Our dear mother, grandmother and Nana departed this world on December 27, 2024. After
suffering a massive stroke on Christmas evening, Helen was rushed by the wonderful Laramie
ambulance crew to the Medical Center of the Rockies in Loveland. She spent the next 48 hours
there under the tender care of the medical and hospice staff, surrounded by the love of her
family. The hospital chaplain and priest, as well as Father Rob from St. Paul’s Newman Center,
and dear friends from the Abbey of St. Walburga in Virginia Dale, were there to pray for her as
she set off on her final journey.
Helen Veronica (although she despised her middle name) was born to John Kelly and Helen
Boyce Kelly on February 16, 1930 in Philadelphia. She was a proud Irish Catholic American
girl, coming from working class immigrant families who worked in the textile mills on the
Schuykill River. As if being born into the Great Depression was not hardship enough, she lost
her grandmother and mother to influenza in a two-week period just after she turned 7. Having
no resources to raise her alone, her father sent her to live with her beloved Aunt Lizzie. At
school she made lifelong friends whose families helped support her as she grew up. She never
forgot the importance of hospitality and generosity throughout her life. She graduated from the
all-girls Catholic high school, Little Flower, in 1948, and the years after high school gave her a
wonderful supply of stories ranging from the perils of selling shoes to women who refused to
believe their feet had grown after 7 children to tales of working in the mills that she could make
sound like the “I Love Lucy chocolates on the assembly line” episode.
Helen’s life changed dramatically in 1951 when she met a handsome young man named Jack
Dunnebecke at a USO dance. Jack was a Navy corpsman from Laramie, Wyoming, recently
detailed to the Marines on the East Coast, so it was either a twist of fate or stroke of luck that
they met at all, but of course they did. They fell in love, married in August 1952, and proceeded
to have three daughters in quick succession. Jack became a skilled bricklayer, but he was
never happy in Philadelphia and finally convinced Helen that they had to move to Wyoming. It
was an extremely difficult decision for her as an only child. And Wyoming? All anyone in her
world knew about the place came to them from a TV show called “Laramie”, where everyone
still traveled by horse and buggy.
Nonetheless, the family of five piled into an old Plymouth and set off for Laramie in 1961. They
were welcomed by Jack’s aunt and uncle, Eileen and Al Haberland, who had raised him in the
family home at 8th and Gibbon. They settled in West Laramie, sending the girls to St. Lawrence
school on the local school bus. This left Helen quite isolated as she had never learned to drive
or even ride a bike in Philadelphia. As Jack’s patience left a lot to be desired as a driving
teacher, her dear friend, Aunt Eleanor Johnson, taught her to drive in her early 30s, and Helen
never looked back. That said, you could never completely take Philadelphia out of the girl. She
loved to turn on the accent, wrinkle up her nose and say words like “water, coffee, and dawn” in
her own inimitable way.
When her youngest child went to school, she began working several nights a week as a
secretary in the Counseling and Testing Department at UW. In fairly short order she landed in
Old Main and became an assistant to the President. She loved her work, supporting a number
of presidents and Boards of Trustees with style, grace, and professionalism until her retirement
in 1981. During these years, Helen became involved in a number of community efforts as well,
notably helping to establish the Downtown Clinic to provide medical care for those who could
not otherwise get it; and, with Jack and her children, the Pantry at St. Lawrence Church, to
gather food that would otherwise be wasted and get it to those who needed it. She was a
devout Catholic and a long-time member of the Altar and Rosary Society at St. Lawrence, as
well as a member of St. Paul’s Newman Center parish. She was a devoted friend of the
Benedictine Abbey of St. Walburga at Virginia Dale.
In the late 1960s, Helen and Jack moved into a house he built on 7th St. He also built a home
for his best friend, Earl Johnson on Boulder Ridge, south of Laramie. Earl gave Jack and Helen
a piece of land down the ridge where they built their own dream “cabin” complete with garage,
chicken coop and trout pond. Although their plan was to live there full-time in their retirement,
winters on the wide open plains did not prove to be Helen’s idea of a good time and thus began
decades of living in both the country and “Aunt Eileen’s house” in town. At the time, it was a
fairly non-traditional way for a couple to live, but they both came to joke that having two houses
was the key to a successful marriage.
Helen lived happily in the family home until the day she died thanks to the loving support of her
daughter, Susan, over the past six years. She rarely passed a day without remarking on her
gratitude for having such a beautiful life, focusing on what she had and not what she’d lost to
glaucoma and macular degeneration, as well as many of the other ills of very old age. She
learned resilience and strength at an early age and continued to embody them throughout her
life. She was a beautiful woman who continued to care about her appearance while accepting
the changes brought by age. And most remarkably, she never lost her interest in trying new
things despite being almost entirely blind; she delighted in learning you could project pictures
from your phone onto the giant TV and actually see faces for the first time in too long or turn on
a computer and have a zoom meeting with friends across the country. She loved to travel and
was brave enough to keep doing it even when she couldn’t see. She walked around Ireland
with her daughter and grand daughter at 80; flew to Rhode Island at 93 and was wheeled in a
sand buggy into the waves by her grandson; attended her great grandson’s graduation in
Kansas City this past summer; hopped and bopped in a wheel chair with her daughter’s dance
group in Boulder; and caught up with her Dunnebecke nephews and niece in Centennial CO just
a few months ago.
Helen remained an avid reader all her life, finding happiness in the stacks of audio books mailed
to her regularly by the lovely people at the Library for the Blind in Salt Lake City. She spent
countless hours curled up in her big comfy chair basking in the sunshine pouring in from the
south-facing window, all the while remarking on what a lucky girl she was to have such a life and
then breathlessly telling you all you about the wonderful story she was reading.
Without a doubt, Helen’s most remarkable quality was her ability to talk to anyone about
anything. As she used to say about her father “he never met a stranger”, and the same was
certainly true of her. She loved to ask questions because she really wanted to know more.
Whether it was an old friend or a stranger/not yet friend, people walked away from Helen feeling
seen and heard; it was always clear that she really cared what they had to say. She loved easily
and well and was very much loved in return. On her last Christmas, she attended Mass and
sang carols, had breakfast with the family, listened to her kids and grandkids playing rowdy
games of Pinochle, watched everyone open their presents (and loved opening her own), and
ate a delicious prime rib dinner cooked by her great grandson. It was a beautiful day.

Helen was preceded in death by her husband, Jack, in 2014. She is survived by her daughter,
Joanne and granddaughter Claire, Boulder, CO; her daughter Eileen Gettman and husband
Alan of North Kingstown, RI, granddaughter Ellie, partner Jay and great grandchildren River and
Montgomery, all of Maine, and granddaughter Emma, North Kingstown, RI; and her daughter
Susan and husband Don Rector of Laramie, her granddaughter Elizabeth Harvey of Kansas
City, partner Calvin, and great grandchildren Jesse, Laramie, and Jackson, Fort Collins CO; and
her grandson Jon Barton, Casper and great grandchildren Taylee, Dylan and Bradleigh, of
Laramie and Casper. As an only child herself, becoming the matriarch of this large, beautiful
family gave her enormous joy.
A funeral mass will be held at St. Paul’s Newman Center at 11 am on Friday, February 14th, with
burial in Greenhill Cemetery and lunch in the parish hall to follow. An Irish celebration of life will
be held on Saturday, February 15th at the American Legion Hall in Laramie beginning around 4
pm. All are very welcome.
Should you wish to make a charitable donation in her honor, please consider the Downtown
Clinic in Laramie, the Eppson Center for Seniors in Laramie, the Abbey of St. Walburga in
Virginia Dale, CO, or the Library for the Blind in Salt Lake City, UT.