Helen Brown
Helen Brown died peacefully, with family at her side, on December 23 at Harbor House Rehabilitation and Nursing Center in Hingham. She was 95.
She was born, Helen Virginia Yergin, on October 14, 1917, in St. Louis, Missouri, the third eldest of four sisters and two brothers. Her family soon moved to the Bronx, New York, where she was raised. Helen’s father, Rev. Howard V. Yergin, was minister of the Church of the Covenant, Presbyterian, in Manhattan, where her mother, Ida Flohr Yergin, was a soloist in the choir.
A few years after graduation from Wooster College in Ohio, Helen married another Wooster graduate, Lowell Brown. They first lived in New York City while Lowell completed his medical education, then moved to Boston, where Lowell continued his training at the Lahey Clinic. They then settled on the south shore of Long Island, New York, first in Oceanside and then Baldwin, where they raised their three boys, Bob, Jim, and Ken.
Following Lowell’s retirement in 1981, they moved to Charlottesville, Virginia, where Helen continued to live for many years following Lowell’s death in 1987. In 2004, as symptoms of Alzheimer’s Disease became more apparent, she moved to the Allerton House assisted living facility in Hingham, where she stayed until 2011, then moving to the Reminiscence memory care floor of Sunrise Senior Living in Cohasset. Helen lived the last several months of her life at Harbor House in Hingham, also receiving care from NVNA (Norwell Visiting Nurse) and Hospice. Her family is deeply grateful for all of Helen’s kind and skilled caregivers over these years.
Helen’s love of her family and of her many dear friends was at the heart of her life. She claimed it was easy to raise boys, and was unwaveringly supportive of her sons. As a grandmother to her eight grandchildren she seemed to have a never-ending supply of time and patience – and of course love and kindness – whether playing card games or attending school events.
Helen also made time for volunteering in various ways over the years: assisting the Association for the Help of Retarded Children, tutoring children in reading, helping in an adult literacy program, or working as a hospital volunteer. She was an ardent supporter of peace, whether as a member of Another Mother for Peace during the Vietnam War, or with Lowell helping to write and edit the newsletter for the Charlottesville chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility. Even in later years she often wore her Another Mother for Peace pendant with their slogan “War is not healthy for children and other living things.”
Helen was an avid and fine tennis player (into her 80s) and golfer (into her 90s), and as long as she was able she enjoyed a brisk walk, especially on a beach. She was a kind, compassionate, and generous woman, and had a great sense of humor that never deserted her. Even with body and mind weakened by Alzheimer’s Disease, her light shone for all who knew her.
In addition to her husband, she was pre-deceased by three of her siblings. She is survived by her sister Alice Zacchera of Avon, CT and brother Paul Yergin of Tucson, AZ, and sister-in-law Martha Yergin of Vero Beach, FL; her son Ken Read-Brown and his wife Susan of Hingham, MA; her son Jim Brown and his wife Carol of Sarasota, FL; her son Bob Brown and his wife Martha of Denver, CO; as well as eight grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
A service in celebration of Helen’s life will be held on Saturday, January 19, at 1:00 p.m., at the First Parish in Hingham (Old Ship Church), 90 Main Street, where Helen had been a member since 2004.
In lieu of flowers, gifts may be made “in memory of Helen Brown” to Campus of Caring, PO Box 323, Norwell, MA 02061. (Campus of Caring is in partnership with NVNA and Hospice, creating a new hospice residence at the former New England Friends Home in Hingham.)