Wanda Lownardia Helm

Helm, Wanda Lownardia
passed away peacefully at home on December 12, 2014 in Scottsdale, Arizona at the age of 88. She is preceded by her husband, William (Bill) Hardy Helm. She was a mother to four children and had five grandchildren. Wanda was born on May 4, 1926 in Bensenville, Illinois to Leopold and Bernice Fisher who immigrated to Chicago from Poland. After graduating from high school, Wanda received a full art scholarship to the Art Institute of Chicago but chose rather to work for her brother Leo, at Scholl Studio in Chicago. While working as a post-war photographer, she met and married Danny Sanelli, a recently discharged Army soldier in 1946. The couple welcomed three children Larry, Kenneth, and Laurie while living in Chicago, then the fourth child Mark, after moving to Phoenix in 1957. Some years had passed and she married her second husband, Bill Helm in 1969 and often worked at his busy printing business in uptown Phoenix. The couple remained together until Bill had passed in 2007. Her children remember her as a very nurturing, loving mother and homemaker who was a meticulous seamstress, loved to cook, and was an enthusiastic artist and hobbyist. Her greatest love however, was her beneficent devotion towards others especially her children and grandchildren. She maintained family connections with her two sisters, brother, nieces, nephews and had numerous close and dear friends. During her lifetime she overcame cancer and although Alzheimer's disease steadily affected her cognitive function, she was still able to remember and hold close to her family.