Helen Lou Andrews Didlake

Helen Lou Didlake passed away on September 7, 2009, at the age of 101. Helen was born on August 20, 1908, in Galveston, Texas to Gideon Theodore Andrews and Mabel Valentine Rigby Andrews. Gideon and Mabel were two of the lucky ones who survived the great Galveston hurricane of 1900. Helen had an elder sister named Elois. Mabel was the daughter of a Galveston ship captain who had been lost at sea and sadly Mabel died in a typhoid epidemic when Helen was only three years old. Helen's father later remarried and she was raised by her father and stepmother. During Helen's childhood the family moved around as her father, a Methodist minister, was transferred from one church to another throughout North Texas and the Midwest. She graduated from high school in Highland, Kansas and attended Pittsburgh State Teachers College (now Pittsburgh State University) in Pittsburgh, Kansas. At college, Helen began dating a fellow student named Bill Didlake. During their senior year the couple eloped on a train to Joplin, Missouri where they were married by a Justice of the Peace. They returned to college, not telling anyone what they had done. After graduation, the two went with considerable trepidation to the homes of both sets of parents to tell them of the earlier marriage. The Great Depression was just beginning as Helen began her teaching career. She and Bill moved through several towns in Kansas and Missouri, wherever they could find jobs. Bill also taught school and coached sports in the high schools. Helen told of many times receiving a voucher in place of a paycheck and often wondered how they survived. Their daughter Joan was born in Skidmore, Missouri in 1933. They left the Midwest when Bill was offered a job as Superintendent of Schools in Chama, New Mexico. When Bill later took a job outside the education field they moved to Albuquerque and then to Santa Fe where their son Bill Jr. was born in 1939. During World War II, Bill served as Personnel Director of the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos, New Mexico with responsibility for recruiting the scientists who developed the atomic bomb, while Helen continued to teach school in Santa Fe. Following the war, the couple moved to Borger, Texas where Bill joined Phillips Petroleum Company and Helen taught school. After their children graduated high school and Bill retired, they moved to Plano, Texas where Helen served as the high school librarian for a few years. When she retired from education after more than 40 years, they moved to Lake Texoma and later to Lake Kiowa at Gainesville, Texas for a life of retirement. As they got older, Helen and Bill decided to move closer to their children, both of whom were in Austin. They went first to Marble Falls where they enjoyed fishing the Highland Lakes and golfing the area courses. After a few years they moved to Austin where Bill passed away in 1996. Helen is survived by her daughter Joan, her son Bill and his wife Sandra, all of Austin, grandsons Bill and his wife Elizabeth of Dallas, and Mark and his wife Meagan of Austin, and four great grandchildren. The family extends its appreciation to Stonebridge Health Center and Odyssey Hospice for the care and comfort they provided to Helen toward the end of her life. A private family memorial is pending.