Helen French

Helen Louise (Troth) French, 87, died peacefully at her home in Boca Raton, Florida, on December 2, 2020, after a fearless battle with heart failure and colon cancer.

For six decades of her adult life, Helen was a community pillar, volunteer force, and dedicated teacher in her hometown of Independence, Missouri. In 2001 the Truman Heartland Community Foundation named her the Jackson County Humanitarian of the Year in a black-tie celebration at the Community of Christ Temple.

She was surprised and humbled by the honor, telling those gathered: “Being an ordinary member of a community, giving what you can, over a lifetime, means a whole lot. Communities are built on hundreds, and thousands, of small acts that nobody would think to call humanitarian, acts that fill in the gaps between what can be done by the people who rise to heroism, or who have high titles, or who have fortunes to give away. But we need—and depend on just as much—the everyday acts of service, the ordinary humanitarians.”

Helen was born on May 3, 1933, and raised on a farm in Graham in northwest Missouri by the late Montgomery Nile and Elsie (Davis) Troth, along with her siblings Dorothy and Eldon.

She was valedictorian of Graham High School in 1951; attended William Jewell College in Liberty, Missouri, where she was a member of Alpha Gamma Delta sorority; and graduated in 1955 from the University of Missouri-Columbia with a music education major.

Helen infused her many students with her passion for music and lifelong learning. After teaching music in public schools in Glenwood, Iowa, and Laporte, Indiana, she later cofounded a musical kindergarten with the late Barbara Sprong and for 35 years taught private piano lessons in her Independence home. Of all her volunteer and career experiences, she often said the most rewarding was teaching with the federal Adult Basic Education program throughout the 1980s, preparing adults for their graduate equivalency degrees and helping many move from public assistance to jobs or further education.

She met the love of her life, Howard French, on a blind date while in college, and they married in July 1956. Both loved to tell the story of their long-distance courtship. Howard came calling in his ’49 Ford convertible at her family’s farm—her dad wearing bib overalls, chickens pecking in the yard, and hogs rooting at the fence. Howard thought, “These are my kind of people!” Howard had just returned from Army service in post-World War II Germany, bringing back a tailored blue-serge suit and slides of his travels. Helen thought, “Here’s the man who’s going to take me away from all of this!”

The couple moved to Independence in 1959, where Helen began her lifelong career of community service. She joined the Junior Service League, serving as its president, treasurer, and as a docent at the Harry S Truman Presidential Library and Museum. She was always thrilled when President Truman visited and asked her to bring the schoolchildren to the auditorium to talk about the importance of learning history.

Helen went on to her own local political career. After being appointed to several city boards, she was elected to the Independence School District Board of Education, serving from 1978 to 1991 as treasurer, vice president, and president. Under her presidency, the district won one of the first asbestos-liability lawsuits in the country, developed a sequential kindergarten-to-high-school curriculum, instituted the Twenty-First Century Program for young children, and started Arts Partners to ensure music and arts in the public schools.

She was later an active board member for the Heart of America Family Services, the Mid-Continent Public Library, and the Truman Heartland Community Foundation, as its development chair linking donors and charitable service organizations. She was also a member of the Harry S Truman Award Committee.

Helen always led with her strong Christian faith. She grew up in the Bethany Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Graham, where her father was Sunday School director and her mother played the piano. On moving to Independence, she and her husband joined the First Baptist Church, where she also served as pianist, children’s choir director, and Sunday School director. In later life she joined Connection Point Church in Raytown, Missouri, and its women’s ministry Promise Class. After moving to St. Andrew’s Estates retirement community in Boca Raton in 2018, she founded two Bible study groups, played piano for weekly chapel services, and attended weekly prayer meetings right up to the final months of her life. Over the years she made mission trips to Belize, Barbados, and Tanzania, where she and her good friend Jane Howard have supported the New Life Foundation boarding school for needy and orphaned children.

A true bon vivant, Helen valued fun as much as she did service. Many friends and family called her an “Energizer bunny.” She was an extrovert who got recharged by visiting with old friends and meeting new ones, a terrific conversationalist who always drew others out, a loyal friend who kept up with her wide-ranging circle of loved ones, and an organizational wizard who could pack more into a day than people half her age.

Her passions included international travel, music, bridge, and growing, cooking, and eating fine food.

She especially loved meeting people from other countries and cultures. In the 1970s she was the liaison committee chair for the local American Field Service chapter, and her family hosted two AFS foreign-exchange students to Truman High School. In the 1980s she served on the Independence Japanese Sister City Committee, helping establish a relationship with an elementary school in Hagashimurayama, Japan. Over her lifetime she toured 51 countries on six continents, many with her traveling buddy Sharon Williams.

Making music and listening to other musicians were Helen at her essence. Though she was gifted with perfect pitch and played by ear, she also learned sightreading and music theory. She was always ready to play one of the Scott Joplin rags her husband loved or accompany a singalong at a party. She adored the Kansas City Symphony. In recent years she organized regular groups to attend concerts, introducing many first-timers to the symphony, to their mutual enjoyment.

A confident bridge player who believed life was too short to underbid, she always had more than one bridge group going, up until pandemic restrictions prevented them earlier this year.

Over her lifetime, she catered many parties and delighted friends and family with her delicious cooking—from the homey cinnamon rolls her grandchildren love to more adventurous creations inspired by fine restaurants in her travels. In the 1970s the families of Helen and her friend, the late Judy Johnson, co-owned a farm in Oak Grove, Missouri. Together, they grew a huge garden, feeding their families in all seasons with hundreds of canning jars of tomatoes, green beans, salsify, and pickles.

Survivors include daughter Kimberly French and her husband, Michael Rozyne, of Middleborough, Massachusetts; son Kyle French and his wife, Jackie French, of Boca Raton, Florida; son Kent French and his husband, Robert Guthrie, of Cambridge, Massachusetts; grandchildren Shaya French of Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, Nicholas French of Nashville, Tennessee, Liza French of Middleborough, Massachusetts, and Christopher French of Boca Raton, Florida; brother Eldon Troth and his wife, Frances Troth, of Graham, Missouri; many nieces, nephews, in-laws, and an enormous circle of friends in many states and countries, including American Field Service sons Magnus Oweling of Sweden and Gustavo Barbosa of Brazil. She was predeceased by her parents; her husband, Howard French; and her sister, Dorothy (Troth) Shirley.

In May 2020 for her 87th birthday, ninety of Helen’s friends and family members paid tribute to her long life of service, faith, family, and friendship in a living memorial via Zoom—many using Zoom for the first time, all using good humor. Another memorial service will be planned for a later date. According to Helen’s wishes, her body has been donated to Science Care of Coral Springs, Florida, for research.

Tax-deductible donations may be made to the Helen L. French Family Fund, which supports several charities she has chosen, at the Truman Heartland Community Foundation, 4200 Little Blue Parkway, Suite 340, Independence, MO 64057. Or online go to https://thcf.org/Your-Giving/Give-Now, then select Helen L. French Family Fund.