Bio: Georgas, Elmer/Edna (Retires - 1974)

Contact: Dolores (Mohr) Kenyon
E-mail: dolores@wiclarkcountyhistory.org 

Surnames: Georgas, Gesche, Swarthout, Schiller, Jaster, Bruley, Wasserburger, Skibinski

----Source: Clark County Press (Neillsville, Clark Co., WI) 12/26/1974

Georgas, Elmer/Edna (Retires -1974)

After 29 years in business in Neillsville, Elmer and Edna Georgas are retiring effective January 1, 1975. On that date, Lowell and Jan Gesche will take over operation of the Georgas Funeral Home on Fourth St., and the Georgas’s will be free to make plans of their own with some degree of certainty.

Nevertheless, Mr. and Mrs. Georgas will be on hand to help out at the funeral home as needed. In the future, however, their main interests will be fishing and woodworking for him and gardening and golfing for her.

For Elmer Georgas, a Clark County native (just barely) and 1931 graduate of Spencer High School, a career as a funeral director was no radical departure from family tradition for his parents were funeral directors in Spencer. Presently, his mother and stepfather, Mr. and Mrs. B.C. Swarthout, make their home there.

Following his high school graduation, he attended the University of Minnesota School of Embalming and graduated from the course in 1932. He was employed in Sparta and Stevens Point before coming to Neillsville in 1937 to work at the Schiller Funeral Home.

Mr. Georgas served in the Navy from 1942 until fall of 1945 and purchased the Arthur Jaster Funeral Home in Neillsville in 1946 shortly after his discharge.

Mrs. Georgas was born and raised in the Neillsville area and graduated from Neillsville High School. She worked at the Bruley Elevator (now Van Gorden’s), for the Charles Wasserburger Company and for 13 years at the Clark County Agency. She, too, holds a funeral director’s license, and has spent many years working together with her husband.

The Gesche’s’ have been associated with the Georgas’s for the past 11 years. He attended the Wisconsin School of Mortuary Science in Milwaukee and was employed at a funeral home in Elmwood before coming to Neillsville. Mrs. Gesche is the former Jan Skibinski of Milwaukee.