Helen Jeffries Klitch

Helen Jeffries Klitch passed away on Monday, April 11, 2016, in San Antonio, Texas. She was preceded in death by her husband, Richard Hugh Klitch, Sr. Lieutenant Colonel, US Army, Retired; and by her Step-son Richard H. Klitch, Jr. The only child of Charles Edward Jeffries and Helen Davis of Warrenton, Virginia, she was born on November 17, 1921, in Washington, D.C. and grew up in Warrenton, VA. She and LTC Klitch were married on June 20, 1959 in the Chapel at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Washington, D.C.

Mrs. Klitch attended Universities in Richmond, Virginia, including the Allied Health Division of the Medical College of Virginia, Virginia Commonwealth University; Westhampton College, the Vaughan-Graham School of Clinical Laboratory Technology and Allergy, from which she graduated in 1943. She also earned a degree from the University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio in 1984. For 27 years, she enjoyed a career as a microbiologist in various medical facilities: The Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, the University of Iowa Medical School and Hospital, 4th Army Area Laboratory at Fort Sam Houston, and the Southwest Foundation for Research and Education. She was co-author of several scientific papers.

As an Army wife, Mrs. Klitch enjoyed moving with her husband to his new duty stations, meeting the challenges of making a new home and new friends. LTC Klitch retired in 1969, at which time the Klitches moved to their retirement home in San Antonio.

Mrs. Klitch was a cheerful person, loyal to friends and family from whom she derived great pleasure. She also enjoyed books, beautiful music, travel, her pet cats, any kind of yellow flower, and her home State of Virginia. She volunteered for several causes through the years: CASA (child abuse), Battered Women's Shelter, the Red Cross Grey Lady Program, the Witte Museum, Animal Defense League, the Literacy Council, the Institute of Texas Cultures, and Guide Dogs for the Blind.

Mrs. Klitch is survived by her stepson, Edwin Francis Klitch and his wife, Mary, and their son, Brian, Hagerstown, Maryland; sister-in-law, Rosemary Miller, her son, Sean, Baltimore, Maryland; niece-in-law, Pat Ann Dean, Lexington Park, Maryland. Other survivors include her god daughters, Victoria Swisher, Lexington, KY; Carley West, Houston, Texas.

Mrs. Klitch's maternal ancestors included Ninian Beall and Archibald Edmonston from Scotland, and the founders of Georgetown, D.C. Her paternal ancestors, Richard Carter and Nathaniel Jeffries, from England, landed in Virginia in the early 1600s. Her father and grandfather (a confederate veteran) were published Fauquier County, Virginia, historians. She has donated their historical documents pertaining to Fauquier County and other important papers to the Old Jail Museum, in Warrenton, Virginia.

GRAVESIDE SERVICE

WEDNESDAY

APRIL 20, 2016

10:30 A.M.

FORT SAM HOUSTON NATIONAL CEMETERY

1520 HARRY WURZBACH

In lieu of flowers, Mrs. Klitch requested donations be made to the Blinded Veterans Association, South Texas Regional Group, 9335 Bendell, San Antonio, Texas 78250, or the Animal Defense League, 300 Nacogdoches, San Antonio, Texas 78217.