Helen, Lost in time

Two of my nieces started a family history project, taping various family members talking about the old days. They need photographs, so Susan and I went through a handful of boxes. I came up with a forgotten photograph of my mother’s siblings, Joe and Helen Farley. I knew Joe, but I never met Helen. She’d died about the time she’d have entered high school. I don’t remember what she died from. I think I heard a mix of stories about a disease like scarlet fever and a weak heart and a vaccination. Some combination took her.

In the photograph, professionally made, Helen looks about three. She’s in a cute dress, sitting sideways in a chair, and she’s smiling. The picture has no background, just the girl and the chair, floating somewhere. 

I believe Helen Farley was greatly loved. Her death ended a Catholic marriage (my grandmother was excommunicated when she later married a second time). Helen was named for my grandmother’s sister, an old lady who was a favorite of my mother and of mine. There’s no one alive now who remembers who Helen Farley was except one or two relatives. So it goes.