Helen Taylor Friesen

Helen Aileen Friesen, 85, born January 11, 1927 in Simcoe, Ontario, to Myrtle and Ray Willard Taylor, went to be with her Lord on April 13, 2012, while being tenderly cared for by the truly remarkable staff (God’s angels) at Cedars Villa Extendicare nursing home in Calgary. Graduating with honours from Mount Royal College’s first two-year nursing diploma program launched in 1967, Helen worked at Calgary’s Grace Hospital until her retirement over twenty years later. She raised a family of five, the eldest of whom was mentally handicapped, then went on to foster over a dozen teens and adults into her home over the next 30 years. Helen made endless meals and worked faithfully every day to provide for her family, alongside her beloved husband, Jacob Peter Friesen, who predeceased her in 1993. At 80, Helen decided she was done with cooking and cleaning, sold her house, and moved into Trinity Lodge, where she particularly enjoyed daily chapel services led by Chaplain Bart Dailley, before entering Cedars Villa nursing home. Two sons, Alan and Phillip, predeceased her. Her surviving children include: Karl (Barbara) Friesen, Dan (Susan) Friesen, Hildegarde (Bill) Chambers, and her “like-a-daughter,” Judy Norton, who lived with her for nearly thirty years and was a loving friend and faithful visitor during Mom’s final years. She was predeceased by her sister Marian Sypher (Ontario) and is survived by her loving brother, Alan (formerly Howard) Taylor. Helen loved, first and foremost, her Lord and Saviour. She also loved to read. Helen loved her children and prayed for them faithfully. She was a faithful letter writer of the snail mail variety. Helen was an author of a number of published short stories. She enjoyed gardening. Helen enjoyed the anticipation of packing for an occasional trip and then the joy of returning to her cats, books and familiar routine in her Hillhurst home. Helen enjoyed attending church and a women’s prayer group at Immanuel Assembly of God, where she was dear friends with Doris and Pastor John Lucas Sr. Helen planned to become a missionary to India when she was young but instead married a handsome German Mennonite who was thirteen years her senior. For a short time she was a preacher’s wife in Buck Lake and Breton, AB, until her husband became a piano tuner. Helen was a practical, common sense person with a good sense of humour. She was reliable and faithful, unwavering in her faith. For the last five years of her life, she expressed a readiness to move on to her heavenly home. Now she is, indeed, Home, basking in the presence of Jesus, enjoying a younger, healthy body, and enjoying a loving reunion with her husband, sons, and her best friend, Billie Chambers, as well as other friends and family who have gone on before. A celebration of Mom’s Heavenly Homecoming was held at FOSTER’S GARDEN CHAPEL, 3220 – 4 Street N.W., Calgary (across from Queen’s Park Cemetery) on Friday, April 20, 2012 at 10:00 a.m. Interment followed at Rocky View Garden of Peace Cemetery. Anyone who wished to share a few words during the service in honour of Helen was most welcome, and was invited to contact Foster’s. Expressions of sympathy may be forwarded to the family via the website www.fostersgardenchapel.ca.

FOSTER'S GARDEN CHAPEL

FUNERAL HOME AND CREMATORIUM

Telephone: 403-297-0888

Honoured Provider of Dignity Memorial