- Date Of Birth: December 4, 1915
- Date Of Death: November 30, 2012
- State: Massachusetts
BRADFORD – Like all great people, she was one of a kind. She died peacefully on Friday evening, November 30, at the Anna Jaques Hospital in Newburyport, four days short of her 97th birthday. She leaves behind many, many people who will be forever in her debt.
Helen Bernadette Gavin Kelleher was born in Haverhill in 1915. Her mother Bridgette Roche Gavin died when she was three. She lived for several happy years with her grandparents and her doting Aunt Dolly, who treated her like a princess. Her father Joseph Gavin remarried shortly thereafter, and she experienced poverty and difficulty throughout her girlhood, which was spent during the dark days of the Great Depression. She met her future husband, Hugh Kelleher of Newburyport, not long before the Second World War. After Hugh left for Europe and Africa, Helen developed TB.
