Helen Dunlop

Peoria centenarian dies

PEORIA - Helen Davis Dunlop, age 102, of Peoria passed away on Saturday, Sept. 15, 2012, at Buehler Home in Peoria.

She was born Sept. 27, 1909, in Iowa City, Iowa, the daughter of David T. Davis and Rosa Lee Tanner Davis. Helen graduated from the University of Iowa and was a children's librarian in the Iowa City library. She married John Dunlop Jr. in August of 1935 and moved to Peoria.

Helen was a member of Delta Gamma Fraternity, PEO, the Methodist Hospital Service League, Panhellenic and First Presbyterian Church.

During World War II she volunteered as a Red Cross aide at Methodist Hospital.

Helen was a Brownie Scout leader and a Cub Scout den mother while raising her children.

Helen accompanied her husband to Belfast, Northern Ireland, in 1950-51 when he was an exchange teacher through the Fulbright Program.

She especially enjoyed playing bridge with her friends on Friday afternoons.

Helen was preceded in death by her husband, John of 40 years, as well as three sisters and a brother.

Helen is survived by her two children, Jane of White Lake, Mich., and John (Susan Keller) Dunlop III of Wichita, Kan.; and nieces, Ann Davis Poole and Betty Love Gamble. She has five grandchildren, Susan (Joseph) Austin, Elizabeth (David) Jerzy, W. Charles Edson, Elizabeth Helen (Timothy) Jones and John Davis Dunlop; and two great-grandchildren, Kyle and Charlie Jerzy.

For the past 19 years, Mrs. Dunlop had resided at Buehler Home, where she was given extraordinary loving care.

Cremation rites will be accorded and a private memorial service at a later date. Arrangements were made through Cumerford-Hurd Funeral Home in Peoria.