Helen Dunkle Samuelson

Helen Lorraine Baker, now Helen Dunkle Samuelson, was born on July 23, 1923, on the family farm in northern Iowa near Rockford. She was the second of two daughters born to Clyde and Ruth Baker, her older sister, Margaret, having been born two years earlier.

After graduating from high school, she attended Hamilton Business College in nearby Mason City to become a bookkeeper and upon completion found a job at Pacific General Electric. In 1945 she moved to Glendale, Calif. In 1947 she married John George Dunkle, then a Los Angeles County Sheriff and they settled in Glendale. In 1955 their first child, Eileen was born, followed by a second daughter, Ann, two years later. Throughout these years she worked as a bookkeeper at a number of places, including TOTCO and Shearson.

The marriage ended in 1973, but in 1980 she married Earl W. Samuelson of Van Nuys, Calif., and they spent the past 34 years together. In 2010 she was diagnosed with mantel cell lymphoma. After battling cancer for more than three years, she passed away on Friday, Jan. 24, 2014.

She is survived by her husband Earl, sister Margaret Hoffman, her two children, Eileen Kingsley and Ann Partida, and seven grandchildren.

She will be buried in the Rockford Riverside Cemetery in Rockford.