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The family of Helen L. Parker uploaded a photo
Monday, January 29, 2018
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The family of Helen L. Parker uploaded a photo
Wednesday, December 6, 2017
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Gretchen (Mueller) Kasper, Class of '67 posted a condolence
Saturday, July 22, 2017
Miss Parker was one of my favorite and most remembered nursing instructors. She made everything easier, soothing the jangled nerves that come with all the "firsts" on real patients!! She was a blessing to student nurses and was loved by all. Miss Parker will live on in many hearts.
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Pat Buscaglia Seeger, RN class of 1967 posted a condolence
Friday, July 21, 2017
Helen was my teacher and mentor. During what I thought were my darkest days, at Crouse IrvingHospital School of Nursing, Helen was there with humor and encouragement. She was my role model and I am a better nurse because of her. She was a positive force in so many lives. Rest in Peace, Helen. The Angels are delighted to have you with them.
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Julie (Blair) Hanlon posted a condolence
Thursday, July 20, 2017
My teacher, Helen Parker was an inspiration to those who possessed more compassion than competition. She was my nursing instructor at Crouse Irving School of Nursing. She instilled in me a passion for the holistic delivery of nursing care. She taught what would soon become nursing, social work, physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, hospice and contemplative services. As nursing once encompassed these healing arts before they had a name. She shared with me the miraculous joy of birth and the "taking off the robe" of death. As death is simply removing one robe for another. I will continue to revere Helen's wisdom and look forward to the day we meet again. Student and Sage.
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The Western Lights office posted a condolence
Tuesday, July 18, 2017
To Helen Parker's family we at the M&T Western Lights office send you our thoughts and prayers.
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Tom Coe posted a condolence
Tuesday, July 18, 2017
Aunt Helen, you were a very special part of my family, and you were like a second mother to my sisters and me. I think you would have adopted us if something had happened to our parents. You had such a positive influence on our lives. I'm going to miss visiting with you and talking to you. I'm grateful you made us a part of your life.
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Tom Coe posted a condolence
Monday, July 17, 2017
Aunt Helen, you were a very special part of my family, and you were like a second mother to my sisters and me. I think you would have adopted us if something had happened to our parents. You had such a positive influence on our lives. I'm going to miss visiting with you and talking to you. I'm grateful you made us a part of your life.
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Tom Coe posted a condolence
Sunday, July 16, 2017
The following was written by my older sister, Karen, when she was a journalist at the Sacramento Bee, sometime during the 1980's.
MY AUNT HELEN
I think about my Aunt Helen at the oddest times. Her image competes with graphic visions of catastrophe when I'm tentatively edging along the brim of the steepest ski run at Squaw Valley. She was on my mind when I picked out a cat at the pound recently. And I thought about her a few days ago, when I went horseback riding for the first time in more than 25 years.
She isn't really my aunt. My sister and brother and I just called her that. Kids growing up in the '50s never called adults by their first names - everyone fit into a salutatory category. People who weren't related were addressed as Mr. or Mrs., unless they were close friends of the family. Then they earned the honorary "Aunt" or "Uncle."
My mother and my Aunt Helen - a student nurse in the first anatomy and physiology class my mother ever taught - hadn't been friends long before I was born. In fact, they almost didn't become friends at all. I've heard the reasons ever since I was old enough to comprehend adult conversations.
There were the times Aunt Helen and another student switched seats in class. They looked enough alike to confuse my mother, who'd alphabetized the seating so she could remember names. And Aunt Helen's inability to resist a good laugh and an appreciative audience, didn't help either.
I'm not sure how she came to be included in all our family gatherings - holidays, birthdays, weekend outings - but ever since I can remember, my siblings and I were her appreciative audience. Aunt Helen, who never married, would arrive armed with candid photos of the last family function and within minutes would have us laughing.
We kids laughed, anyway. My mother would invariably roll her eyes and twist her smile into a wry grin - the look, I realize now, of a teacher tolerating a student's classroom antics. My father smiled benignly at us all, remaining uncommitted to either camp.
And Aunt Helen, although indisputably an adult and my mother's friend, was certainly in our camp.
Take the time I'd convinced my mother to let me keep the hamster I won in a school contest. Aunt Helen thought it was great. Whenever she came to visit, she brought vitamins and health food for the little creature. Much to my mother's dismay, the hamster lived four years - a long time by rodent standards; my mother must have thought it was the vitamins.
I never could talk my mother into letting me have another pet after that. I'm not sure if she really was allergic to furry animals, as she said, or if she couldn't face another batch of the photos Aunt Helen took of her horrified expressions whenever I held the hamster too close. Nonetheless, Aunt Helen eased the loss I felt when my pet died by letting me play with her cats whenever I visited.
Then there was the time I wanted to try skiing. My mother had almost convinced me I would break my neck if I took it up, when Aunt Helen resolved the issue by presenting me with skis, boots and poles at Christmas.
My mother rolled her eyes again, but didn't dissent. After all, Aunt Helen had already introduced me to horseback riding, another potentially bone-breaking sport.
The riding was actually pretty tame. I usually sat astride a docile mare, one link in a long chain of horses trained to follow one another nose-to-tail. We mostly walked and trotted, only occasionally breaking into a real gallop. But that was good enough for me. It drained some of the urgency out of my childish dream of having a horse of my own. And part of me probably suspected my mother's admonition had some validity. Maybe I would fall off and break my neck.
I heard two internal voices when I climbed onto a friend's frisky quarter horse the other day. One, my mother's, cautioned me to be careful when we walked the horses out of the corral. After all, the 1200-pound animal I was perched on hadn't been ridden all winter. And this wasn't a horse trained for children's trail rides. Her voice became more insistent when my friend galloped off into a pasture, and my horse, straining against the reins I held tightly in one hand, wanted to follow. But another voice - Aunt Helen's - overrode the first, and I gradually relaxed my grip and galloped off after my friend.
Aunt Helen's voice is the one that counsels me to take chances. It's the one that tells me my ski bindings will release if I happen to fall descending a hair-raising run at Squaw Valley. It tells me galloping is a lot more fun than walking, even if there is a remote possibility I might fall off. And it helped me pick out a cat with great eyes and a mellow meow at the pound, silencing the other voice's concerns about extra costs and added responsibilities.
All things considered, I probably would have fractured more than the three bones I've already broken if it hadn't been for my mother's voice. But I wouldn't have had as much fun if I hadn't listened to my Aunt Helen's now and then.
(My sister, Karen, died in 2009.)
Tom Coe
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Gerard R. Lowe RN (ret) class of 1984 posted a condolence
Sunday, July 16, 2017
Miss Parker was one of my first nursing instructors at CIM . What sweet, caring and kind person she was, certainly a wonderful role model of whom I thought of often in my nursing career. Miss Parker may you rest in peace and much thanks for your enduring rememberances.
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lynne Coe-Gysel posted a condolence
Saturday, July 15, 2017
I have known “Aunt” Helen for as long as I can remember….as a very good friend & colleague of my mom she was there when my sister Karen, my brother Tom & I were born as well as throughout our lifetimes….
“Aunt” Helen was “one of a kind” …an insightful, considerate, caring, selfless person who was willing to share her life experiences …whether I needed guidance growing up or needed some perspective regarding one my sons she always provided those “special” words of wisdom…I will greatly miss those weekly conversations….
You and your family are in my thoughts and prayers.
May you rest in peace!
Lynne Coe-Gysel
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Jean Curinga class of 1989 posted a condolence
Friday, July 14, 2017
To Ms. Parker's Family,
I had the pleasure of being one of Ms. Parker's students at Crouse. She was a wonderful teacher and an inspiration to those of us desiring to enter the field of nursing.
Thank you for sharing her with those of us who had her as an instructor.
You and your family are in my thoughts and prayers.
Sincerely,
Jean Curinga CIM class of 1989
3180 Bellevue Avenue
Syracuse, New York 13219
Phone: (315) 468-3443
Fax: (315) 468-6004
Email: info@edwardjryanandson.com
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