Helen Handley

Helen Handley was born October 25, 1924 in Beatrice, NE.  Her father was August Sack and mother was Rose Williams Sack.  She grew up in Beatrice with an older brother, Wayne Sack, and younger sister, Marie Sack Longfield.   Helen was not really a girly-girl and enjoyed playing the games more with her brother and his friends.  She even enjoyed riding Wayne’s motorcycle after they got older (early 1940s) and some say she was a better rider.

After graduating from Beatrice High School she attended Colorado Women’s College (CWC).  She graduated from there with a Bachelor’s degree in business.  While at college, she did not always go back home for the summer.  She worked one summer in Wichita, Kansas in a clothing store.  After graduating she found out that businesses at that time were not hiring women with business degrees unless they were willing to do administrative support work.  That did frustrate her but we will get back to that later.  Let me tell about the life she lived.

On Easter Sunday, April 6, 1947, Helen married John (Jack) Handley.  They were married almost 55 years until Jack’s death March 4, 2002.  They had three children, Tom (now age 72 and married to Carol Smith Handley), Barbara (died at the age of 68 in November 2019 and survived by her husband Bill Nippress) and Patrick (now age 67 and married to LeAnne Handley).  Jack and Helen and the three children lived in several different cities – Denver, Mt Prospect, IL, Des Moines, IA, Omaha, NE, Shenandoah, IA and Hastings, NE.  All three children graduated from Hastings Senior High School.  While all three kids were around, the family did a lot of camping and fishing.  Although Barbara was not a fan of fishing.  Jack and Helen did eventually buy a boat and the family took advantage of it while fishing and even did some water skiing.

After the children were grown and off the payroll, Jack and Helen started playing a lot of golf.  Fishing gear and boat kind of disappeared.  They bumped the camping up a few notches and ditched the tents and got into RVs.  They loved going to Texas in the winter where they made many new friends and played more golf.  They made those trips to Texas well into the 1990s.  They eventually moved to Colorado in the early 1990s – first to Colorado City and then in 2001 to Aurora.  They still played a lot of golf while in Colorado and were also close to Helen’s siblings since Wayne was in Aurora and Marie was in Pueblo.  Helen was an avid bridge player and reader and enjoyed watching sports on TV, especially football, college basketball, baseball and golf.

Jack and Helen were good grandparents to all 6 of the grandkids.  Barbara’s  - Dawn Nippress Welch and Mathew Nippress, Tom’s – Kyle Handley and Chad Handley, and Patrick’s – Jeremiah Waylon and Derik McCaw.  As the grandchildren got older (i.e., past the potty training phase and able to feed themselves) they took all of them on several trips or had them visit them in Colorado.  All of them have fond memories of their time with their grandparents.  Jack and Helen taught them the finer points of the game of Pitch (and maybe some of the not so fine points of the game, at least according to the legend).

I have shared much about Helen’s life but not much yet about the woman.  Let me get back to that college degree.  While raising children, she did not get to take advantage of that degree.  That changed around 1961 when she was offered a job as an elementary school teacher in Shenandoah.  Her degree was in business, not education but the Superintendent was willing to take a chance on her.  Helen went to summer school for three years to get the education credits she needed.  Nothing was going to stop her from being the best teacher she could be.  Fortunately, the three kids were old enough to take care of themselves while Helen went to school.  After teaching 6 graders for 2 years, she was offered the position of principal at the 5th-6th grade school where she taught.  There were other teachers there with more experience but that same superintendent believed she was the best person for the job.  For 2 years she taught a class and was principal of the building.

In the fall of 1966, the family moved to Hastings where she continued teaching until her retirement in May 1988.  She taught for over 25 years and taught over 700 children.  As a teacher she had a significant  impact on their lives.  But she did not stop trying to better herself.  She eventually earned a Master’s degree in education in 1983 from Kearney State College.  This involved many trips on weekends or in the summer (no remote learning back then as you had to go to class) to earn that degree.  She was very proud to walk across that stage.

One last thing worth mentioning about our mother.  For several years in the early 1960s, our father traveled for his job which left Mom at home as the single parent during the week.  She handled it well.  Starting with the motorcycle riding in the 1940s, getting a college degree when less than 5% of women earned them (now over 38%), through her years as a teacher and mother, Helen was a woman ahead of her time and helped create the path that many women follow today.

Helen died peacefully on May 23, 2021 in the presence of son Tom Handley, his wife, Carol Handley and son-in-law, Bill Nippress, in Aurora, CO.  She was preceded in death by her older brother Wayne Sack but her younger sister, Marie Longfield, age 92, still survives.