Helen Ruth Parks

Helen Ruth Parks was born on December 26, 1924, in Mt. Ida, Montgomery County, Arkansas, into the Watkins family. From the British Isles, the family settled in the colonial South, in subsequent centuries providing State and nation with landowners, legislators, scholars, and public servants.

These included her uncle, Charles L. Watkins, the first Parliamentarian of the United States Senate, and the inaugural parliamentarian of the United Nations General Assembly. Related and allied families, the Witts and the Whittingtons, figure prominently in Arkansas history.

Helen Ruth was the daughter of John Allen Watkins, and Lora Estelle Murphy Watkins, originally of Mt. Ida, and later Hot Springs, Arkansas. She was a 1942 graduate of Hot Springs High School, and a 1946 graduate of Ouachita College in Arkadelphia, Arkansas.

Helen Ruth taught at the Jenny Jones School in Hot Springs, which she had attended, and at Lakeside School, later doing graduate work and instruction in English literature at the University of Arkansas. She was an avid and accomplished classical pianist.

In 1947, she married Roy M. Parks, of Dallas, Texas, whose parents had moved next door in Hot Springs. She returned with him to Dallas in 1954. Helen Ruth supported her husband throughout a long career in music and entertainment broadcasting, culminating as director of broadcasting and sales operations for the Texas Rangers Baseball team in Arlington, Texas.

Helen Ruth pursued a lifelong interest in arts, letters, and music, and took full advantage of the cultural resources Dallas offered. At the same time, she never lost her love for her Arkansas family and the natural beauty of Hot Springs, the Ozarks and the Ouachitas, returning as often as possible.

Helen Ruth is survived by her son, Robert B. Parks, of Dallas; nieces, Ruth Marie Hawkins Hufford and Rodlyn Hawkins Owens, of Phoenix, Arizona; niece and nephew; Jeanne Watkins Brunell, of Knoxville, Tennessee, and nephew, John Allen Watkins, Ph.D. of Minneapolis, Minnesota; and first cousins, Mary Murphy Wilmouth, of Mt. Ida, Arkansas; and John Michael Murphy of Elizabethtown, Kentucky. She has numerous grand, great and great-great nieces and nephews.

We will celebrate her life 10:00 AM, Friday, December 3rd, 2021 at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church-Hot Springs, Arkansas. Interment will follow in the family plot of Greenwood Cemetery under the direction of Gross Funeral Home.

The family will receive friends at a visitation beginning at 9:00 AM, until just prior to the services.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests memorial donations be made to the SPCA of Texas. Please send all contributions to 2400 Lone Star Drive, Dallas, Texas 75212 and note Helen Ruth Parks Memorial on the memo line.

The online obituary, guestbook, and memorial tribute are available at www.GrossFuneralHome.com.