Maintenance Week and Helen

 

Dogs go to the vet for checkups and borditello vaccinations on Friday. 

Tony, the small-engine repair wizard came yesterday, worked on lawnmowers and took Bill's chainsaw in for repair. 

This morning Steve, the farrier, will come to trim hooves and put some front shoes on Lily.

It's truly maintenance week here at the Lovestead.

And, when it ends, we'll be ready to go for the rest of the spring and summer.   

https://www.lakeviewfuneral.com/obituaries/Helen-Newton?obId=42286861

I lost my blog editor and best friend Friday. 

Skip Newton, his daughters, Laurie and Pam, grandchildren and great-grandchildren lost their beloved family matriarch. 

A multitude of people will tell you they now have a hole in their heart after learning the loss of this wonderful and caring friend. 

Sandpoint, Idaho, lost an anchor and a powerful voice of conscience. 

This has been an especially sad few days, especially because Bill and I visited with Helen via phone just last Wednesday shortly after she returned from Coeur d'Alene where she had undergone a heart procedure.  

She was ready to move on with life. 

Helen wasted no time getting back into gear, reading her news and exchanging emails and texts to friends. 

Sadly, she passed away Friday morning, apparently from some unforeseen complications. 

My first thought which I shared with my family:  I will never ever get to talk to Helen again. 

It's a tough habit to break, as we usually talked over the phone several times a week for decades. 

And, we often laughed ourselves silly while sharing our respective bits of news.  

Oh, how I will miss that!

Everyone who considered Helen her best friend will go down their list as to why they appreciated her so. She genuinely cared about each and every one of her friends and put her whole heart and soul into their needs at any given time. 

She cared about Sandpoint and did her best via letters, op eds or oral testimony to encourage the powers that be to maintain the wonderful sense of community in the town where she grew up. 

There was so much more to Helen Newton than her obituary reveals.  I have a very strong feeling that she saw to it that there would be no flair in her life story---just the facts, as with any good journalist.  

Helen and I shared many experiences, including the fact that, at different times, we both worked as stringers/correspondents for the Spokane daily newspapers.

So, it was no brainer to ask her to be my editor when I started this blog 20 years ago. 

There was a common understanding between us that if I didn't have the blog posted by 8 a.m. sharp, I would receive an email or telephone call from Helen.

"Is everything okay out there?" she would ask.  In fact, that very scenario happened just a couple of weeks ago when I had finished the blog entry early and went on to some other computer related items. 

I noticed a text message flash on my iPhone:  is everything okay out there?

"Oops!" I said out loud and wasted no time posting the blog entry, albeit eight minutes late. 

This morning, I'll step in for Helen and ask, "Is everything okay out there?"

"No, Helen, it's not, with your absence, but with the spirit of your strong influence and amazing example, I'll soldier on, and every single day that I do, you will be so missed. 

RIP, dear friend. 

And, much love to Skip, Laurie, Pam and family.

One final item:  Helen, since there's much more to know about you than what I read in the obituary, I'm supplying an addendum today, which I wrote a few years back while nominating you as a Woman of Wisdom in Sandpoint. 

Hopefully, after reading it, people will know what a treasure you were to our community and its people.

 

Dear WHW Committee Members:

Since the inception of the Women of Wisdom program nearly 20 years ago, my dear friend Helen Newton not only served on the original WHW board but has also spent year after year suggesting and supporting numerous nominees/recipients for the honor. Therefore, I would say it’s past time to turn the tables and choose Helen as one of this year’s recipients.  She is as deserving as they come for this honor, not only with an impressive resume of longtime professional and community service but also as an all-around wonderful and beloved human being.  

Before going any further, I will disclose that she is probably my closest friend and confidante.  She reads my “Slight Detour” blog every morning and sends me a quick note with specifics if corrections are needed.  We also discuss and commiserate several times weekly on a wide array of subjects, including local, regional and national politics, community happenings, family news and just plain fun topics.  Both of us love anything humorous, and I can tell you that we do a lot of laughing while visiting over the phone.

That brings me to what I consider Helen’s most redeeming quality.  In all the decades I’ve known her, I have seldom seen her without a smile, except for at the many funerals she faithfully attends.  She is a positive, upbeat person, endowed with an abundance of genuine and comforting warmth, along with an infectious zest for life.  Add to that the fact that she is a caring, loyal friend to many. From what I have observed over the years, countless people in this community or around the world would enthusiastically agree with me.  Helen’s friends mean everything to her, and, as a friend, she continually demonstrates every meaning of the word, always caring about their well being. 

When we talk about a WOW nominee’s nuts-and-bolts resume, Helen certainly has earned a list of impressive credentials which have contributed toward her abundance of wisdom, common sense and positive leadership.  Over her lifetime, and she has worked at a funeral home, she has submitted stories as a correspondent for a regional newspaper, the Spokane Chronicle.  She served several mayors as Sandpoint’s City Clerk, always watching out for their best interests. Later, as a member of the City Council, she watched out for the best interests of residents served by the City.   She is also a familiar face to hundreds of voters at Community Hall while serving on the county election board.

Helen is a devoted wife, mother of two daughters, grandmother and great-grandmother.  I would say that the longtime team of high school sweethearts, Helen and Skip Newton, has not only been blessed and but have also provided a blessing to this community.  Both are perennial selfless givers to the nth degree, and I’m guessing that they seek nothing in return.  That humanitarian ethic simply stems from their basic fabric as solid, caring citizens and generous human beings.   No doubt, it has also been enhanced by a lifetime devoted to the Methodist faith, which began for Helen as a child growing up on a Selle Valley dairy farm. 

Her roots in this community run deep, and again her loyalty and total enjoyment of all the people who have played a part in her life is always clearly evident.  Last year, Helen served as the general chair for the ALL-‘50s class reunion.  It was a huge job, lasting for several months, but it was obvious she loved every minute of working with and connecting with hundreds of Sandpoint High graduates.  With her meticulous attention to detail, the weekend event went off without a hitch, except maybe for the unseasonable hot weather.  Even that problem did not deter Helen.  She and her crew found a way to provide some last-minute cooling equipment for the fairgrounds main exhibit building.

These days, we often use the phrase “have your back.”  I think just about anyone who knows Helen Newton would be able to share an instance where she’s had their back.  She cares deeply about others, especially the underdogs or those individuals thrust into circumstances where they cannot help themselves.  I personally have been a recipient of her caring nature and have seen her on many occasions extend a helping hand to others through encouragement or tangible help. 

Have I mentioned civic activities?  Helen works hard as a PEO member, often spending hours preparing special informative programs for the meetings, in addition to other responsibilities such as fundraising for scholarships.  She has supported the local museum for a number of years, most recently, helping over the past several months to select and compile the “50 and 100-year history notes” column for the Daily Bee.  She has also served on the hospital board.

Her keen interest in what happens in this community is ongoing and apparent through guest commentaries submitted to local papers, her attendance at meetings or forums which she deems important for gaining a good understanding of issues and her lobbying for causes close to her heart.  Helen’s intelligence, quick thinking and her constant quest to research and parse important facts, numbers and key details is truly incredible.  The same is true about her constant thirst for knowledge and regarding the extensive sources she employs to fully comprehend world, national, regional and local happenings.

For fun, Helen quilts, plays bridge and goes to lunch with friends.  It is obvious to me after seeing the high-quality of her completed quilting projects and while listening to her stories about the people she meets and enjoys through bridge,  that these two activities are very dear to her.  She also enjoys spending time working alongside Skip on projects at their forested acreage southeast of Sandpoint.

In short, as well as I know Helen Newton,  I’m sure that there may be many more dimensions to this remarkable lady that I may have overlooked, but these are the observations that have sealed for me a long, treasured friendship and a deep admiration for Helen.  I truly love our friendship, which is built on common interests, trust, loyalty and huge mutual respect.  A friend like that is a friend, indeed, and what’s neat about Helen is that so many others can probably express similar observations.

As I said at the beginning, it’s time to select Helen as one of your honorees this year.   And, one more thing:   from my own WOW experience and, knowing Helen as I do, I can predict that it’s possible that she may balk if chosen for this recognition. If that appears to be the case, please tell her that I said that if Marianne had to accept and embrace the WOW honor, so should Helen!

Thank you so much for considering her nomination.  She’s, indeed, a priceless treasure here in Sandpoint whose recognition of service and wisdom is long overdue.

Marianne Love

Sandpoint

 

BTW:  she was chosen!

💙💚💜