Remembering Helen

Before Helen’s obituary appeared in the Howell County News a few weeks ago, emails from her family alerted me to her passing. In some respects, I didn’t know Helen Tandy (WSHS 1956) as well as some, but she always made me feel as if I did. An immediate smile when she saw me on Memorial Weekends in Willow Springs. Effusive compliments about my writing, and bragging that she knew a famous author. And she never failed with assistance when I sought information for a column. 

 

I really only knew Helen as an adult and wondered what she was like as a student in Willow Springs and queried some of her schoolmates. Classmate Dean Belshe (WSHS 1956) says, “Helen was a leader and very smart and was a very talented artist. She led quietly. I remember the day she entered Ms. Ella Horak's third-grade class, and Ms. Horak introduced her to the class. First day impression: very pretty. Later on in the week: very smart. Sweet and very kind.”

 

Jane Bailey (WSHS 1958) remembered Helen as a popular student in high school, which is underscored by her senior class electing her vice president. Wendell Bailey (WSHS 1958) remembers her as being quiet, but Frankie Grogan Beaird (WSHS 1958) says, “We went to church with the Tandys. Helen was popular, and I don't remember her as being quiet. She liked to have fun.”

 

In 1956, there were no sports teams for girls at WSHS, but a photograph in the Willamizzou shows Helen wearing a letter sweater with three chevrons on the sleeve. I wondered if the sweater and stripes might have been for participating in band. I asked her good friend and classmate Helen Brown Walker (WSHS 1956.) who said, “Yes, she was in band the four years of high school. A good baritone player.” 

After graduation from Southwest Missouri State College (now, Missouri State), Helen returned to Willow Springs for the 1961-62 school year to teach English classes and elementary art. I first recall meeting her in the spring of 1961, before fall classes started. It was sometime before May 12, her brother Bill’s sixteenth birthday and his acquisition of a driver’s license. He convinced Helen to drive him and me to a traveling carnival in Cabool. 

 

While Bill and I ran wild, like dogs off a leash, eating cotton candy and hotdogs and riding every ride at least once, Helen strolled behind us with an ever-pleasant smile the entire evening. After that night, I think patient and longsuffering could have been added to her list of qualities. 

 

When Bill got his driver’s license, Helen’s aforementioned qualities were tested. According to Bill’s wife, Becky Tandy, the first day Bill got his license Helen let him borrow her car, and Bill was involved in a fender-bender. Bill and a buddy pulled next to each other to talk, and when they were done, the buddy forgot his wheels were turned to the left and drove into Helen’s car. Becky says, “Apparently, Helen wasn’t any more inclined to tell her little brother ‘no’ than anyone else.”

 

Helen began teaching at Willow Springs my freshman year. As eighth-graders, my class had high school teachers for each subject, including Mrs. Munford for English. As freshman, most of the class continued with Mrs. Munford, but the next year, classmates Eddie Mack Hill and Truman Grogan transitioned to Miss Tandy’s class. I specifically remember Eddie Mack telling me that “after four years at Mizzou she ought to be pretty good.” As noted above, Helen’s degree came from SMS.

 

Helen revealed a different aspect of her personality in dealing with the ever-creative Truman Grogan and his approach to book reports. Truman, who was a good reader, but apparently unimpressed with the approved reading list, took an imaginative approach. 

 

Like The Beachboys in the 1960s, some local boys got tired of cruising the same old strips and drove to neighboring towns to meet new girls and would often return with invented stories of wild times. From one such foray to Mountain Grove, Truman crafted a “book report” about a young man’s encounter with a mysterious woman. I still remember the name of the girl (who was an actual person) that he used.

No doubt, Helen saw through the ruse. After all, she had Bill for a brother, and knew the shenanigan Truman was pulling. He told me Helen had asked him a few questions about the author, which caused him to squirm, but she let it slide. If it had been a class in creative nonfiction, he would have gotten an “A.” I will add “tolerant” to Helen’s list of qualities.

 

Even a tolerant, longsuffering person’s patience can be tried. Recently, Helen’s brother, John Tandy (WSHS 1960), shared an insightful story about his sister. John said, “We talked Helen into coming to one of our daughter Lindsay‘s high school basketball games years ago. As you probably know, Helen was a big sports fan and loved the Kansas City Chiefs, for example, and she was leader of the pep squad at the school where she taught in Independence.”

 

John wasn’t sure how much Helen would like an out-of-town girls’ basketball game but was glad she came. He said, “Unfortunately, we found out as the game began that one of the two referees was the father of a girl on the opposing team. This raised eyebrows among all of our team’s fans, especially a lively fan like Helen.

 

“The referee continually made questionable calls. Helen could not sit still. After a particularly questionable call, Helen put her hands around her mouth like a megaphone and yelled, ‘Mister Referee, you are a ‘Doofus!’

 

“The referee called a time out and huddled with our team. He told our players that he would not tolerate such shouts from the fans sitting in the higher stands (he pointed). He asked if any of our team knew who was doing the shouting. After a moment of silence, our daughter Lindsay, embarrassingly looked down at the floor, cupped her mouth, and at a whisper, said, ‘That’s my aunt.’

 

“The ref said to please go tell her aunt that if she keeps this up, she will be thrown out of the gymnasium. Lindsay quickly climbed up the stands and whispered in Helen’s ear what the referee had said. As Lindsay turned to return to the playing floor, she quickly turned back towards Helen and loudly said, ‘By the way, WHAT is a doofus?’”

 

Helen and the entire Tandy family have been a blessing to the community, and I am proud to have known them all.

 

My thanks to Helen’s sister-in-law Becky and brother John for sharing their memories. And thanks to her schoolmates, Jane and Wendell Bailey, Frankie Grogan Beaird, Helen Walker Brown, and Dean Belshe for their assistance.