Helen Gardner

Helen Gardner passed away peacefully Saturday September 25 in Mission Viejo, California. She was 84 and had lived a remarkable life, spending her retirement years living with her daughter Larisa Elisabeth Owen, son-in-law, James Owen and her beloved grandson Nicholas Sidney Owen in Aliso Viejo. Helen’s elder son, Jeffrey, lives in Australia.

Helen was born November 6, 1936 in London, England. Her family had moved to London from Russia in 1905 and settled in the Jewish neighborhood of Golder’s Green. After secondary school in London, Helen held numerous positions in hotel and entertainment industries in Beirut, Tokyo, Hong Kong, and Saigon. In Saigon she met her husband, Sidney Gardner. They were married in Orange, California in 1969, and she became a US citizen in San Francisco in 1971.

Helen worked in the Australian Embassy in Washington D.C, in a Head Start program in San Francisco, and was the appointments secretary to Governor Ella Grasso in Hartford, Connecticut. Governor Grasso was the first woman to be elected governor in her own right. Later Helen had a successful career in real estate, managing offices in Hartford, Massachusetts and Chicago.

Helen loved spending time making large Passover meals, decorating her home which was featured in magazines, and making people laugh with her quick wit and her still-arch British accent.

Her retirement was dedicated to her grandson and making sure he was always learning and engaged in various social activities, feeding him and his friends endlessly (calling pasta treasure maps, naming snacks “samplers”), driving her yellow Smart car to take Nicholas to many after school activities and to Hebrew school, and reading to him in many different voices to make him giggle.

Contributions in her memory can be made to the national nonprofit agency, Covenant House. Please see link below.

A celebration of life service is scheduled for later this fall.