Ellsworth Wilson Mielke, 33, disappeared on August 25, 1947, from Salt Lake City, Utah. He had fallen ill and left work to go home. Ellsworth was never seen again.
Ellsworth was born to Walter George Mielke and Fanny May Wilson Mielke in Niagara County, New York, on July 28, 1914, the oldest of six children.
Somewhere along the line, Ellsworth ended up in Salt Lake City, Utah, where he met Helen Olive Hansen, the only child of Hyrum Leroy and Nora Anderson Hansen.
Helen was born in Pleasant Grove, Utah, on April 16, 1916. It is unclear how she and Ellsworth met or how long they had dated before they married on March 31, 1938, in Salt Lake City.
Ellsworth entered the military, but there was no additional information other than it was the U.S. Army. His draft card lists his age as 26, around 1940.
Ellsworth and Helen waited four years before starting a family, likely due to his military enlistment.
Helen gave birth to their first child, Paul Leroy Mielke, in 1942, followed by Lynda A. Mielke in 1943 or 1944 and Dwight Ellsworth Mielke in 1945 or 1946.
In January 1947, Helen became pregnant with the couple’s fourth child, and Ellsworth had a growing family to support. He was a truck driver for R. A. Gould Gasoline Transportation Service, 967 Beck Street, owned by Robert Aubrey Gould.
On August 17, 1947, Ellsworth drove his work truck 70 miles north to Tremonton and returned to Salt Lake City on August 25 around 11 a.m. He told his boss he was not feeling well, and Gould instructed him to go home and rest.
Ellsworth left his workplace and disappeared without a trace.
On September 19, 1947, authorities notified Helen that someone had found her husband’s car three weeks before near Lagoon Resort (now Lagoon Amusement Park), 18 miles north of Salt Lake City in Farmington, between Salt Lake City and Tremonton. It took some time for the police to trace the car’s ownership to Helen. No reports mention whether Helen ever reported Ellsworth missing once he failed to return home from work that day. It sounds like she told the police her husband was missing once they recovered the car.
Ellsworth’s vehicle contained his cap and lunch bucket, and the keys remained in the ignition. There was no sign of Ellsworth anywhere. Witnesses told the police they noticed nothing unusual with the car until it had sat there unclaimed for several days.
Helen, then 31, told the police that her husband’s back had recently been hurting and he suffered from blackouts. However, she said he had not had any spells for quite some time. She also stated he was not despondent and had no reason to leave his family.
The official law enforcement search for the missing man began on September 20, 1947, nearly a month after he vanished.
Ten days later, Helen delivered a stillborn son on September 30. She and Ellsworth planned to name their third son, Keith.
Police never found Ellsworth or any clues to his fate. His father and mother died in 1949 and 1958, respectively, without ever knowing what happened to their son. All of Ellsworth’s siblings are now deceased.
Helen went on to marry three more times. She outlived all but one spouse before she died in 1990 at age 74. Ellsworth and Helen’s son, Paul Mielke, died in 2011.
TCD’s Thoughts
The following is strictly the opinion of this author.
There is little information on Ellsworth’s disappearance, likely because of its age. But I had just enough for an article. When I saw his picture, I thought, “Wow, he was really good looking.” 🤣 So, sue me. I may be old, but I’m not dead. 😃
I felt drawn to his case (Seriously, it was the case, nothing else) and thought it deserved some attention.
I am curious about when Ellsworth moved to Utah or what brought him there. All of his immediate family members lived in New York until their deaths. I think he joined the Army after marrying Helen, but I could be wrong. If I am, the Army could have brought him to Salt Lake City.
I often wonder about Helen’s involvement in his disappearance. He was heading home that morning. No evidence shows he did or did not make it, but what if he did?
It does not appear that she notified the police when Ellsworth failed to come home that day. Why? As his wife, she surely knew his truck routes and when he would return home.
Their marriage seems strange to me. Ellsworth was a good-looking man, and she was about as plain as plain gets and a heavier person. I’m just sayin’. They were an odd couple. How did they meet? What kind of marriage did they have? How long had they dated before tying the knot? What were her parents like? Did they approve of him and the marriage?
There are so many strange things surrounding Helen. For starters, her obituary states that she and Ellsworth later divorced. WTF? They were not divorced when he vanished, so why would her family list it that way in her obituary?
Then, there were all her subsequent marriages.
Helen married Thomas Lloyd Baker on January 27, 1950, in Farmington, where someone had abandoned Ellsworth’s car. Helen was 34 years old, and the couple had two daughters: Marsha Elaine Baker, born around 1950 and 1951, and Susan Helen Baker, born around 1952, 1953. Thomas died on October 6, 1950, of a lung ailment. How long were Thomas and Helen together before they married? Was she having an affair with Thomas when Ellsworth vanished? In his obituary, Ellsworth’s sons are listed as Thomas’s stepsons but as Dwight Baker and Paul Baker, not Mielke. Maybe Thomas adopted them. However, they are listed as Mielke in Helen’s 1990 obituary.
Helen married Charles Leo Christensen in Elko, Nevada, on July 14, 1969, when he was 64 and she was 53. He later died on February 2, 1985. Helen married Willard Harry Lindsey in January 1990, 11 months before her death. Willard died in 1994.
Strangely, Helen’s FindAGrave memorial is only attached to Charles’s online memorial, not the others. She is listed as Helen Olive CHRISTENSEN, even though she was technically LINDSEY. WTF. It could be the fault of the person who created it or the other who maintains it.
Ellsworth’s son, Paul Mielke, died in 2011. His online memorial is NOT attached to his father’s but is connected to Helen’s. I find that bizarre. But again, it could be the volunteers’ fault who created it.
If Helen did kill her husband, she had help; there’s no doubt about that. She was eight months pregnant, but she could have hired someone or asked a lover to do it. That she may have never reported him missing is a red flag.
But we must also look at Ellsworth’s boss, Robert Aubry Gould. We only have HIS story: Ellsworth became ill and left work early that day. What if he never left work that day, and his boss had buried him on the business property somewhere? Did the police search there? I’m thinking no.
Now, for someone prone to blackouts, if you believe Helen, why on earth was Ellsworth ever a truck driver? That makes me question what Helen said in 1947. If that were me, I’d never drive alone. Hell, I probably would quit altogether.
There are so many questions in this case.
Did something happen at his workplace? Gould was a year younger than Ellsworth and a successful business owner. Did they get into an altercation?
Did Ellsworth make it home, and Helen killed him somehow, or as I said above, had someone else do it for her? Did he stop anywhere between work and home? Were there any sightings of him? Did the police search the Mielke home?
I believe Ellsworth met with foul play, either at work or after he left. There are only two possible suspects, IMO: his boss and Helen.
There is the possibility that Ellsworth left of his own accord. Maybe he did not want a fourth child because that would have been costly, even in 1947. I don’t believe that theory, however.
Sources
“Death: Helen H. Lindsey.” Obituary. Deseret News, December 20 1999.
“Ellsworth Wilson Mielke.” Family Search. https://ancestors.familysearch.org/en/KWJK-S16/ellsworth-wilson-mielke-1914
“Ellsworth Wilson Mielke.” Online Memorial. FindAGrave.com. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/271007220/ellsworth-wilson-mielke
“Ellsworth Wilson Mielke.” The Doe Network. https://www.doenetwork.org/cases/5923dmut.html
“Helen Olive Christensen.” Online Memorial. FindAGrave.com. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/118749258/helen_olive_christensen
“Helen Olive Hansen.” Family Search. https://ancestors.familysearch.org/en/KWCR-CLS/helen-olive-hansen-1916-1990
“Police Launch Search for Lost Motorist.” The Salt Lake Tribune, September 20, 1947.
“Search Begins For Missing Utahn.” The Ogden Standard Examiner, September 20, 1947
