Albion Interactive History / People

Kinney, Helen Worthington, 1896
 
    Died May 24, 1985

Helen Worthington was born October 15, 1896, in Livingstone, Michigan. She graduated from high school in Howell, Michigan, in 1915 and came to Albion in 1916, to care for an older woman who had broken her hip. As it turned out, she was caring for her future mother-in-law, Mrs. Leonard Kinney. She married Fred Kinney in 1917.

Helen was an unassuming farm wife; she was not a club woman and did not learn to drive. She was, however, a natural historian and was fascinated by genealogy, passing that interest on to at least one of her five grandchildren. Helen’s interest in family history made her a great storyteller. Helen loved nature and flowers and the whole family worked in the vegetable garden.

Helen was widowed in 1944 and soon began to care for the elderly, as she had when first moving to Albion. She cared for a succession of people over a period of about twenty years, living between positions at the home of her daughter and son-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. Gilbert Rausch.

After her second retirement, she lived in a small house on the Rausches’ property until she suffered a stroke. She lived in Sheldon Manor for five years until it closed, then moved in with the Rausches again for eight years. A voracious reader and prolific letter-writer, Helen was also a fount of Bible quotations. She never used a cane, but relied on the wainscoting to help her from room to room. She died on May 24, 1985.

Source: Albion Public Library, Local History Room)

From: Albion AAUW. Some Notable Women of the Albion Area. Albion, Michigan: American Association of University Women. 1998.