- Date Of Birth: April 6, 1922
- Date Of Death: September 8, 2022
- State: New Mexico
Ken Littell, aka “Mr. L” and “Wheelo”, passed away at the tender age of 100 on September 8, 2022. Ken was born on a kitchen table in Grenola, Kansas on April 6, 1922, and was raised in southern Indiana. After enlisting in the Navy at the beginning of World War II and attending basic training in Illinois, he found himself in Colorado Springs, where he met the love of his life and his future wife, Mary Desmond, at a roller rink in Manitou Springs. They knew each other for a mere two weeks before they became engaged, and without her parents’ consent, they eloped in 1943 before he headed off to war. Their love story lasted until Mary’s untimely death in 1989. After returning from the war, three children were born to this blessed union, Jim (Kaylene), Janice (Dave), and Barbi (Dave). Ken’s job as inside sales manager for a steel company brought the family to Albuquerque in 1959, and they never looked back. Ken was a surrogate father to hundreds of children as the director of the Little Wheels, a unicycle group that performed all over the Southwest for 30+ years at hospitals, orphanages, and anywhere there were disadvantaged, underserved populations. He was a clown and magician with the Elks Clown Unit, and the unicycle group + clown group was a wonderful marriage. Ken could be seen any night of the week in his living room adding spokes to a rim for a new unicycle, or in the garage, building a new magic act. Ken was a dedicated member of the Elks and served as Exalted Ruler at the Albuquerque BPOE Lodge #461 for the years 1977-1978, where he is fondly remembered by the employees as a supportive and caring soul.
