Helen

Helen Johnston Majercik was a Smith College graduate, class of 1937, who led a long life. After graduating from Smith, Helen chauffeured her aunt Anna on a cross-country auto trip with equally fun-loving relatives. Helen’s life was one that was lively and full of incident. She capped it in an unusual way: she enjoyed her life so much that she decided, in her last years, to write a book about it.

Helen tells of becoming an x-ray technician in the early days of that specialty, and of course, she introduces her husband and other family members, such as her sisters, including one whose nickname was Louse. Among her book’s highlights, though, are things like the description of her career as a bridesmaid: she walked down the aisle no fewer than five times as an attendant, despairing at the end of ever being the bride. Helen did marry at age forty-two and had one daughter at age forty-four.

In a chapter to themselves are stories and anecdotes contributed to her book by more than a dozen of Helen’s friends who assisted her in many ways after her daughter died. The combined stories give the reader the secrets to a long and happy life.