Helen Adelia Basham

1928 - 2020

HELEN ADELIA SLAUGHTER BASHAM, mother, social worker, early childhood education specialist, artist, and dearly loved friend of many, "shuffled off this mortal coil" on January 4, 2020, at her home in Dunbar, West Virginia, just one block from the house in which she was born in 1928. She was 91.
Helen, deeply spiritual, lived life with joy and excitement, and left this life content and curious about what was to come. The daughter of Lloyd Simon and Johanna (nee Thompson) Slaughter, she was born into a loving family of four older brothers who teased and cherished her and saw that she was able to go to West Virginia University at a time when women were less likely to pursue a college education. She graduated from Dunbar High School in 1945 and from WVU in 1950 with a bachelor's degree in social work. Also at WVU she met her future husband, Robert Lee Basham, whom she married the day she took her social work certification exam, moving with him back to the Charleston area, where they began to raise a family. Over the course of their 20-year marriage, Helen and Bob lived in West Virginia, Delaware, Maryland, and New York before returning to Charleston in 1967, where Helen resumed her social work career and became a specialist in family therapy and Early Childhood Education.
After her marriage ended in divorce in 1970, Helen became a single mother of five children, ages 4-16. As she worked to support her family and begin rebuilding her career, she always kept focused on what she considered her mission in life: mothering and nurturing her children. Though this was a challenging and precarious period for her and her family, she mothered well and continued to pursue career opportunities, working as a child and family therapist and as an administrator and trainer in Head Start, Family Day Care, Foster Care, and Child Protective Services. She shared her loving, accepting approach to families and children with colleagues and families in Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Colorado and formed deep friendships wherever she went.
In 1994, her five children grown and starting families of their own, Helen retired and returned to her beloved Mountain State to begin a whole new phase of her life as an artist, writer, and volunteer arts administrator. Helen was a committed and heavily involved member of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Charleston, and her enthusiasm for the arts was informed by her spirituality, by her appreciation for the wonderful diversity of the human race, and by a sense of justice and social service. She believed the arts created a spiritual connection between people and the world around them. In addition to creating her own works of art, which she often used to capture the essence of her many friends, she started the Creative Capers summer arts program with her dear friend Averill Howard, working with local artists to provide arts experiences for children in the Charleston area who might not otherwise have had access to quality arts education. She also started an artists' cooperative that began as an annual holiday sale out of her "Little White House" in Dunbar and grew into the annual River Arts Festival at the UU church.
In her inimitable way, Helen made close friends in the many places she lived, and she maintained and nurtured those valued relationships throughout her long life. More than anything in a very consequential life, Helen valued her relationships with her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren; her brothers and their families; and her many, many friends around the country. Though she outlived many of her contemporaries, she continued to form and build friendships across generations, right up until she died.
Helen was preceded in death by her parents, her brothers Howard, Harry, and Herman Slaughter, and her son Byron Hunter Basham (Pam), who died in 2011. She is survived by her children L. Robert Basham (Gracia Walker); Tamara Lee Basham Ballou (John); Mary Basham DeMaio; and Lisa Ellen Basham (David Ference). She is also survived by her beloved brother Lloyd Slaughter (Marilyn) of Morgantown, ten grandchildren, six great-grandchildren, and countless cherished friends and extended family members.
Helen faced many challenges in her long life, yet she was always able to rejoice in life's pleasures and beauty and savor her relationships with the many people whose lives touched hers and whose lives she touched in return. As she approached the end of her long life, she was content to move on to the next phase, ever curious about what was to come. She believed deeply that life and death are natural and that life is eternal. She was comfortable with the uncertainty of what she undoubtedly saw as the next adventure. Helen embraced these words from the Unitarian hymn Spirit of Life: "and if they ask what I did well, tell them I said 'yes' to life, love and truth." She did just that. She will be sorely missed.
A celebration of Helen's life will be held in the spring. She had asked that in lieu of flowers, contributions be made to the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Charleston, 520 Kanawha Boulevard, Charleston, WV 25302.