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J. Moore/Volunteer posted a condolence
Wednesday, June 26, 2019
To the Family of Helen M. Wase,
So sorry to learn about the loss of your Dear Loved One, Helen. Please know that so many people share your grief with you to help you through this difficult time of sorrow. Please accept my deepest condolences as we await the time when Christ Jesus will awaken all those who have fallen asleep in death; including your Beloved, Helen.
(John 11:41-44)
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Tracie Lateef posted a condolence
Saturday, June 22, 2019
A Tribute to Helen/ Helen Marie/ H/ BooBoo
By Tracie Lateef, niece
Today we gather to remember and celebrate the life of my aunt, Helen Marie Wase. She was known in many capacities: a daughter, a sister, a cousin, an aunt, a friend, a colleague, a teacher, a mentor, a community ambassador. She was also known by many names. Some of you know her simply as Helen. Many family members refer to her by her full name, Helen Marie. Others know her by her college nickname “H.” As most of you know, throughout much of her life she has spent her time healing from various injuries and has spent a copious amount of time in various braces, surgical boots and shoes, casts, etc. It just so happened that when my brother and I were toddlers and just learning to talk she happened to have a cast on her hand and thus she was gifted with her final nickname, BooBoo, and we never referred to her as anything else.
Helen was born October 14, 1949. She spent nearly 4 years of life being cherished as an only child until September 1953 when she became big sister to Nancy. She always took pride in the fact that she was the one who named her sister (after a children’s book titled Nurse Nancy) and spared her from her previously planned name of Sybil. Her childhood consisted of lots of time spent with aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents at homes near and far. She’s often shared memories of their various homes over the years from Mattydale to Oswego Street and Canton Street in Baldwinsville.
Helen was one of those people who so easily made friends wherever she went. She always had a contagious and sunny personality with a wicked sense of humor. She would make friends in the unlikeliest of places, even becoming lifelong friends with her own physicians. She loved to entertain and share all types of stories whether they be recollections of childhood, memories of teaching, some crazy series of events that she experienced or one of her famous hilariously random and strange dreams. This love of entertainment shown in her love of drama and theater and resulted in her having a theater minor in college and later going on to be a part of the Baldwinsville Theater Guild and ultimately co-writing her own theater production of “23 Skidoo.” She loved being both on stage and working behind the scenes helping with scenery, costumes, and make-up.
Helen has been fortunate to hold on to friends from all phases of life. In her college years at SUNY Oswego she gained multiple life-long friends. She would often tell me stories of her experiences such as having to wear the dreaded freshman “beanie”, crazy rules about curfew and travel, lines to use the dormitory telephones (as it was the pre-cell phone era), reassuring others that the Lake Ontario waterspouts were no threat, life as an RA, giant night-crawler worms that were the size of snakes, having to hold on to ropes in the wintertime to survive the slippery snowy sidewalks in the intense wind, and of course, pulling off various pranks such as disguising a sponge as a cake with yummy whipped ivory dish soap frosting.
As many people know, Helen went on to be a very dedicated teacher, but fewer people know that she went to school with the intention of becoming a nurse. She actually entered the teaching profession by accident- a confusion of the acronym ARC, which she thought stood for the American Red Cross, but in reality then stood for the Association for Retarded Citizens, but is now more simply referred to as The Arc. This little mistake led her down her destined path of becoming a special education teacher.
Helen entered the field of Special Education at the dawning of the modern approach to special ed. and in many ways was a pioneer in the field. She began work in schools that previously had absolutely no special education program and often had to write her own curriculum. She had to work with colleagues that had little understanding of her field or complete lack of interest in engaging with her student population. Her job didn’t just consist of educating children; she was often also educating other adults about her students and their challenges and also their unique gifts. Throughout her years she won many people over as they realized how uniquely special her students were and everything they had to offer.
Being a teacher was more than just her job- it was her calling. She worked seamlessly with many teaching assistants, student teachers, and teachers of other disciplines. She went above and beyond for her students; always seeking new ways to promote learning and make the classroom fun while meeting the wide diversity of needs of each and every class. Though it should be of surprise to no one, she often included humor in her teaching. But as was the nature of some of her students, not every joke was received as intended. Helen loved to share the story of how one day she was talking with some students about the purpose of eyebrows. She jokingly told them that eyebrows were special stitches that doctors give everyone as babies to keep our faces from being all droopy and scrunched up. The very next day she had a student show up to school that decided to test her premise with a razor. He was now sporting only one eyebrow.
Helen was very dedicated to her students- she became involved with the Special Olympics and even traveled to a national competition all the way in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Perhaps one of the bigger sacrifices she made in her teaching was saving a student from a potentially catastrophic injury by stopping a falling student from cracking their head on a stone countertop by using her hand to catch the student’s head before making contact with the counter and therefore taking the full impact on her hand. This resulted in her severely dislocating her thumb. Her ex-nun principal forced her finish out the school day before she was allowed to leave and go to the hospital.
While her passion for teaching was strong, her career was cut short when her already poor vision deteriorated to the point where she was declared legally blind and she was forced to retire early. She shared with me that the day she had to turn in her driver’s license, and therefore her independence, was one of the hardest days of her life. While many in her situation would decide that life as they knew it was over, for her it was only the beginning of a new chapter. She embraced her new life and proceeded to learn Braille and continued her life over the years with the help of her three guide dogs: Austin, Flicker, and Irish. Her dogs were her babies. Already a life-long animal lover and owner of various pets such as cats, fish, and even a talking parrot, she treasured each of her dogs and in return was rewarded with endless love and affection and even a few life-saving acts. Her love of animals extended to wildlife as well and she had a love for bird watching (humming birds and bald eagles were her favorites) and she even mastered a cardinal call that once even fooled some professional bird enthusiasts.
Throughout her years Helen has embraced many hobbies. She is famous among family and friends for the poems she would write for all kinds of occasions and most recently her 50th high school reunion. She was an avid reader and loved reading historical biographies of famous icons and presidents. She was a knitting hobbyist and gifted many family members with her finished products. She loved vintage movies and television and got me hooked on the humor of I Love Lucy from a young age. She loved to travel and was fortunate enough to have excursions to places such as California, Alaska, the Virgin Islands, Florida, and Washington D.C. although she dreamt of one day visiting Australia.
Above all her greatest hobby and passion had to be music. Helen always had a love for music but couldn’t always express it the way she wanted to. In addition to being a vocalist, she also dreamed of becoming an instrumentalist, specifically a flute player. In school when instrument selection day arrived, students were called in alphabetical order to choose from available instruments- unfortunately for Helen, by the time they progressed down the list to Wase, the remaining choices were a trumpet and a clarinet. She loathed playing the clarinet and developed a habit of chewing her reeds, which lead to her getting wooden splinters in her tongue and lips. Needless today, her clarinet career was short-lived. Happily for Helen, she did finally get her chance to reach her dream of playing the flute and taught herself how to play as an adult. Since her school days were over and opportunities to play were scarce, she helped to found the Baldwinsville Community Band, where she was finally given the opportunity to play her flute and piccolo. Eventually she was forced to stop playing due to her gradual inability to see the music as well as a shoulder injury. Determined to not be left out, Helen transitioned from instrumentalist to the band’s announcer. She would provide background information and trivia about each piece the band would play, engaging the audience in the performance. She also acted as librarian, secretary, publicist, and booking agent behind the scenes.
As previously mentioned, her love for music also extended to vocal performance and she was a member of the Village Singers in addition to the band. Her favorite singer was the blind Italian opera singer Andrea Bocelli and she loved the music from the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.
Helen had many roles in life but her proudest was being an aunt. Although she didn’t have any children of her own, she often reassured us that my brother and I were her children. She would tell the story about both times she got the call at school that she had become and aunt and how she rushed to the hospital as soon as the school day was over. No one on Earth could have asked for a better and more dedicated aunt. In our younger days she was our babysitter. She loved nothing more than making us laugh and she was always successful. This probably began the day when Tommy was a toddler and she put a diaper pail on his head and drummed on the top and sang “Babalou” like Ricky Ricardo from I Love Lucy. Fun times continued into our childhood when we would go over for sleepovers and she would always have something fun planned for us to do such as baking treats, our first hilarious exposure to madlibs, or art projects. She made our childhood fun but acted as our teacher too. She taught me how to blow a bubble in bubble gum, she taught me the best way to swallow a pill, she even jump started my exposure to music by starting to teach me how to read music years prior to starting band in school.
She was beyond dedicated to being an aunt. She attended every school event. She went to every band concert. She helped with school projects and proofread papers. She displayed our artwork. She and my grandparents would take us on mini road trip adventures and she would always make sure we’d come home with some little trinket or souvenir. Twice in my childhood I had the special experience of going to see the Nutcracker, which really birthed my love of classical music and remains a favorite to this day. In high school when my oboe spontaneously broke during a youth orchestra concert she went out the next day and bought me a brand new oboe so that I would have it for my all-county auditions a few days later. She made life so special and would always make sure to celebrate the smaller moments in my life such as getting my driver’s license, starting new jobs, academic achievements, buying a house, and getting new vehicles (although she always insisted in being my first passenger in a new car).
More recently she had the pleasure of becoming a great-aunt to my twin boys, Isaiah and Eli. She has cherished them more than life itself and I have felt nothing short of blessed to have someone like her to love my boys as much as she did. I am heartbroken that they will not have the privilege of growing up with her in their lives and experiencing the same special moments that I so fondly remember. When the boys were babies we had a tradition of Friday night visits where I would bring them to her house and we would get to visit while soaking up the fun of all things baby-related. I will miss those visits immensely.
I can honestly say I am who I am today largely because of her. I am a teacher because of her. I am a musician because of her. I’d like to think I’m a better mother because of her. Her eternal optimism remains my inspiration- despite all her health struggles with severe allergies, asthma, a broken back, a shoulder replacement, a shattered ankle, a broken heel, growing bones, loss of vision and ultimately her fight with cancer- she never lost her positive attitude. She was handed more obstacles than any one person could ever deserve and she never once decided to give up or take pity on herself. I once asked her how she manages to cope with so many setbacks and she told me that in those situations you only have two choices- to feel sorry for yourself or to focus on the positive and find the joy in life; she always chose the latter. She fought every obstacle with a tenacity I didn’t know was possible and even with her final battle she fought to the very end.
Letting her go now is without a doubt the most difficult thing I’ve ever had to do in life. I know everything will be different without her wit and humor. I haven’t even scratched the surface of who she was or how much she meant to me. She was more than an aunt to me- she was my shoulder to cry on, my personal cheerleader, my teacher, my inspiration and my best friend. It hurts to think I’ll no longer be able to pick up the phone and share something funny that happened that day or tell her what new thing the boys are doing. There is now an immense hole in the universe and in all of our lives. I promise to strive to live the rest of my life to make her proud and carry on her legacy.
As we say our final goodbyes know that she would not want us to feel sad but rather focus on all the joy in our lives and the memories that she was a part of. I know my life will never be the same but I will try to make it meaningful and appreciate all the joy in life, just as she did. I will always carry her love for me and I will treasure the last words that she said to me- “I love you more than you’ll ever know.” Despite this, the question I’m left asking myself is this: How do you say goodbye to someone whom you’ve built your entire life around? I don’t think I’ll ever have the answer to that question but I will strive to find comfort in the words of Winnie the Pooh: “How lucky am I to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.”
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Stephen J. Mason lit a candle
Friday, June 21, 2019
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Your Light may be diminished here on earth, but will always enlighten our hearts. Rest in peace, Helen
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Ruth Gallagher Bryan posted a condolence
Friday, June 21, 2019
Nancy, so sorry to read about Helen. She was a wonderful person. Went to school with her and later moved in the apt across from your Mom and Dad. She will be greatly missed by many people.
Ruth Gallagher Bryan
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Carol Frazier lit a candle
Friday, June 21, 2019
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The family of Helen M. Wase uploaded a photo
Thursday, June 20, 2019
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Jo Ann Bertollini posted a condolence
Thursday, June 20, 2019
Our condolences to Helen's family. She was a friendly, vibrant person that we admired. Norm and Jo Ann Bertollini
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Barb Theisen lit a candle
Wednesday, June 19, 2019
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RIP Helen and prayers to her family and all who knew her
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Lynn Dailey posted a condolence
Wednesday, June 19, 2019
Helen was an amazing lady. As our announcer for the Baldwinsville Community, she always amazed me of the history she was able to find out for each song we played. Yip Yip Yaphank will stay in my memory forever. She was a kind and giving person and will be greatly missed. Rest in peace Helen.
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Carole Kline posted a condolence
Wednesday, June 19, 2019
My deepest sympathy to Helen’s family. She was a wonderful, compassionate person. I will always remember her well-researched comments on each song and/ or composer she presented at every Baldwinsville Community Band Concert for so many years. I loved reminiscing with her about our teaching experiences as we drove to band. May fond memories of her help you through these difficult times. She will be missed by all. Sincerely, Carole Kline
93 Downer Street | Baldwinsville, New York 13027 | Tel (315) 635-3031 | Fax (315) 635-7086