|
Helen was the oldest girl in the family, following four boys. She was born on May 23rd, 1933 in Nevada Gulch South
Dakota---just outside Lead. She was born after a major storm and the doctor came from Lead on his horse to deliver her.
Her father nearly drowned getting back to the house with the doctor he had gone to procure. He slipped into the raging
stream and was carried a good distance downstream before he was able to get back out. Helen went away to boarding school
for the first three years of her high school---first in Boulder Colorado, then Spearfish, South Dakota and then in Morris
Illinois. She missed a year while she worked so she graduated with Katie's class from St. Pat's High School in Lead. She
married Bob Hoke who was in the Air Force and when his time was up they returned to his home in Plevna Montana. They
raised their eight children there and Helen took on such things as running a restaurant (baking the most delicious cinnamon
rolls every morning). She had a radio program for a time and sewed a lot. Bob had Type I diabetes--though he only
discovered it when he was about 30, and he died from the effects of it at age 46. Helen still had six of the eight kids to
raise and she took a job with New York Life Insurance Company with whom she moved to Salem Oregon. She continued to sell
insurance until retiring in 1999. By this time she had been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, had married Bob Hollen
and moved to Stayton Oregon. She suffered all the symptoms of Parkinson's and in the last years was cared for by a
wonderfully devoted husband/caretaker. She died on March 24th, 2008. [Kate (Frost) Linehan]
|
