Helen Rebecca Mcwilliams

HELEN REBECCA McWILLIAMS Memorial services for Helen Rebecca McWilliams will be held at 11 a.m. Tuesday, January 22, at Montezuma Valley Presbyterian Church. Pastors Steve and Kim Nofel will officiate the services. Helen was the second of six children born to Belvin Kerry and Martha Marie (Westrop) Swing. She was born August 7, 1916 in Junction City, Kans. She passed away at Valley Inn Nursing Home in Mancos on Tuesday, January 15, 2008 at the age of 91. In 1935 Helen graduated from high school in Worland, Wyo. She entered nursing school at St. Lukes Hospital in Denver shortly after where she graduated as a Registered Nurse. She worked as a surgical nurse at St. Lukes and she was working there when she met Ken McWilliams at a social function at the church she was attending in downtown Denver. Helen married James Kenneth McWilliams on June 19, 1943 at the First Presbyterian Church in LaSalle, Colo. After Ken returned from the war, they began their family. Helen set aside her career for what she viewed as a more important calling; making a home and raising her children. Between 1946 and 1974, while they had children at home, Helen made home in 17 different buildings from a farm house without indoor plumbing near LaSalle to an apartment building in Germany to a new house near San Antonio, Tex. to their home for over thirty years on Lakeview 1 (now County Road M) near Cortez. Two times she returned to nursing; she nursed her brother, Glenn for two months in 1953 after he had been seriously burned in a farm accident and for two summers as nurse for a summer camp near Creede where both she and Ken worked. Helen was a lifelong member of the Lakeview Harmony Club. Surviving Helen are her children, Kim K. (Slim) McWilliams and wife, Sue of Lewis, Dean K. McWilliams and wife, Pam of Ft. Collins, Colo., Anne M. Palmer and husband, J. C. of Cortez, and Betty M. Cox and husband, Ferrell of Cortez; grandchildren, Debbie Brandt and husband, Roy of McFarland, Calif., Deanne Clary of Tracy, Calif., Shannon McWilliams of Independence, Mo., Mike McWilliams and wife, Sonya of Allen, Tex., Sean McWilliams of Independence, Mo., Glenda Carter of Blue Springs, Mo., Corie McWilliams of Cortez, Jessie Southerland and husband, Mike of Loma Linda, Calif., Erin Gray and husband, Eric of Cortez, Toby McWilliams and wife, Angie and Marti Schlatter and husband, Cody all of Ault, Colo., and Amber Varney and husband, James of Cortez; and great-grandchildren, Amber Brandt of Wichita, Kans., Jessica Brandt of McFarland, Calif., Tyler McWilliams of Allen, Tex., Zachary McWilliams and Bryce McWilliams of Allen, Tex., Vanessa Carter, Gabriel Carter, and Jasmine Carter of Blue Springs, Mo., Liam Southerland of Loma Linda, Calif., Ethan Gray and Anthony Varney of Cortez. Also surviving Helen are her sisters, Evelyn Williams and husband, R.J. Red of Ashland, Neb. and Eileen Smith and husband, Donald of Worland, Wyo.; and two sisters-in-law, Betty Swing and Mert Swing both of Worland, Wyo. She was preceded in death by her husband, Ken McWilliams in 2006; her sister, Marie Housley; and her brothers, Glen Swing and Harold Swing. Memorial contributions to benefit the Lakeview Harmony Club can be made in memory of Helen McWilliams with Citizens State Bank of Cortez, PO Drawer T, Cortez.