Helen J. Christoffel

Helen Christoffel, 97, a resident at Meadow View, 4606 Mishicot Rd, Two Rivers, died peacefully in her sleep on Sunday, September 18, 2022.

A celebration of her life will be held at 11 a.m. on Friday, September 30, at Calvary Lutheran Church, Two Rivers. The family will greet relatives and friends beginning at 10 a.m. Pastor Kim Henning will conduct the service which will give people an opportunity to share their memories of Helen.

Helen was born December 6, 1924, at Sparrows Point, Maryland, the daughter of the late Joseph Taylor Kennedy Johnson, Jr., and Marie (Sudbrink) Johnson. She graduated from the William S. Baer School in Baltimore, Maryland, working in a dress shop and later a dentist’s office.

In terms of most interesting stories, Helen’s most memorable employment was at Fort Holabird in Dundalk, Maryland. When she started in 1945, it still held German Prisoners of War as it transitioned to the Counter-Intelligence Corps School (CIC).

Helen married Everette T. Christoffel on January 12, 1946, in Dundalk, Maryland. They had met in 1945 when his ship, the USS Laramie (AO-16), was in Baltimore for decommissioning. After a Honeymoon in New York City, they returned to Wisconsin. Though Everette was employed with the Metal Ware Corp. in Two Rivers, they first resided in Manitowoc due to the post-war housing shortage.

Helen was a full-time mother and homemaker. The difference between Baltimore and Two Rivers in 1946 was significant. Though she returned to Wisconsin in 2010 after a short stay in Virginia, she said she was “an Easterner.”

As a consequence of being a breech birth, Helen’s left arm muscles were damaged. At age four, she became a resident of the Harriet Lane Home for Invalid Children, a Johns Hopkins Hospital facility in Baltimore. Children there were taught society would not make accommodations for their conditions. Helen learned to be self-reliant and independent. No therapy was able to repair her arm, so at age 16, bone transplant surgery was used to fuse her left arm to a right angle instead of hanging straight. Her younger sister Marilyn also spent time there, immobilized in a frame for a back-related breech birth injury.

She was so good at making her handicap invisible that her children did not know until she took the time to point it out to them as teenagers. It was only as she aged past 80, living alone, that it became noticeable, eventually requiring assisted living, which she did not feel she needed.

Moving to Harmony, now Meadow View, in November 2010 was a challenge for her. The Christoffel Family is and shall be eternally grateful for the loving care provided by so many caregivers over the last twelve years.

It was a strong spirit that made her so productive in life. Helen was an excellent cook, a seamstress who made clothes for her daughters and their Barbie Dolls, and an incessant knitter, making sweaters beloved by all. She also crafted needlepoint pillows, cross stitch pictures, crocheted afghans and sewed quilts. Her beloved grandchildren and great-grandchildren have worn costumes made for daughter Penny!! Grandma/Great Grandma (G.G.) also created stuffed toys to delight them.

An astute shopper, department store or rummage sale, she would find a bargain and ask, “Who could use this,” always thinking of others.

A professed prude, saying her sisters called her “Miss Priss,” she was demanding, outspoken in a diplomatic and classy way. She expected a lot and was always encouraging people to do more with their talents. She followed the news, read history and was always willing to debate, intending to win it. Her style commanded respect. This was true of her sisters-in-law as well, Norene, Leona, Cecilia, Darlene, and Eleanore.

Having completed her work, Helen is, no doubt, urging The Creator to hurry up and fix things on Earth.

She is survived by her son and daughter-in-law, Thomas J., and Cynthia S. Christoffel, of Front Royal, Virginia; two daughters and sons-in-law, Diane and Tom Voight, New Castle, Colorado, Penny and John Fransee, Saukville; seven grandchildren, eleven great-grandchildren and three great-great-grandchildren. Besides her parents and husband, she was preceded in death by her grandson, David T. Christoffel, her brother, Melvin F. Johnson and sisters Doris M. Johnson, Ruth L. Feehley, and Marilyn E. Duvall.

Helen’s cremains will be interred in the Gainesboro Cemetery in Frederick County, Virginia, beside her husband, Everette T. Christoffel, who passed in 2002 at age 84. On December 6 of this year, Helen would have been 98. She did not reach age 106, the family benchmark for being old.

That came about in November 2001 when Helen and her son Tom were in Everette’s room at the Aurora Medical Center. She recalled that, in her 20s and 30s, reading in the newspaper that someone in their 50s or 60s had died, she had felt that person had a long life. Tom noted that, as people age, the horizon for what number of years is actually “old” extends, so really, “Old is 106.” A nurse in the back of the room overheard this conversation and loudly responded, “That’s right!”

Tom has been spreading that good news ever since. “Old is 106; pace yourself.” Feel free to reset your benchmark.

Deja & Martin Funeral Chapels, Two Rivers, is assisting the Christoffel family with funeral arrangements.