Helen Koniares Cleaves

CUMBERLAND FORESIDE- Helen K. Cleaves, 93, of Cumberland Foreside, passed away peacefully on April 21, 2025. Born on February 19, 1932 in Malden, Massachusetts, Helen was the daughter of Harry and Agnes Koniares, both first generation Americans who emigrated from Greece and Nova Scotia to the United States. Helen attended Belmont schools and then Dean Academy, where she graduated as the class valedictorian. She spent her summers as a youth at Cobbetts Pond in New Hampshire and later at Cape Cod. She attended Greek language school at the local orthodox church, and learned from her dad, the owner of the Kerwood Restaurant in Malden, how to make moussaka, pastitsio, and Greek goulash.

A first generation to attend college, she enrolled at Colby College in 1949, the beginning of a 76-year love affair with the school, filled with reunions, winter carnivals, and homecoming football games. She was the first of many family members to attend Colby.

In her sophomore year, she had the good fortune of meeting a young man from Bowdoin College, Bob Cleaves, thanks to a chance encounter of their parents and the exchange of contact information hoping that Helen and Bob would then meet. The rest was history. Helen would travel to Bowdoin for social events. After graduation and in 1954, the two were married at the Greek Orthodox Church in Boston followed by a reception at the Statler Hotel.

Helen and Bob built their first home in the Sherwood Forest neighborhood of Cape Elizabeth where they raised their family. They moved to Cumberland Foreside in 1988. Helen ruled the roost with a firm hand, electing to use leaf raking as a way to build character and discipline. When the raking was done on the grass, she would direct her children to rake the nearby woods (“who rakes the woods”? ) She encouraged her children to pursue their dreams and was supportive of any endeavor, so long as it didn’t interfere with what became the weekly ritual in the winter months, where the kids were loaded into the car to go skiing at Pleasant Mountain, even on Sundays following church school at the Woodfords Church.

Skiing became her passion. She and Bob would travel the world to ski and in the last few months of life, she assured her family that one day she would be back on the slopes. The two were fortunate enough to find a second home on the shores of Long Lake, a short distance from Pleasant Mountain.

She was an active member of Junior League of Portland and a volunteer at Preble Street Resource Center. In her forties, studied to become a real estate agent. She joined the Beecher Agency (later to be known as Caldwell Banker) and for many years was the top producer in Greater Portland. She was proud of her professional career and accomplishments and practiced real estate well into her 80’s. She left an enduring legacy as a highly ethical, shrewd, hardworking advocate for her many clients.

She was a member of the Cumberland Club and the Portland Country Club, where she was an avid golfer and tennis player well into her late 80s. She fondly reminded her children and the PCC staff that she was the Club’s second longest standing member.

Helen was predeceased by her parents, Harry and Agnes Koniares; sisters Florence Collatos and Dorothy Goulter; brothers George and John Koniares; her husband, Robert E. Cleaves III, and her son, Harry Jay Cleaves.

She is survived by her daughter Pamela Cleaves Devine of Falmouth and Robert E. Cleaves IV and his wife, Jane E. Batzell, five grandchildren and seven great grandchildren.

A memorial service will be held on Wednesday, May 14, 2025 at 10:30 am at the Woodfords Congregational Church, 202 Woodfords Street, Portland, followed by a reception at the Portland Country Club.

In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to Birch Rock Camp, PO Box 148,Waterford, ME 04088, Northern Light Hospice, 225 Gorham Road, Suite 200, South Portland Maine. 04106, or Colby College Advancement, Cleaves-Devine Scholarship Fund,173 Main Street, Suite 201, Waterville, ME 04901.