The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1896-08-20

among them being some who had known
him when he came to California in 1850
from New Orleans and when he estab-
lished the dry-goods house of Meyer,
Helbing & Co., and subsequently when
he was the leading partner in Helbing,
Strauss & Co. There were many middle
aged people present. Rev. DIR. Voor-
sanger in his sermon spoke of the ripe
age which Mr.. Helbing reaehed-73 years
and alluded to his birth in Munich, to
his coming to the United States with the
la tie Moritz Meyer as the result of the
political agitation in Germany in 1874, and
dwelt on the fact that he was the founder
of the Eureka Benevolent Association, of
which lie was the first president. Rev.
DR.. Voorsanger also spoke of August
Helblng's father. who was court jeweler
to Ludwig 1, K ing of Bavaria. and also of
his mother.
Most of the leading points in Mr. Hell
bing's biography were mentioned. He
reached New York in 1874. and year later
went to New Orleans with Moritz Meyer,
where, year later, they were Joined by
August Wasserman. They engaged in
business in New Orleans, and continued
there until the discovery of gold in Cali
fornia became known. Mr.. Helbing in
1858 married Miss Francisco Koenigsberger,
a niece of Cantor Sulzer of Vienna, He
met with financial reverses in the mining
stock business after he had retired from
the firm of Helbing, Strauss & Co. He
was president of the Peoples Institute
which preceded the Mechanics Institute
In many directions be was active and
useful. Four children survive him, David
A., Carrie, Lille and Jacob A. Helbing.
Is- e. W
sanger, opening the funeral sermon, ito
serve as a lesson to fit into the lives of
others. He was opposed to ostentation.
He was, so far as | knew him, a man of
eminentlv retiring disposition, and his
chief Joy was in his home which his
character and love had made so beautiful.
He would have taught that the ostenta-
ton and extravagan ce which SO often
mark the last services for the dead
would be better replaced by gold pieces
for the poor. The true offerings of the
living to the dead are not floral pieces but
tears.
at would not be proper for me to stand
here to-day, in view of his character,
merely to speak words of eu!ogv over
friend without enforcing the lesson of his
life. He was one of the gifted of God;
one whose greatest endowment was his
character, which we have so much ad-
mired. He came from the country which
has given the United States so much of
good, and one of the most important at
tributes of that people is obedience to the
law. He was reared in a land where his
surroundings gave him high conception
of duty. His father was the favored COM
panion of princes. His mother possessed
high, character, and one of the lessons
she taught him was liberty, that lesson
which has always been IN the hearts of
Israelltes.
THAT spirit of liberty abided in Prussia
during the hateful days when August
Helbing was young man, and with that
spirit in him he came to America. When
new commonwealth was created of Cali
fQrnia he became great man, for the
goodness of his character was better than
the shrewdness of the mind which enabled
others to amass money. He saw the
necessity for good government for the
commonwealth. and he did good work.
He took from the incoming ships bring
ing emigrants the sick and the poor to
his own room and to the rooms OF his
friends and cared for them, exem plifying
the highest form of religion. This is
historical day, for it marks the passing
away of one who was the founder OF one
of the most remarkable societies
ever organized in the United States,
the Eureka Benevolent Association, which
starting with membership of thirteen in
a Kearny street room in the sos has now
1000 members, with funds amounting to
5000, 600 and with an expenditure of from
$40, 600 to $25, 900 per annum. No one
could fail to see that his life taught the