My post today is a bit long and a bit sad because our community has suffered a great loss.
On Wednesday evening, Helen George, a fellow Junior League member and more importantly a community advocate, a friend, and a mentor passed away and she will be deeply missed by many of us that knew her.
I first met Helen at a Junior League event about 8 years ago and at that time she would have been in her 90's. What immediately comes to mind when I think of Helen, is her graciousness. During visits we had at the Glen Eddy and more recently at Kingsway Manor, Helen told me such wonderful stories and gave such insightful advice. I remember after an event, I stopped over to drop off one of the centerpieces because she was so helpful to me and she invited me in (even though I hadn't phoned first) and proceeded to tell me about her time with the League and how much she enjoyed it.
Often, it seemed that when I visited, I was asking for her support for something I was involved in and she was always welcoming and also so very humble. When I stopped over to visit and asked her to be the honorary chairperson for the Junior League of Schenectady's 75th Anniversary celebration, her response was "of course dear, but don't you think there is someone more important you want to ask?" When I asked Helen to be the Honorary Co-Chair for Family & Child Service of Schenectady's 80th Anniversary celebration with Congressman Paul D. Tonko, she said "of course dear but are you sure Paul doesn't want someone more important?" And earlier this year when I asked her to become the Honorary Chairperson for the Junior League of Schenectady and Saratoga Counties 80th Anniversary (to be held on May 4, 2012), her response was "of course dear but are you sure there isn't someone more important." There was never anyone more important than Helen!
Helen came to the League in 1934 as a transfer from Youngstown, Ohio. She told me stories about how back then you were required to volunteer at Family & Child Service of Schenectady (an organization that was founded by the Junior League) and how that volunteer experience led to her commitment to not only the Junior League and Family & Child Service but to the entire community. We talked about how her volunteering at Family & Child Service led to a paid position and then a position on their Board of Directors. A supporter to the end, Helen recently joined the honorary committee for Family & Child Services September 16 Golf Ball Drop.
Helen served as President of the Junior League twice, serving in that capacity in 1946-48 and 1951-1952. During her tenure as president of the League, the League assisted in establishing the Cerebral Palsy School at Pleasant Valley School, in addition to volunteering and organizing at the School, the League donated nearly $30,000 to the School between 1947 and 1956. In 1948 the Junior League established the Next-to-New Shop which was the source of funding for many Junior League initiatives. The Junior League is better because of Helen's commitment throughout the years.
As I was recently completing my second term as President of the Junior League, my sustainer advisor Barbara Piper and I planned a sustainer cocktail party at Kingsway Manor in honor of Helen. This event was held on June 23, 2011 and more than 40 Junior League members were in attendance to pay tribute to Helen for her years of service and commitment. It was a wonderful event and I am so completely honored to have known this amazing woman and feel so grateful to her for spending time with me and for giving me guidance. The day after event, Helen, gracious as always, called to thank me for arranging the event and then proceeded to dictate a note that she wanted placed in our next newsletter to thank every one that attended.
Helen (second from the left) with other Junior League sustaining members.
Helen leaves behind her a legacy of spirit, humor, kindness and commitment. I am a better person because I knew her. Thank you Helen.
Longtime community icon Helen George dies
SCHENECTADY — Even in her final days, Helen W. George was thinking of others.
The longtime community volunteer, who died Wednesday night at the Kingsway Community nursing center in Schenectady, met friends earlier in the week.
“Her daughter Betty Jane knew what was coming and said while Helen certainly wasn’t up for long visits, she thought that perhaps she could do little five-minute visits from people who just wanted to say thank you,” said Denise Murphy McGraw, a past president of the Junior League. “They were people from many walks of her life, Family and Child Services, which she helped found, people like me who knew her from the Junior League. ... Just that gesture alone by Betty Jane, I think, meant the world to many of us.”
George, who also covered Schenectady’s social scene as “Gretchen Dorp” for the Schenectady Gazette, was 99. Funeral arrangements by the Baxter-Andrew Funeral Home in Schenectady are pending.
Friends remembered a woman who always seemed to be thinking about her community.
“She kept a scrapbook of everything she’d ever written, and years after she retired, she would call when somebody who had lived in Schenectady, worked at G.E. and had become socially prominent — she knew them all, she had contacts everywhere — she would call me right away when they passed on,” said John E.N. Hume III, editor and publisher of The Daily Gazette. “I can’t tell you how helpful that was, because it gave us time to actually get to work on a nice obit.”
Hume remembered a vibrant personality. “She just seemed to know everybody, and she was very outgoing,” he said. “She was lovely, very personable. ... She was one of these people who everybody liked.”
George kept a busy volunteer schedule. She was associated with the Junior League, Ellis Hospital, the Boys and Girls Clubs of Schenectady, the Day Nursery, United Way, First Presbyterian Church and the Garden Club of Schenectady. During World War II, she worked on a communication network and helped rally people for victory gardens and salvage drives.
George was society editor at the Schenectady Gazette from 1950 until 1976 and also worked in real estate with Veronica Lynch. She was named a Schenectady Patroon in 1991; the Human Services Planning Council gave her the Katherine S. Rozendaal Award in 1987.
Always involved
Karen B. Johnson was the mayor who gave George her “Patroon” honor, which coincided with George’s 80th birthday.
“Helen had a large group of multi-age friends,” said Johnson, now director of planned giving at Proctors. “She was just a lovely, gracious person, very thoughtful, very committed to the community.” George was always happy to help. “When I worked on the last Proctors Capital Campaign, she was extremely helpful to me, sitting down and talking about people that were involved in the early days of Proctors,” Johnson said. “She’d write Philip (Morris, Proctors’ chief executive officer) notes about something she read about the theater and how excited she was about it, even in the last year.”
During her newspaper days, George seemed to know what was happening all over —— in living rooms, country club and hotel ballrooms, college campuses and airports. Luncheon, coffee and bridge parties, visitors to Schenectady, vacation departures, marriage announcements, bridal showers and academic accomplishments were among news items in Gretchen Dorp’s “Social Notes” columns.
George remembered her work as “Gretchen” in a 1995 interview with The Daily Gazette.
“An awful lot went on in Schenectady in the way of parties, dances, things that are really curtailed now,” she said. “I used to have the pleasure of writing about those things. They were happy, happy happenings, and I used to write about their bridge clubs and their book clubs and when they went to Europe and when their kids got married and they had rehearsal dinners. Now you don’t see any of that in the paper any more.”
The newspaper retired the column when George retired in 1976. George said the paper had changed, but believed people had changed, too — she thought many wanted to keep their vacations and social exercises private.
Debby Mullaney of Niskayuna, like George a past president of the Junior League, thinks Schenectady will miss George’s giving spirit.
“I think that we have lost one of the biggest supporters of the Schenectady not-for-profit community,” she said. “She was always there to help. She was a mentor to women in our community, she was a very special friend of many of us in the not-for-profit sector.
“She gave tirelessly. Even in her advanced years, if you had any questions about how to run a fundraiser, who to involve in a fundraiser, Helen was the first one you wanted to talk to. She had just a wealth of information.”
Niskayuna attorney and former Schenectady County Legislator Cristine Cioffi was 16 when she met George. “She gave me my first job, and it was at the Gazette,” she said. “I was her summer substitute writer, so when she went out of town, I made all those phone calls, found out who was having weddings or baptisms or parties and wrote the column for her.”
Cioffi described George as a citizen who stepped up to volunteer her time wherever it was needed.
“When she saw the need, she did it,” Cioffi said. George tried to get others interested in community work.
“There’s so much to do, and if anybody has the energy and the desire, there are many volunteer jobs they can do in hospitals,” she said in the 1995 Gazette interview.
She also talked about playing the piano.
“I’m going to do that in the next world,” she said. “That and figure skate and Rollerblade. It looks like such fun.”
