Helen Orinick 1923-2010

My mother was the seventh child of Matthew and Anna.  I already posted a blog about her, so I won't repeat it now.  After my mom, there were a set of twins born who died.  I am not sure whether they were stillborn or died after birth, but as far as I know they did not live to a year old.  There was a story of Anna being kicked by a cow during a pregnancy, so this may be how the twins died.  However, Anna got pregnant again soon and Helen was born, 10th child, 8th living child, and 6th daughter.

I don't know if she had any other jobs before this, but Helen worked as a bookkeeper for Walter Kidde Company in Belleville, NJ for about 30 years.  She never married and I don't remember ever meeting any of her boyfriends.  I think she had at least one serious disappointment in men.  As long as I can remember, she shared an apartment with her younger sister Lillian.  When I was growing up they lived in Kearney, NJ.  Around the late 1950's, their brother Bill found an old revolutionary war era house that he wanted to buy.  He wanted to convert it to a 2 family home and rent the other half, but didn't have enough money to buy it on his own.  Helen and Lil put up part of the money for the house and they became joint owners.  Years later, when Bill wanted to move to Florida, Helen and Lil bought his share of the house as well.

Helen visited our house every Sunday we were home.  She would come for Sunday dinner and a card or board game afterwords.  Sometimes Lil would come with her, but I think Lil went to Pennsylvania more often. On weekends when we went to Pennsylvania to visit the family, she and Lil would often be there too.   I have many fond memories of time spent with my dear aunts.   Helen liked to discuss politics and current events and life in general.  She often engaged me in these conversations, even though I was only a young girl.  My mother would sometimes get upset with our "discussions"  because she thought we were arguing, but she didn't understand.   Helen was passionate in her opinions and tended to yell to make her point, but for some reason this never bothered me.   I never took it personally - it was just a debate.   Looking back, most of my mother's brother's and sisters tended to yell, except for my mother.  I don't know why Mom was different, but I understand that when you live in a house with your parents and 9 siblings, you probably learn that you need to yell to be heard.

Helen showed us in so many other ways that she loved us.  Although she never had children of her own, she always spent a lot of time with the children in the family.  When we were on the farm in Pennsylvania, and most of the adults were at the local tavern for the evening, Helen & Lil stayed with my cousins and me.  When my cousins had their children, Helen looked after them too.  She spent her life trying to help the children of the family, and gravitated towards the ones who needed her the most.

Helen and Lil moved to the Edison house after they retired.  They rented the 2 apartments in the main house and lived in the little cottage in the back, taking care of each other as always,  until about 2007.  By then they couldn't keep up the maintenance and both were suffering from the effects of age.  Lil went into a nursing home and Helen went to live with relatives in Pennsylvania.  She kept her mental capacities right to the end, and enjoyed rolling her wheelchair out to where she could see her nephew's grandchild playing outside.  Although she was stubborn and did not want to leave Edison, I think she was happy in her last years.  My beloved Aunt Helen died 12 days ago.  We went to Pennsylvania for the funeral and saw her laid to rest next to her sisters Mary and Margaret, at St Tikhon's Russian Orthodox Cemetery.