Helen was our mother’s younger sister by about five years. Her only sister, who Mother had help raise after the death of their mother. (The David Fleming ‘look,’ and like
another man named Conboy we knew in Portland.) Helen was mentioned in Dad’s diary in a remark “poor Helen”, evidently disappointed in
love. Aunt Helen was a bit of a legendary figure as we were growing up. From pictures of her we knew she was about 5’1” and had red hair. National Geographic subscriptions and
books sent at Christmas also added to our knowledge of her. Later, my daughter Mary and I enjoyed the Eloise books together, which she sent to us. Crates of fruit were a rare treat at Christmas as well. The fruit was carefully divided into quarters for all of us to have a taste of sunshine during the cold winters of the North Country. She was critical of large families and mother felt the hurt of those remarks, I remember. She would often have needlepoint handwork to work on. Her furniture was covered with needlepoint and she gave Naomi, Alice and me red pillows with a needlepoint dog design. Alice had mine while I was overseas and now I have them in my living room.
My understanding is that Mother helped her through her nursing education. Her nursing career took her to Houston Texas, where she was a Nursing Supervisor, if not more than that. Her good friend was Helen Corbett of culinary fame at Neiman Marcus and a cook book author. Many of us benefited by receiving those books and many are treasured in the family.
Another of her friends was a Superintendent of Nursing at a large hospital in Houston , who hosted our Student Body President and me for dinner at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco (I think a gift of Aunt Helen), as we represented Emanuel Hospital School of Nursing at the American Nurses’ Convention in that city in 1950.
In the early 1950s Aunt Helen came to be Nursing Superintendent at Tillamook General Hospital, 25 miles north of Cloverdale, Oregon where our father was pastor at the Nestucca Community Church. Anna remembers the runs to pick her up to come for the weekend to visit the family. She said she came to be near family. When I came to live with the folks when Dale was overseas, I was not hired there as a nurse. I think she was not in favor of hiring family members. The only Emanuel graduate that she had hired was not exemplary in her nursing, she reported.
Aunt Helen was on duty at the hospital when Daddy was brought in with his first heart attack in the spring of 1954. When he went to his heavenly reward later that year, she said that she felt Dad’s passing greater than most of us, because she had known him as a young man.
When Mother moved into Portland in the fall of 1954, Aunt Helen came to Oregon City to be Nursing Administrator at Oregon City Hospital, which was on a bluff overlooking the Willamette River. She had a lovely apartment nearby. We would go to see her, or bring her to Portland for special occasions. At that time I worked at a Salvation Army Hospital and she is in a picture at a Christmas party where we had invited family.
She enjoyed Mary as a baby, but didn’t like her hard wood floors being scuffed up by Mary’s shoes. She made it known to us that having Mary was enough of a family. She also had amber glass dishes, and decorative pieces.
Esther says she took her shopping for lovely clothes when in high school. Oddly enough, I remember her giving me emery boards…no doubt a need she saw in my life.
We moved to Eugene in 1960, about the same time Mother went to Santa Barbara. Then the Georgioffs were good to include her in family events. She asked if she could stay on to be a nanny for them. About the mid 1960s she moved to Mr.Dora, Florida, to be near their brother Gordon (Emerson.) Mother would visit her there and was deeply concerned about her lack of interest in spiritual matters and later her physical condition as she developed stomach cancer. She died before our Mother did and was buried there, I believe.
My understanding is that Mother helped her through her nursing education. Her nursing career took her to Houston Texas, where she was a Nursing Supervisor, if not more than that. Her good friend was Helen Corbett of culinary fame at Neiman Marcus and a cook book author. Many of us benefited by receiving those books and many are treasured in the family.
Another of her friends was a Superintendent of Nursing at a large hospital in Houston , who hosted our Student Body President and me for dinner at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco (I think a gift of Aunt Helen), as we represented Emanuel Hospital School of Nursing at the American Nurses’ Convention in that city in 1950.
In the early 1950s Aunt Helen came to be Nursing Superintendent at Tillamook General Hospital, 25 miles north of Cloverdale, Oregon where our father was pastor at the Nestucca Community Church. Anna remembers the runs to pick her up to come for the weekend to visit the family. She said she came to be near family. When I came to live with the folks when Dale was overseas, I was not hired there as a nurse. I think she was not in favor of hiring family members. The only Emanuel graduate that she had hired was not exemplary in her nursing, she reported.
Aunt Helen was on duty at the hospital when Daddy was brought in with his first heart attack in the spring of 1954. When he went to his heavenly reward later that year, she said that she felt Dad’s passing greater than most of us, because she had known him as a young man.
When Mother moved into Portland in the fall of 1954, Aunt Helen came to Oregon City to be Nursing Administrator at Oregon City Hospital, which was on a bluff overlooking the Willamette River. She had a lovely apartment nearby. We would go to see her, or bring her to Portland for special occasions. At that time I worked at a Salvation Army Hospital and she is in a picture at a Christmas party where we had invited family.
She enjoyed Mary as a baby, but didn’t like her hard wood floors being scuffed up by Mary’s shoes. She made it known to us that having Mary was enough of a family. She also had amber glass dishes, and decorative pieces.
Esther says she took her shopping for lovely clothes when in high school. Oddly enough, I remember her giving me emery boards…no doubt a need she saw in my life.
We moved to Eugene in 1960, about the same time Mother went to Santa Barbara. Then the Georgioffs were good to include her in family events. She asked if she could stay on to be a nanny for them. About the mid 1960s she moved to Mr.Dora, Florida, to be near their brother Gordon (Emerson.) Mother would visit her there and was deeply concerned about her lack of interest in spiritual matters and later her physical condition as she developed stomach cancer. She died before our Mother did and was buried there, I believe.
