Helen E. Boyd
.Helen Elizabeth “Bettye” Boyd died Monday, May 16, 2011, in the care of Magnolia Gardens.
Born Nov. 8, 1915, in Iowa, to Edmund G. and Helen Frances Schutz, she spent her school years in Chicago. With her marriage in May 1937 to John Bedford Boyd, DDS, she began family life downstate, until her husband’s death in 1955. She resumed full-time work in January 1956, first in Springfield Ill., and subsequently in South Bend, Ind., where her daughter Judith Kelley was living with Schutz grandparents. In 1957, she moved to Chicago and began employment with AAA-Chicago Motor Club, which brought her into the world of travel, a major outside interest for many years, replaced by genealogic searches during first years of retirement.
In 1965 a Kelley baby began Ms. Boyd’s grandmother phase, without interruption of interesting trips, domestic and abroad. Following her retirement in 1980, she made the first of two “round-the-world” trips. In 1982 she moved to back to South Bend, and in 1996 began life in North Carolina, first in Pittsboro, then in several assisted living facilities in the Sandhills.
She was preceded in death by two brothers, Charles E. and John J. She is survived by her daughters, Lucinda Boyd, of Knollwood Village, and Judith Kelley (Robert A.), of Pinewild; sister, Barbara Kuhny, of South Bend; two granddaughters and their families, Robin K. Tingley (Kevin) and sons, Aaron Robert, Patrick Sheridan and Brendan Boyd, and Alyson K. Harber (Eric) and children, Ryan A., Serena Elizabeth and Joanna Kelley; eight nieces and nephews; nine great-nieces and nephews; and two nonagenarian Schutz cousins and many younger cousins.
Ms. Boyd’s ashes will be interred in the John B. Boyd plot at Union Ridge Cemetery in White County, Ill. A private family service is planned with Schutz relatives later in the summer.
Memorial donations may be made to First Health Hospice Services, 155 Applecross Road, Pinehurst, NC 28374.