Born in Alliance, Nebraska, and raised on her parent’s farm, Helen attended Greeley State Teachers College, and returned to Alliance to teach in a one room school house on the plains of Nebraska. A young county agent named Irvin Lemon noticed the attractive young teacher, and after an appropriate mid-western courtship, they were married in 1939.
The Second World War saw Irvin trained as a ship radio operator and deployed to the South Pacific. Helen followed him to the different training sites, and then waited in southern California for his return.
After the war, Helen and Irvin settled in Los Angeles where they raised three sons, Stephen, David, and Gary. Irvin worked primarily as a radio technician for TWA, but his second job with Mutual of Omaha eventually grew into a second career. In 1959 Helen and Irvin moved the family to Bethesda, Maryland, where Irvin worked as an executive in a division of Mutual of Omaha.
In 1970, when faced with the prospect of a corporate move back to Nebraska, Helen and Irvin decided instead to return to southern California where they eventually settled in San Clemente.
Irvin died in 2011 at age 97, after 72 years with Helen. Helen died peacefully on December 29, 2019, at age 101 after a remarkably long life that saw many changes in the world. Never, in all of those years, did she have anything negative to say about anyone…an enviable history.
Helen is survived by her three sons, Stephen, David, and Gary, and by six grandchildren and two great grandchildren. The family thanks the staff at Sunrise Senior Living in Los Alamitos for their kind and loving care of both our mother and our father.