[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 103 (Wednesday, July 11, 2012)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4887-S4889]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        TRIBUTE TO ALICE HELTON

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, today I wish to honor Mrs. Alice Helton 
of Laurel County, KY. Though she may have never held public office, 
Mrs. Helton invaluably served her community through kindness, 
hospitality, and an unselfish desire to help those around her. On April 
26, 2012, she died at age 94. Her legacy of faith, generosity, and love 
will survive her in the memories of her family, friends, and the 
citizens of London, KY.
  Mrs. Alice Helton, then-Miss Alice Hill, the last of eight children, 
was born on May 2, 1917, in Keavy, KY, to farmers Mr. John and Mrs. 
Sallie Hill. She was raised in the country and lived a simple life. The 
family would work together in the fields during the day and on Sundays 
be visited by neighbors while the children played marbles. Alice, in 
her interview with the Sentinel-Echo for the London Living Treasures 
special series, recalled plucking duck feathers with her mother as a 
child and walking for hours to find ducks to make feather beds and 
pillows.
  At age 7, Alice began attending Keavy School. One of her fondest 
memories of grade school was spending time at recess with her friends 
throwing horseshoes and watching boys play basketball. After elementary 
school, she attended a boarding school called London School. Upon 
finishing the eighth grade, she returned home, lived with her parents, 
and looked after her siblings' children while they were at work.
  Alice met William Raymond Helton, a truckdriver from Corbin, KY, when 
she was 22. Though her family didn't support the relationship, the two 
eloped and were married. Mrs. Helton, during the first 17 years of her 
marriage, had seven children. The family lived in a small house, near 
her parents, which soon became the place where the entire family would 
meet and spend time together.
  Her children have many colorful memories of growing up with Mrs. 
Helton. They never questioned her love or willingness to protect the 
family because during the week, when her husband was away driving a 
truck, she would ward off thieves trying to steal the family chickens 
by shooting her rifle toward a row of trees behind the coop. In order 
to avoid becoming a victim of her unique security system, all family 
members would call out to her any time they passed the yard.
  Mrs. Helton was described as a ``magnet'' that drew all of the family 
together. She would take on the role of mother to her nieces and 
nephews as her siblings passed away and loved them as if they were her 
own children. Her love also was shown by entertaining them at game 
nights, where

[[Page S4888]]

card games and Yahtzee were the main attraction.
  Mrs. Helton was more than a wife, mother, grandmother, aunt, and 
member of the Laurel County community. She was the matriarch of the 
Helton family and the glue that held it together. From talking on the 
phone for hours on end with her children and grandchildren to taking in 
family and friends in need, Mrs. Helton lived a life of compassion and 
kindness. After her death, a neighbor said that she tried to live the 
way Jesus lived, but if she only lived half as well as Mrs. Helton, she 
would be satisfied.
  It is a privilege to honor the legacy of Mrs. Alice Helton. A true 
pillar of the Laurel County community, she was an example for all 
Kentuckians of a woman who lived her life with integrity and love. I 
ask my fellow colleagues in the Senate to join me in remembering this 
remarkable woman from Laurel County, KY.
  A recent article published by a Laurel County publication, the 
Sentinel-Echo, recognized Mrs. Helton's lifetime of contributions to 
her family and community. I ask unanimous consent that said article be 
printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                   [The Sentinel-Echo, May 16, 2012]

                 Alice Helton Was Surrounded by Family

                           (By Tara Kaprowy)

       Before Alice Helton passed away a few weeks ago, just six 
     days shy of her 95th birthday, she said getting to see her 
     loved ones in heaven would be the best birthday present she 
     could ask for.
       It was a Thursday afternoon, and Alice's family members had 
     gathered around her hospital bed, which she'd occupied for 
     just a few days. ``She said she was ready to go, and for us 
     to please just let her go peacefully,'' granddaughter Lisa 
     Alexander said. ``She made sure she held each family member's 
     hands, and told them how much she loved them. She told them 
     to love each other and to take care of each other.'' She 
     quietly slipped away around 2 in the afternoon, and the woman 
     who was the magnet that pulled her large family together, and 
     whose home was always described as Grand Central Station, was 
     gone.
       She had a good, long life. One that started May 2, 1917, in 
     Keavy, ``right across the field'' from her current home on 
     German Lane. The youngest of eight siblings, she was born to 
     John and Sallie Ann Karr Hill. ``Our house was about like a 
     school, there were so many of us,'' Alice said. ``Mommy and 
     poppy were good people.'' John and Sallie were farmers, and 
     ``mommy would do the cooking and we would all come back in 
     from the field and eat dinner; plain old country meals of 
     beans, potatoes, and cornbread. Then we would go out in the 
     field and work and come back and have a cold supper, usually 
     milk and bread.''
       In addition to farming, John Hill delivered the mail for 
     the U.S. Postal Service. ``Sometimes I'd go with him and he'd 
     deliver those packages on horseback from Vox to Lily. He'd 
     buy me a little candy to eat on while we was gone, that sugar 
     candy.''
       The Hill home was a plain but happy one, with the kids 
     playing hide and seek and marbles while the adults visited 
     with neighbors on Sunday afternoons in between going to 
     church at Locust Grove and Level Green.
       It was hot in the house in the summer, with no screens to 
     keep the flies ``and everything else there is to have'' away, 
     and so cold in the winter the dipper would freeze in the 
     water bucket overnight. On snowy days, ``we would pop popcorn 
     on the stove and piece quilts,'' Alice said. Once a week, the 
     family would head to a big spring ``and there was a great, 
     old big rock there we'd use to set our tubs on'' to do 
     laundry. Another tub was used for baths. ``It was a lot of 
     trouble,'' Alice said about bathing when she was a kid, ``but 
     the water stayed pretty warm.'' Alice, being the baby, would 
     always be the last one in the water.
       One of the chores she keenly remembers was rounding up her 
     mother's paddling of ducks. ``Mommy would pick the feathers 
     off them and make pillows and feather beds,'' Alice said. 
     ``Here we'd go marching down the branch to find her ducks. 
     We'd have to gather them back up and drive them back home. 
     Some later, there they'd go again. We'd go up and down 
     through there catching them. And then we'd go and look for 
     wildflowers up and down the branch. My mom would walk us to 
     death.''
       Alice's mother made all of her children's clothes, often 
     cobbling together feed sacks for the girls to wear. But Alice 
     didn't mind. ``They were just as comfortable and pretty as 
     store-bought,'' she said.
       Alice started attending Keavy School at the age of 7--``I 
     didn't want to go when I was 6'' and she quickly made fast 
     friends with Georgia Alsip and Anna Lee Bunch. ``We'd get out 
     and roam around at recess. We'd watch 'em play basketball. 
     Sometimes we'd pitch horseshoe. Back then we had a recess 
     that lasted about half an hour of a morning. Then we had 
     another at dinner, then another half an hour in the evening. 
     We had time to play.''
       The school was a ``big, white, two-story building with an 
     aisle up through the middle and rooms up each side. There 
     were stairs up each side of the front door.'' One of her 
     teachers, Oscar Parman, boarded with the Hills, and he ``was 
     just like a brother to me.''
       Following elementary school, Alice went on to London 
     School, where, boarding with her sister in town, she stayed 
     until the eighth grade. She then returned to her parents' 
     house and, since several of her siblings had become teachers 
     and started raising their own families, the care of their 
     children during the day fell to Aunt Alice. She took on the 
     role naturally and was a loving, tender caregiver whose 
     influence long outlasted her babysitting days.
       At the age of 22, Alice met a man by the name of William 
     Raymond Helton, a truck driver who lived in Corbin, with whom 
     she was soon taken. Though she didn't have the support of her 
     family--``They just didn't think he was the kind I should 
     marry''--Alice got up early one morning, washed a white dress 
     with pink flowers and told her sister, with whom she was 
     living, she was headed down to a revival. ``I got down there 
     at the foot of the hill and he's sitting there on a bench 
     waiting for me and we turned around and went back to Preacher 
     Grubb's house. In other words, we eloped.''
       Alice and her husband moved into a tiny starter house, and 
     soon she and Raymond started a family. Over the next 17 
     years, they had seven children--Freda, Herschel, Joan, Wanda, 
     Wayne, Debbie, and Danny--and during World War II moved into 
     their first real home a stone's throw away from her parents. 
     ``It wasn't much because you couldn't get lumber back then 
     because of the war,'' she said. ``They just threw it up as 
     good as they could make it.'' Still, Alice made it her own, 
     and soon it was a popular gathering spot for friends and 
     family.
       Alice was an indulgent, kind mother, and her children have 
     fond memories of chasing lightning bugs in the twilight, 
     listening to the Grand Ole Opry, watching ``Lassie'' and 
     ``Rin Tin Tin,'' and heading out for ice cream cones at the 
     local dairy drive-in. Though Alice very rarely had a chance 
     to relax, when she did, she liked spending time ``watching 
     the kids play.''
       But Alice was deeply protective too. ``Daddy would be gone 
     during the week and it was just us kids,'' daughter Joan 
     remembered, laughing. ``She would hear people trying to steal 
     her chickens. So she would make all of us kids get behind the 
     couch and she would get out there and start shooting at the 
     trees, to try and scare them off. My uncle worked for the 
     railroad, and he would have to walk to the end of our road to 
     catch his ride at night. And he'd start hollering, It's me, 
     Alice!' because he didn't want to get shot.''
       In 1969, Raymond built the family a new, bigger home across 
     the street, and it's there Alice remained, even after Raymond 
     died from Alzheimer's at the age of 83. Though widowed, Alice 
     didn't stop ``being the glue that held us all together,'' 
     Joan said. As she'd done before she married, Alice continued 
     taking care of kids; this time it was her grandchildren whom 
     she would babysit. Her nieces and nephews would constantly 
     visit or call, and when her mother decided she no longer 
     wanted to live alone, she showed up at Alice's door and moved 
     in. ``As our parents passed on, Aunt Alice would say, I'm 
     adopting you now and I have a little job for you to do,' so 
     Aunt Alice became our surrogate mother and we all snuggled 
     under her loving wings to survive our tragedies,'' one of 
     Alice's nieces, Peggy Black, said.
       During the week and every Sunday, Alice would get together 
     with her siblings for game night, entertaining, and 
     competitive evenings involving Yahtzee, Aggravation, Chinese 
     checkers, and a complicated game called Hand and Foot that 
     required seven decks of playing cards. ``We'd always come in 
     here and we'd hear the dice rolling and we'd say, `It sounds 
     like the casino is open today,' '' granddaughter Lisa 
     recalled. Alice and her brothers and sisters would gather in 
     the kitchen while their children and grandchildren would sit 
     outside to visit, the laughter and drama stemming from the 
     game wafting onto the porch. This tradition continued for 
     decades, with most of Alice's siblings living into their 90s.
       In the end, Alice was the last of her siblings to survive 
     but continued to be surrounded by family. On the afternoon of 
     her interview, her phone rang nearly every 10 minutes, with 
     family members on the other end calling for a chat. One of 
     her daughters and a granddaughter sat on the couch to ask her 
     questions. And Alice sat in her recliner talking, remembering 
     and smiling at the past.
       Thoughts from the family:
       Alice's family said that when she first found out that she 
     not only had been nominated, but also chosen as one of 
     London's Living Treasures, the first thing she said was ``I 
     haven't done anything special to deserve this. I haven't 
     fought in any wars, or held any high positions in the 
     community. I don't know what they will find to write about 
     me.'' We assured her that yes, all the things she had 
     mentioned were indeed important, but that she too had done 
     some pretty important things in her life as well. We told her 
     that when someone needed her she was always there to help, 
     she was kind to people, she made people feel loved and 
     needed, she always made people feel welcome at her home, 
     people always wanted to be around her, she was a loving 
     caregiver, she indeed impacted peoples' lives in a profound 
     way. One example is something that was said about Alice by 
     one of her neighbors--she said

[[Page S4889]]

     that she knew she was supposed to try to live her life 
     patterned by the way Jesus had lived his, but that she would 
     feel satisfied if she could just live her life the way Alice 
     Helton had lived hers. Another testimony of how much she was 
     valued by the community was when one of the preachers at her 
     funeral said that he felt as if he was officiating the 
     funeral of ``royalty.''
       Alice was a special lady to many people, and those who knew 
     her, and loved her, and respected her, will miss her dearly. 
     Her family said that they were so thankful that she was able 
     to do her interview for the London Living Treasures project 
     before she passed. And during her final hours on this earth, 
     it was so clear to them how strong her faith in God was. They 
     said she wasn't scared; she knew where she was going. They 
     said that witnessing that kind of faith was one of the 
     greatest gifts she could have ever given them.

                          ____________________