had a ready laugh, loved a good joke and loved to tell one. She was always optimistic, rising above life's obstacles to focus on the positive."
In 1949 Lucile became a member of the El Paso Woman's Club and kept up her membership for 50 years. She was also a member of the Gold Circle Club of the State National Bank. She was host to bridge luncheons and Saturday night card parties for friends, was a member of the El Paso Historical Society, a board member of PTA at Coldwell and Austin high schools, an active participant in the Auxiliary of the American Society of Civil Engineers, a member of PEO Chapter M., and had been a member of Trinity First United Methodist Church since age 12.
“Mother loved supporting the university,” Sara said. “She made a generous donation to the UTEP library each year. She was especially proud that her granddaughter Lisa Peyton is now librarian and media specialist at Houser Elementary School in Conroe, Texas.”
Lisa says: “I knew I could always count on her. She was a big part of my life. I feel truly blessed to have had her for my Granna.”
Another granddaughter, Karen Peyton talked about the time her grandmother, at age 70, demonstrated the art of walking on stilts.
“She was amazing,” Karen said. “She loved life, playing bridge, and watching Miner Basketball. She knew more about football than any of my boy friends.”
At 92, Lucile was out watering her lawn and tried to pull the hose toward her.
"When it didn’t budge,” Sara said, “she fell backward over the sidewalk and broke her hip. It was the day before Mother's Day this year.”
She died June 3. Her memorial service was held at Harding, Orr and McDaniel Funeral Home with Dr. Brodace Elkins officiating.
Her husband died in 1965. She is survived by two daughters, Kay T. Peyton and son-in-law Norman, and Sara Louise Tillman, granddaughters Lisa and Karen Peyton, sister Sara Ponsford Wilson and brother George Ponsford.
“She was charming, honest, hard-working, loving, kind and considerate. She put the interest of her children above her own and raised us according to high standards, teaching us to expect the best in ourselves and others,” Sara said.
Janet Foote Johnson
Janet Foote Johnson, for 16 years a teacher in the Ysleta school district, was also employed by El Paso Natural Gas Co. She was a member of the Pro-Cathedral Church of St. Clement. She spent two years as a Sunshine Lady with the Horseless Carriage Club.
Janet was born April l, 1919, in New Orleans, to Sara Bain Foote and Charles Henry Foote. She was a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, tracing her ancestry to a prisoner of war in New England.
Her father, Charles Henry Foote, was a construction engineer, building railroads. He died while Janet was a child. The family moved to El Paso in 1926. Janet attended Morehead Junior High and El Paso High School, then graduated from College of the Mines (UTEP) in 1941 with a BA degree in English.
While working for El Paso Natural Gas Co., Janet met John William (Jay) Johnson.
“I was a very quiet one,” Jay said. “We were both working at the El Paso City Gate, a gas installation company. She worked upstairs and I downstairs. When Janet found out what a loner I was, she always saw to it that I was invited to all the parties. She was so beautiful, I don’t see how I got her.”
The two were married Sept. 14, 1943, in Easter Chapel at the Church of St. Clement. Jay worked 45 years with El Paso Natural Gas Co. Their son, Fred, still employed by the El Paso Natural Gas Measurement Technical Service, is a third-generation employee and has worked there 27 years.
“My mother was a true servant,” Fred said. “Her hair dresser called her Saint Janet because she lived to serve others. She was a great cook. Her specialty was lemon merange pie. My wife works for Dyncorp/NASA in an office near the airport where planes come daily from Houston to train pilots to shuttle their planes on the White Sands Proving Grounds. She knows the astronauts personally and once shared a pie with one of them. He took another pie back to the others. So my mother is known as having baked pies for the astronauts.”
When Phyllis, the oldest of Janet and Jay's three daughters, found that she was not fiancially able to attend college, Janet went back to school to get a teaching certificate. She received her BS degree, and began to teach third-grade, retiring in 1983.
Janet and her husband began extensive traveling, concentrating on the waterways of the world. The trips began with a Caribbean cruise. Other trips were up the Rhine, on the Columbia River, the Mississippi, up the St. Lawrence, the Blue Danube and the Volga in Russia. Many of these trips were sponsored by the Woman’s Department of the State National Bank.
She became a member of the El Paso Art Association where she focused on water colors, and copper enameling.
“She attended seminars and did some real nice work,” Jay said. “We were members of the Model-T Club. In 1962, when I was elected president of the Horseless Carriage Club, I went out and bought a 1919 Dodge. For 35 years I drove it in the New Year’s Day Parade. Janet, along with the othe women, took care of the refreshments at the meetings. She made real good bread and once gave a program on how to make apple strudel, which we ate at the end of the meeting.”
Janet died of a massive heart attack July 2 at the age of 80.
“When she woke me that morning she said, ‘I think I am having a heart attack, but we must not call the doctor until 6 a.m.’ thinking of him first intead of herself, you see.”
After pausing for a bit of reflection, Jay continued, “We made plans 10 years ago to be cremated. Futrell Funeral Home took care of that. The memorial service was held at the church of St. Clement with the Rev. Bill Francis officiating. The pallbearers were her six grandsons. The oldest, Jason Day, a youth minister at Katy, Texas, read the scripture and Robin’s daughter sang “Ave Maria.”
Her survivors are her husband of 55 years, John Jay Johnson, and four children, Fred Johnson and his wife Carmen, Phyllis Day, Charlotte Steele and her husband Harold, and Robin Ringland and her husband Jerome. She had nine grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
“We had such a unique family relationship,” Jay said. “I would like to remember her as 100 percent satisfactory.
“She did what she could for anybody that needed help, and was a very pleasant person to know.”
Sigmund Weiser
“There’s nothing darker in life than an inactive mind or the loss of a desire to learn.”
This was the watch word of Sigmund Weiser, a survivor of the Holocaust, who continued to stimulate himself and others long past his ordeal during World War II.
He was a member of a Polish medical detachment during the war and afterward worked for the Joint Distribution Committee, settling Jews in Palestine, now Israel. He came to El Paso in 1949 to start a new career in retail sales, eventually becoming vice president of Texas Dry Goods Department Store, where he retired after 38 years of service.
Sigmund was born Jan. 10, 1908, in Kolomea, Austria, to Gershon and Bertha Bleiberg Weiser. He grew up in Vienna, Austria, where he attended grade school and high school.
On Dec. 24, 1933, he married Eva Falber whom he met in Prague, Czecholslovakia, where they both were studying. Eventually they moved to Modena, Italy, completed their doctorates and became practicing pharmacists.
It was when Eva was summoned to Poland for her father’s funeral that the two of them found themselves in that country on the day the Nazis invaded Poland.
In the Polish mobilization process, Sigmund became a part of a 504-member medical unit that contained some savvy noncommissioned officers who were veterans of World War I. These officers cautioned Sigmund and others to remove their officer insignia before encountering the enemy. They dug a hole and put everything in it before fading into the woods until they reached Lwow.
Out of the 504 men in that group, only 14 survived. Later he and Eva were smuggled out of Poland on a Red Cross train due to the “luck” of Sigmund’s having given medication to an ailing Nazi SS officer sometime earlier.
Many of Sigmund and Eva’s family perished during the war: her mother, his mother and sister, as well as his niece, were killed in Nazi concentration camps. Sigmund and Eva ended up in Italy in the Italian-run camp system at Ferramonte. After their liberation the two moved to Taranto, Italy, where Weiser was given the job of directing the pharmacy at the county hospital. Their son Gary, now an El Paso attorney, was born March 10, 1946.
Sigmund continued to work in the pharmacy and also worked for the Joint Distribution Committee. When an opportunity to join family members in the United States arose, the Weisers took a chance on resettling, uniting with the family in El Paso in 1949.
Sigmund became a U.S. citizen in 1955 and retired in 1987. Son Gary tells of their arrival in El Paso.
“On the way home from the train station my mother noticed many motel signs and remarked to my father ‘Motel, (Yiddish for Marcus —Marcus Rosen was a cousin already settled here) Motel is doing very well in America!”
Sigmund, too, did very well for himself — not with motel signs marking his accomplishments — but rather with the signs of his volunteer efforts: raising funds for the United Jewish Appeal; helping to establish the Jewish Community Center in the early 1960s and serving on its cabinet; serving as a board member, officer, and trustee of Congregation B’nai Zion; and working for the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., and the museum here in El Paso. In later years he became active on the curricrulum committee of the Center for Lifelong Learning at UTEP, where he also attended classes.
He was fluent in nine languages.
“My father suffered a stroke in 1996,” Gary said. “One of the intensive-care nurses told me he was speaking in tongues and was quite concerned. When I went into the room I found him speaking in several of the nine languages. I told the nurse she needed to learn Russian, Polish, Italian, Yiddish, French, German, and more if she wanted to communicate with him!’“
Sigmund died Feb. 16, preceded in death by his wife Eva. He is survived by son Gary and his wife Judith Galatzan Weiser, and granddaughters Meredith Weiser of Houston and Susan Weiser of Austin.
“I’m the person I have become,” Gary said, “in large part due to my father. I would like to remember him as ‘Papalino Mio’ (Italian) which is what I called him as a non-English-speaking 4-year-old child.”
Charles Morton Fruithandler
Charles Morton Fruithandler, past executive director at B’nai Zion Synagogue, retired CPA and college professor, a certified public accountant with Josh Kahn and Co., (which evolved into Fruithandler, Nussbaum, Schwartz and Torres), died at age 72.
In a letter to his sons — Dr. Ross Fruithandler, an El Paso dentist, and Eric Fruithandler, who lives in London — Charles said: “Please do not grieve too much. I have lived and enjoyed life my way. I loved my family and lifestyle, and hope and think I was loved in return. Not everyone agreed with me all the time, but in the long run, so what?” This was followed by detailed directions on how to handle his estate.
Charles was born in Mount Kisco, N.Y., Nov. 10, 1926, to Rose Greer and Irving Fruithandler, the second of four children.
“He said ‘hello’ to everyone,” his wife of 46 years noted. “The name Fruithandler is so distinctive that it captures attention. The only way we think he inherited this name was because Irving’s father came from Austria. When the officials at Ellis Island asked his name he thought they asked him about what he did and he replied ‘Fruithandler.’”
After attending elementary and high school in Mount Kisco, Charles enrolled in the University of Pennsylvania Wharton Business School and later earned his law degree from Brooklyn Law School.
He enlisted in the Army during World War II and was sent to a language school where he learned to speak Japanese. He served without uniform as a POW interrogator. Charles eventually retired from the Army Reserve as a lieutenant colonel.
When asked how she met Charles, his wife Phyllis said, “We were just local kids together on a blind date. After our third date I said to him, ‘You can’t have such a name as Fruithandler, now tell me your real name!’”
She and a sister, Muriel Lutner, were married in a double wedding in White Plains, N.Y., June 6, 1953. Phyllis and Charles spent their honeymoon in the Adirondack Mountains near Lake Placid, N.Y.
In 1958 a strange coincidence took place.
“We had one child and another was on the way,” Phyllis said. “There was a terrible snowstorm one evening. I called Charles and told him I could not come and get him in a storm. The drifts were so high they had to be shoveled out of the driveway, so he took a cab home and came in the house with a New York Times newspaper under his arm. In that paper was an advertisement, designed by Josh Kahn, asking for a CPA attorney to come to El Paso.”
Phyllis pointed out that in those days New York attorneys were in demand.
“Mr. Kahn took a plane and flew to New York to meet Charles and wanted him to leave for El Paso immediately. That was in 1958. I came a few months later.”
They were fascinated by the mountains and the wide spaces of land, and “we met the friendliest people in the whole world. We came in cold, didn’t know a soul, and were like displaced persons. We met people just like ourselves and became family friends. We had fun together and those early friends are still close today.”
In the 1960s he began teaching business classes at UTEP.
“For 30 years he taught classes in accounting and business law,” his son Ross said. “The classes were always held in the early morning or evening so they didn’t interfere with his duties at Kahn & Co. He worked hard and was always home to have dinner with his family.”
As a member of Temple Mount Sinai, he served as past president of the congregtion in 1978-79. He participated in B’nai B’rith organizations and was also active in the Temple Men’s Club. He was instrumental in starting a youth scholarship fund, which helped send them to Israel.
After retiring from accounting in 1989 he and his family indulged in travel. Ross remembers his father as a very sensible and practical man.
“Life was not all work and no play. For that reason we made trips together every Christmas holiday. His highest priority was his family. He passed that feeling down to his sons, and I hope to pass it on to his grandsons.”
He died at home, March 4, after 41 years in El Paso. He was preceded in death by a son, Evan.
He is survived by his wife Phyllis, sons Eric and Ross Fruithandler, and three grandchildren.
Morris Abraham Galatzan
Morris Abraham Galatzan worked 64 years as a lawyer and judge in El Paso County, was affiliated with Lions Club International for 50 years — 39 years of perfect attendance — and worshipped as a lifetime member of Congregation B’nai B’rith.
He was what his daughter Judith called “mensch,” the composite of a true human being.
“He was everything you would ever hope to be if you are worthy of your heritage,” she said.
“The Judge” wrote an article for the El Paso Historical Society’s “Password” (summer 1988), in which he talked about the Galatzans of El Paso.
“My parents, Benjamin and Elka (Snider) Galatzan were married in 1903 in a small village near Belz, a part of Russia at the time and later becoming a part of Romania. Three girls were born in Russia: Sarah, Lena and Ruth ... If the reader saw the movie ‘Fiddler on the Roof,’ he has a perfect picture of life in their Russian village where my parents and sisters lived.”
Elka had two brothers, Jacob (Jake) and Sruel Snider living in El Paso.They had come here in the 1890s. Jake told his sister there would be more opportunities to educate their daughters in the United States. As Jews in Romania, girls were denied an education. So they moved to El Paso. Elka was pregnant with Morris when they took the boat from Europe They landed in Galveston and traveled by train to El Paso where he was born Jan. 21, 1911.
“My father had no skills,” the judge wrote. “He knew only the hard life of a Russian Jewish peasant farmer. The family spoke only Russian and Yiddish and now had the problem of learning both English and Spanish.” Benjamin decided to follow the trade of a peddler.
El Paso was a rough and ready town in 1911 with street cars for transportation and lots of dirt roads.
“We were not in the city limits so in our fenced backyard were two cows, two horses and assorted poultry.”
Morris sold newspapers on the downtown streets of El Paso. At 13, he went to work for the Popular Dry Goods Co. He continued working through El Paso High School and the Texas College of Mines (UTEP). In 1929 he left to attend law school at the University of Texas at Austin.
“I worked my way as a table waiter in boarding houses, as a fraternity house manager, as a laundry and cleaning agent and on Sundays as a clerk in downtown Austin stores,” Morris said.
After graduating in 1934 and being admitted to practice law, he became associated with Judge S.J. Isaacks and Stephen O. Lattner. When Lattner died in 1937, Morris became the judge’s partner in 1941.
In 1942 he was inducted into the Army, then was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Adjutant General Corps. He served in England, France and Germany as a member of Gen. Dwight Eisenhower’s G-5 (civil affairs) staff for which he was awarded the Bronze Star.
While stationed in London he met his future wife, Irene Asbach Waggett. She was a firefighter for the American Red Cross. He was separated from the service with the rank of captain in February 1946 and returned to El Paso to resume practicing law. Irene came to El Paso, and married Morris on June 19, 1947.
On Dec. 7, 1950, he was appointed to the bench of the 65th District Court as one of Texas’ youngest judges.
He was 39.
“Only in America can a son of immigrant parents be appointed a state district judge,” said Morris, who served for over six years. A brother, Joe, was a doctor, and his three sisters were teachers.
In April 1957 he resigned his judgeship to become a member of the law firm that now is Mounce, Green, Myers, Safi and Galatzan.
“El Paso has been very good to my parents and our family,” Morris said in concluding his “Password” article. “I have tried and am still trying to give something back to El Paso in return for that which all of us Galatzans received over the years. My mother died November 1960 and father October 1961. Neither of them ever regretted leaving Russia, and they loved El Paso. All of us are thankful they made the move to freedom.”
Morris Galatzan died Feb. 15. Morris was preceded in death by his wife Irene. He is survived by his daughters Judith and Sandra, son David, and three grandchildren.
His son David said, “He was the most giving person I’ve ever known, quietly generous, never patting himself on the back. In a special way he touched the lives of everyone.”
