Helen Jane Melching

Helen “Jane” Melching (nee Kerrigan) was born on April 28, 1934, in Peck, Michigan. When she was 10 years old, her family moved 8 miles east down Peck Road (M-90) to their new home and farm near Croswell, Michigan.

After graduating high school, she moved to California for about 6 months to try her hand in living and working there while staying with a relative. California wasn’t for her, so she moved back to Michigan working at various secretarial and clerical jobs including Michigan Bell and the Social Security Administration. In Spring 1958, she met Charles “Chuck” Melching on a blind date. He knew from the minute he met her she was the girl for him, but she thought he was moving too fast and broke up with him. A month later she changed her mind and wrote him a different kind of “Dear Chuck” letter. They were married on September 6, 1958. Her son, Charles “Steven” was born on July 17, 1959. Shortly thereafter they moved into a house they built themselves in Richmond, Michigan. In July 1967, she had a daughter Kris Renee, who was 3 months pre-mature and only survived 6 hours. A year later her daughter, Sara Renee, was born on June 26, 1968. In August 1977, she and her family moved to Mesa, Arizona, where she resided for the rest of her life.

In Michigan, after marriage she worked several different jobs—office manager for Chuck’s land surveying business, Avon Lady, Sandra Toys, and secretary at St. Peter’s Lutheran Church in Richmond. Upon moving to Arizona, she worked as a secretary at Poston Junior High School until her retirement in 2002.

So, those are “just the facts”, but who was Helen Jane Melching?

· She was an incredibly optimistic and positive person who always looked for the best in any situation, and this says a lot considering in 1967 she lost a baby and received a cancer diagnosis for her 33-year-old husband at nearly the same time. Her optimism and positivity resulted from a deep faith and trust in the LORD JESUS CHRIST, who sustained her and her family. In grade school, when asked write an essay on who he admired most, Steven wrote about his mom “who tried to make every day like Christmas” (and boy did she love Christmas).

· She was someone who wasn’t good at doing nothing. She always had to be busy: cleaning her house, scouring the sale papers, and managing her finances (she kept monthly records of her expenditures in 10 categories up until October 2024, and she did her own daily readings of the water and electric meters for many years which were recorded in notebooks). This love of being busy drove her mad about being a shut-in since around the start of Covid, but even while a shut-in her optimism didn’t wane until the last few months of her life. About the only thing that could slow her down was a talk with family or friends or a good old movie (especially a Christmas movie) on TV.

· Being a child of the depression, she was very “careful with” her money to a point that would make Jack Benny or Ebenezer Scrooge seem like a spendthrift. But she was generous with her to time to support her family and friends in any way she could.

· She had three biological sisters, but many friends, neighbors, and co-workers considered her a sister who also truly cared about them and their families.

· Most importantly she lived for her family—husband, children, grandchildren, mom and dad, aunts and uncles, cousins, and nieces and nephews—and her sisters from another mother. She always sent her siblings and their spouses birthdays cards and/or gave them a quick phone call. She was an engaged mother and grandmother loving, supportive, dependable. She will be remembered for her Christmas cookies and chocolate chip cookies. She loved singing and we all will remember the songs she loved to sing to her family.

To summarize Helen Jane Melching, let us paraphrase Dickens final description of Ebenezer Scrooge: “she was as good a friend, as good a mother, and as good a woman, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough in the good old world” and “she knew how to keep Christmas well, if anyone alive possessed the knowledge.”

She is survived by her son Steven (Qiong) Melching, Sara (Harold) Housley, and grandchildren Christine and Brian Melching, and Natalie and Amber Housley. She also is survived by her brothers William, John (Betsy), Michael (Pat), and Jim and her sisters Martha Pearson and Mary Lou Stocker. She was preceded in death by her parents John and Frances