Helen Cairer

Helen Marie Cairer

SEDALIA — Former editor Bob Satnan wrote in a column some time ago that he believed obituaries should be amusing, even humorous. Helen agreed. As a result, her obituary is somewhat unusual, but one of which she would approve.

On August 23, 2015, Helen Marie Jenkins Chalfant Cairer's soul went to be with God and her body sank slowly in the formaldehyde at the University of Missouri Anatomy and Pathology Laboratory. She donated her body for scientific study, thus fulfilling her long time ambition of becoming a cadaver.

Helen Marie Jenkins was born August 3, 1927, the year Lindberg made his famous flight, she liked to remind people. Her parents, Jonathan Otto Jenkins and Linnie Opal Leach Jenkins, lived in rural Sedalia. She attended High Point Elementary School, to which she walked six miles uphill in a foot of snow every day, even though she actually lived only two miles from the school. When the family moved into town, she attended Whittier School, where one of her teachers, Letha Shaw, taught her to love poetry. She graduated from Smith-Cotton High School.

She attended Central College, McPherson, Kansas, Greenville College in Greenville, Illinois, and Central Missouri State College, prior to her marriage on May 13, 1949 to Chester Lee Chalfant of Knob Noster. Helen and Chester had three children, Rhonda Chalfant, Joseph Chalfant, and Dee Chalfant Baker. In 1981, she married Bill Cairer.

Helen returned to college and graduated from CMSU in 1967 with a Bachelor of Science in Education. She taught fourth and third grade at La Monte School where in addition to the regular curriculum, she taught her students to read poetry and to draw.

Helen was a skilled seamstress, a competent artist of realistic images, and an avid scrapbooker. She failed completely as a gardener, however, noting that even the flowered dress she once owned had died. Fortunately, other family members had green thumbs and could provide her with sweet corn and fresh tomatoes.

Helen volunteered for many years at the Open Door, the Pettis County Community partnership, and RSVP. She greeted people with a smile, with compliments, and with jokes. She was a member of First Baptist Church and in later years attended First United Methodist Church, where she actively participated in United Methodist Women and the Fidelis Sunday School Class. She enjoyed the meetings of Sorosis and Helen G. Steele Music Club. She belonged to the NAACP and Diversified Community Outreach. Nurtured in an interest in history by her father, she was a member of the Pettis County Historical Society and volunteered as a docent at the Pettis County Museum.

She was preceded in death by Chester Chalfant, Joseph Chalfant, and Bill Cairer.

In 2011, she moved into her daughter Rhonda's home, where she was immediately adopted by two of the household's cats, who sat on her lap, were stroked, and were engaged in conversation. She loved her great grandchildren, and encouraged them to play boisterously in the house.

A memorial service will be held at 1:00 p.m. on Saturday, October 10, at First Methodist Church at South Fourth Street and Osage Avenue, with the Reverend Nick Veale and Elder James Graves presiding. The family will meet friends at 12:30 before the service. The family requests contributions to the Open Door Service Center or the Pettis County Historical Society.