Helen Willard, July 2010

     Yesterday I spent the better part of two hours visiting with my friend Helen Willard.  We have been getting together every summer since my Dear Medora book came out in 2007.  Helen got in touch with me because she said she was a “fan” but, for me, she has become a beloved role model.
     For one thing, we have many things in common.  Helen was a primary teacher, as was I.  She taught for awhile in Ilwaco (Miss Campbell, 1934-1937), as did I; she still writes a column for her local paper in Prosser; she has written books and magazine articles and her focus is her local area, as is mine.  I love our visits and learn something new every time.
     Helen is 97 and is in the process of writing two more books – one about her life and another about the Roza which is the area of the Yakima Valley where she and her husband settled in 1949.  They were farmers, raising a variety of crops – wheat, apples, cherries, concord grapes, peas, sugar beets, and potatoes.  Her son now runs the farm which, like farms all over America, has changed from a diversified operation to the production of a single main crop.  “Mostly we grow wine grapes, now,” Helen told me. 
     She belongs to a book club.  “It’s a little different than most,” she says, “and we don’t all read the same books.  Each month one of us tells about our particular book.”  Helen is soon to report on The Memoirs of an Oregon Moonshiner by Ray Nelson.
     From May through September Helen goes to the Saturday Market with a friend where she sells, among other things, her book Pow-Wow, and Other Yakima Indian Traditions.  Not only is this coffee-table book informative, it is filled with fabulous photographs taken by Helen, herself.
     In March this year Helen moved into an Assisted Living facility in Prosser.  Her only complaint is the food – “too heavy,” she says.  “But I’m working on it.  I discovered they have a Residents’ Council and so I’ve been going and making suggestions.  Now we have more lettuce salads – something fresh and green every day.”  She tells me that she can’t hear or see well anymore and no longer uses her computer.  But she continues to keep a diary which she began in 1952 and she spends the evenings “when it’s quiet and I can think” writing her books in longhand.
     “You must come visit me in Prosser,” she said.  “It’s a different country over there.”  I plan to do so – to see Helen’s country, yes – but mostly to see Helen on her home turf in the area she has lived and helped shape for more than sixty years.  She is an awesome role model, indeed!