Helen Agnes (Reynolds) Elben (2021)

ELBEN, HOULETTE, REYNOLDS

Posted By: Pat Hochstetler
Date: 11/8/2023 at 18:04:38

Kale Funeral Home
Osceola, Iowa

Helen had a very active and busy life. Helen started life out in a unique manner in the fact that she was born in the same house as her dad. It was on a cold day about 6 miles northeast of New Virginia on January 5, 1924. Her parents were Harry and Rebecca Reynolds, her dad a farmer and mother a schoolteacher.

Helen attended a one room country school (Big Rock) located in the area where she was born for a few years before graduating from New Virginia High School in 1941. It is the family's understanding that she knew about Truro in her high school days, as one day Helen and some of her girlfriends decided to skip school. Where did they go?

They walked from New Virginia to Truro. Their feet were so sore that they all pooled their money to buy tickets to ride the train back to New Virginia. She went home just knowing she was in trouble for playing "hooky" and we never asked any more questions.

After graduation, Helen completed classes at Thompson Beauty School in Des Moines enabling her to become a licensed beautician. In May of 1942 she married Doyle Houlette, a classmate. Shortly thereafter he was drafted into the Army and Helen went to live with him while he was in the states. She returned to New Virginia while he was stationed in Guam for 18 months. Upon his return, they lived in New Virginia for a short time before moving to Indianola for 7-8 years. They returned to New Virginia in 1954 and Helen opened her own beauty shop located in the same spot as Missy Daniel's shop is today.

Helen has always been a very healthy and active person. One would never know she contracted Rheumatic fever in her early teens and polio in 1953. She overcame polio and was able to return to her normal activities. However, just a few years later she lost her husband, Doyle, to cancer in August 1961.

To know Helen was to know a person who very seldom told anyone no, who had a spirit of never giving up and being able to do whatever she set her mind to do. Evidence of that is she learned to drive at age 37 and in 1963 she began a new career. She became the secretary for Ken Johnson at the New Virginia Junior High center, of I-35 Community School District. It was at this time Roy Elben, the band director of Interstate 35 who was a widower, noticed Helen and started taking up some of her time. In June of 1965, they were married, and she then became a permanent resident of Truro, living in the same house for 55 years. In the mid 70's Roy resigned as band director and went to work for Riemann Music and in 1978 she resigned her job at I-35 to work with Roy at Riemann Music as well as work part-time at People's Bank in Martensdale.

Once again misfortune struck. Roy died of a heart attack on Dec. 19, 1978. Helen continued working at the bank until late summer of 1979 when she was then hired as I-35 High School secretary at Truro where she worked until retirement in 1988 completing 25 years of service to the school district. She continued to do volunteer work for the district several more years.

After Helen retired it was apparent, she never looked back, and her kids felt like you almost needed to make an appointment to see her until her health started to decline at age 92.

Helen traveled all 50 states as well as many foreign countries with various tour groups, meeting and making many new friends. One of her favorite tour partners and long-time friend was Jeanne Minard. Usually when you saw one you saw the other. Their favorite travel place together was Branson, Missouri where they went for 20 years, with Helen behind the wheel. Their agenda was to see a show morning, afternoon, and night and maybe in-between.

Her activities centered around the Methodist Church and the Truro Library. If a dinner was required at the Methodist Church, she was very much involved in buying the food, preparing the food, lining up workers and cleaning up along with many other things. The Truro Library, where she was president of the board for 25 years, kept her very busy as well. Often, she would spend her time there filling in for the Librarian along with the many hours she spent making sure the library was able to stay open for the public.

Other activities she was involved with were Eastern Star, Madison County Historical Society in Winterset, working in the Madison County Tourism booth at the Iowa State Fair, the Madison-Warren Ecumenical Ministerial Association, New Virginia Alumni where she was treasurer for several years, posting messages on the big yellow sign in Truro, election board, picking up mail and delivering it to others who were unable to get out and again other jobs we're not sure of.

Along with her many activities, one she really enjoyed was attending the Iowa State women’s basketball games with her daughter, Linda and her husband, Larry for several years. Often packing Simmons sandwiches so as not to be late for the tip off.

Something that she liked to do to stay fit and active was walk. Someone stopped and asked her if she had a car because they would always see her walking. She put many miles on her car for others and took great pride in having her car clean and ready to go. Other things on her "to do" list were mowing her own yard, painting her house, and maintaining her garden and flowers. To find any dust or a cobweb in her house was rare as she wanted a clean house.

In 1990, she was awarded by the Governor, the Iowa Volunteer Hall of Fame Award as the Madison County representative so you can see Helen was a very busy and a dedicated servant to the citizens of Truro and surrounding area and yet had time to spend with her family.

Despite all her activities, her family was the most important to her and she adored them all. She provided Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter dinner for her immediate family for 50 years until health limited her ability to do it. She never forgot a family birthday or anniversary with a card with a little something tucked in (money) and sometimes for no reason she gave a small monetary gift. Her focus was not herself but others. If she complained about something, you had better listen because complaining was something very seldom heard even these past few months. Her grandsons, and her great-granddaughters were very important to her, and she liked to keep up on their activities.