Bessie Helms, 89, of Berthoud, Colorado passed away peacefully at home. She was born August 17, 1932, second child, to Virginia Louise Charlton and G.W. Howard. Born to hardworking sharecropper parents she shared many vivid stories of living on the farm, days of the Depression and great floods of the Mississippi, living in a log cabin with five siblings, riding to school on a mule (no blizzards, this was Mississippi) and many more recollections of family, hardships and music. Mama was a born storyteller.
She sang her first solo in the choir “It was an Old Fashioned Garden” in 5th grade. She was clerking in a store at Pritchard MS when she met her love, A.T. Helms. He would come in to see her and they talked six months, no dates, and eloped 5 days after her 16th birthday. They had five children and were ever together till his death August 4, 1987.
She left the farm life in 1961 and worked production lines for MTD, Indianola, MS till her retirement 32 years later. She was proud of those years and being self-sufficient.
She loved her girls so much that in 2011 she finally left Mississippi for Colorado to live near them. She loved adventures (traveling), exploring, camping with the Girl Scouts, could sew clothes without patterns, tried her hand at painting canvases, crocheting, loved games of any kind and was very quick witted, could beat any trivia game on TV. She was an excellent listener, loving mother and grandmother.
She leaves behind 3 children; Christine (Louis)Cobb, Joyce (David)Cobb and Shorty (Alfred Thad Helms); 7 grandchildren, 17 greatgrandchildren and 7 great-greatgrandchildren and a wealth of nieces and nephews. Bessie was preceded in death by her husband, A.T.Helms, a son, William Earl, a daughter, Linda Fay, a granddaughter, Karrie, and a great-granddaughter, Brittany.
Bessie always said she had lived a full life and had no regrets.
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