HELEN SEELYE'S LIFE PARALLELED ABILENE'S HISTORY
Abilene has lost the last living descendant of one of its most prominent families at the turn of the century and the daughter of a man who made a fortune selling his home-made patent medicines.
Helen R. Seelye was 95 when she died Sunday at St. John's Hospital in Salina. She had been bedridden for about a year.
Miss Seelye and her sister, Marion, who died in 1988, were the daughters of A.B. Seelye, who founded the A.B. Seelye Medical Company in the 1890s.
''The family actually came here in 1890, making the patent medicine in the mother's kitchen," said Terry Tietjens, who in 1982 bought what is now known as the Seelye Mansion.
By 1900, Seelye's company was producing more than 100 medicines, from cure-alls which contained about half alcohol to a salve designed to heal open sores.
A.B. Seelye's company was at one time the largest employer in Abilene, Tietjens said, marketing its products in 14 states. It was the largest supplier in the Midwest during the height of its reign over the patent medicine industry.
Miss Seelye and her sister had lived with their parents in Seelye Mansion at 1105 Buckeye since the house was built in 1905. Miss Seelye was Abilene's longest continuous resident.
''Her death was not unexpected, she has been ill for some time, but we will all miss her," Tietjens said.
The huge mansion with its dozens of rooms and three-story pillars catches the eye of newcomers passing through on Abilene's main thoroughfare and was an unmistakable landmark for everyone who lived in the town.
But in the '60s and '70s, the Seelye sisters gradually grew too frail to care for the mansion. A fire nearly destroyed it in 1981. An overgrown yard and peeling paint pointed to the decline of the house's owners.
Then in February 1982, brothers Terry and Jerry Tietjens talked the sisters into letting them buy the home. They formed an agreement allowing Miss Seelye and her sister to live in the house until their deaths while the brothers returned the house to its original grandeur.
Today, the restored house is open to tours. It is on the state and national registries of historic places.
Miss Seelye, known as a staunch Republican, was a friend of Alf Landon's. His daughter Nancy Kassebaum is one of Kansas' U.S. senators. Miss Seelye worked on Landon's presidential campaign in 1936.
Miss Seelye was the former director of the Abilene Chapter of the American Red Cross. She was a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution and had traced her family to the country's earliest settlers.
A service is planned for 10:30 a.m. Wednesday at the Seelye Mansion.
Miss Seelye's only survivor was Terry Tietjens, whom she listed as her grandson. Memorials have been established with First Presbyterian Church and Dickinson County Historical Society. Martin-Becker-Carls on Funeral Home is handling arrangements.
Published in The Wichita Eagle (KS) on January 28, 1992
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