Elsie Krum Zahlis

My grandmother's name was Elsie Krum Zahlis. She was the daughter of Phillip and Katherine Krum of Sanger, California. Her parents were German immigrants from the Samara region along the Volga River in Russia. Elsie's family were among the earliest immigrants to Russia following the invitation of Russia’s tsarina Catherine the Great. They immigrated to the United States after many promises of Catherine the Great were revoked. They were a persecuted people.

Elsie Krum was a first generation American, born in 1916 in Sanger California. She lived and died in Fresno, California. She married Johann Sigmund Zahlis, the son of a Latvian preacher, and had three children: Myra, John and Harold. Other than her time at ROHR, she was a supervisor at fruit packing sheds around the Fresno area. She enjoyed baking, searching for old bottles and working with ceramics.

Submitted by Dan Zahlis, August 4, 2017

I have attached a picture of the back of my grandmother's badge. It might add some perspective. I think her reference to B-24's and the fact that she was sitting on the beach with my father around 1942 suggests she was working in Chula Vista, although I don't know that to be true.