Jan. 24, 1941-Nov. 6, 2022
It was 1968 and Helen and I were graduate students at the University of Wisconsin. We had married. In 1964 and, to my knowledge, Helen was a committed academic. We were attending a ballet performance of a major ballet company. Briefly, I looked over at Helen only to see tears streaming down her cheeks.
Those tears were the evidence of a mentally taxing and gut-wrenching decision she had made in the early 1960s — to give up the ballet aspirations she had held since her pre-teen years. Against all odds, Helen, along with her sister Avis and her brother Edward (both of whom are now deceased) had sacrificed everything to keep Helen at the Houston Ballet Foundation at which she had a scholarship. No assistance was forthcoming from Helen’s father as her mother and father were divorced. Helen’s love of ballet knew no limits. She had immersed herself in the history of ballet and studied countless. historical photographs of great dancers just to absorb the details of a single movement. Remarkably, Helen was one of the two students who tied for the valedictorian of her high school class as she studied academically by flashlight nightly on the very long drive from the Ballet Foundation to her home.
Nevertheless, by the time she reached college age, while working as a secretary, the goal seemed. Insurmountable. Lacking support, as well, from the man she was dating, Helen felt she had no choice but to give up dance — a decision which was psychologically devastating — more than she realized.
All that history had been unknown to me. Her tears were the eruption of the sadness and regret for the path not taken — for the renunciation of the high behest that had characterized her earlier years. When I understood it broke my heart. It broke my heart. Aristotle said that nothing that exists by nature can long be suppressed but that it will emerge in some form or fashion — and Helen was born to dance.
This event was the turning point in our life together. Helen committed herself to resuming her ballet aspirations, even though critical dancer time had been lost; and I committed myself to helping her attain her ideal.
By 1972 Helen had already traveled twice to Canada to study dance at the Banff School of Fine Arts, now called the Banff Centre. The first year she had the honor of attending a class taught by the famed teacher of Margo Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev, Vera Volkova. The effort of renewal was physically and mentally demanding but Helen persevered, and, with the help of many gifted teachers, Helen was accepted into the Canadian Ballet Horizons Company in 1974. That acceptance initiated our move from Houston to Vancouver in British Columbia. When that company moved to Germany, Helen danced with the Prism Dance Theatre — a classically based but a more modern dance company in Vancouver.
Helen’s love of ballet matured when she became a teacher of ballet for adults. Many young men and women had always wanted to dance and Helen was there for them. For 30 years she taught two generations of dance lovers in Vancouver. Most of them became her personal friends. Helen taught with authority and compassion, and her role as teacher never interfered with her friendships.
Helen’s interests were multidimensional. She was an ardent hiker. Together we hiked all over Northern B.C. and into Western Alberta — always looking for grizzly bears, Helen’s favorite animal. She was a devoted environmentalist and a passionate advocate for animal rights.
In 1995, on a vacation trip from Canada to see the Cascade Loop, we found the Methow Valley and fell in love with the land and people near Winthrop and Mazama. We bought land with the hope of building someday. That day came in 2013 when we built our first home on the land we loved.
Helen’s talents and accomplishments were many, but they pale in comparison to her state of being. Modesty, a youthful innocence and purity of heart characterized her entire life. The “sweetness” of her disposition shone through everything she did. Her mother called Helen her ray of sunshine. That sunshine illuminated my life for 58 years. Her memorial remains: the Beauty of Soul which sometimes graces our ordinary lives with a vision of immortality. Helen was, in the words of Mary Baker Eddy in her poem “Christmas Morn:”
“ …a gentle beam of living love,
And deathless life
Truth infinite-so far above
All mortal strife,
Or cruel creed, or earth born taint…”
My dear wife’s gracious form was laid to rest in the Beaver Creek Cemetery in Twisp under the snow of winter. Her memorial stone will be placed in the spring. The love we shared will grace and illumine my life forever.
