Helen Harris Biography

Helen Mary HARRIS was born 22 Jan 1927 in Chicago, Cook County, Illinois, to parents George and Anna (PREVENAS) HARRIS.

Katharine Prevenas
Peter Prevenas
Helen Harris

Helen Harris
1941
8th Grade Graduation?

Louis & Helen Dahle
10 Jan 1953
Gus Harris & Katharine Langner, and flower girl Connie Bakalis

"I went to college and majored in flying. I failed French. I passed math and geography. I got a two-year Associates of Arts degree in Aviation in 1947." [*HHD]

"How did I meet Louie? I ate his lunch! I was working the night shift at the airlines. I came home on Friday morning. I would have Saturday and Sunday off and go to work Sunday night. I was cleaning house and I said to my Mom as she was going to work at the restaurant, 'When you come home bring me something to eat.' When she came home she said, 'Here' and handed me a paper bag. We never used paper bags. I said, 'What is this?” and she said, 'The nicest fellow left this. He eats here every morning.' So, I ate the lunch. It was a Louie-style lunch with a lot of rabbit food in it. Then, I started working mornings again and I always stopped at the restaurant for orange juice and coffee. And my mother said, 'Oh, this is the boy’s lunch you ate the other day.' And I thought, 'Mother, spare me.' And we talked. We meet in September and got married in January, 1953, in a Greek Orthodox church on Central Avenue in Chicago. The ceremony lasted one and a half hours. Louis was as white as a ghost, he almost passed out. The reception was held at Uncle Gus’ restaurant." [*HHD]

"On our honeymoon we left from Irving Park and Kedsey. We were going to Lake Geneva to Uncle Gus’ place. We were driving and driving and we were back on Irving Park. We were lost. Finally, we get to Lake Geneva and Lou says, 'We should stop at the grocery store to get something to eat at the house.' So we did some shopping. We get to the house and pull into the garage. Then he is struggling and struggling to get the door open and starts into the house. I asked, 'Aren’t you going to carry me over the threshold?' And he said, 'No, I've got to pee.' I thought, 'Well, there’s that.' So then, the next day we went iceskating and he caught a cold. He started drinking Seven Star Metaxa. In those days you had an aerial rotator knob so you could get stations on the TV. He is drinking Metaxa, turning this knob, with a towel over his head (and breathing with great effort because of the cold). I was so mad I went to a movie. Then we went up to his Aunt and Uncle up in Madison. They are road building people. The cousins took us out, pulled us on the toboggan with the tractor. Then they put me in the bucket of the bulldozer! They lifted me way up into the air. I thought I was going to die. Then, the night we get ... and the phone rings and it was my mother! I had borrowed Dr. Hibbs’ wife’s fur coat instead of my mother’s. The doctor’s wife was leaving to go somewhere and she had to have her fur coat. Lou thought of calling some moving guy to ask him to take the coat to Mrs. Hibbs. We never thought to have the coat insured or anything so we were sweating out its safe delivery for two days. Denise was born ten months and seventeen days after we were married." [*HHD]

"We lived in Rodgers Park, then the north side of Chicago, until Louie's mother, Nina, got killed in an automobile accident." [*HHD] They lived in three separate apartments in the same apartment building. Just before Nina died, Anna and Nina had decided to move in together and share the same apartment.

"We moved to Waukegan while we were building our house in Lake Bluff. While in Lake Bluff, our third daughter, Dominique, was born." [*HHD]

"We threw a 25th wedding anniversary party for our parents while Denise was in Boston. Andrea and Jim Thein and Ruth Coleman helped us plan the surprise party for my parents." [*DDS]

“We decided not to tell Mom that Denise’s present to them was that she would show up for the party. We sent Mom and Dad out and when they came home Denise and Jim rang the front door bell. I thought my mom was going to have a heart attack. We decided we were never going to have another surprise for my mother again. This was serious. This was no joke. This got real critical." [*DDS]

"Andrea had made my mom a 25-year wedding anniversary tree. She made a silver cone and covered it with sparkly silver and then got twenty-five silver dollars and wrapped them in cellophane and made the tree." [*DDS]

"All of us children had to not buy a present, we had to make something. Desi finished and framed the oil painting that she and Denise had started when they were eight years old. Denise made a needlepoint picture frame which, of course, she gave to Mom unfinished and to this day it has never been finished. That is just Denise’s way, but it is not that the heart is not there. I finished the first needlepoint that I had ever finished. It was about 8.5 x 11. That was a pretty big one for me." [*DDS]

"We moved to Montana in 1984." [*HHD]

Dahle Family 08 Aug 1976
at Thein Wedding Reception
Dominique, Brad, Desi, Jim, Denise, Lou, Helen

Helen DAHLE died 14 Jul 2012, in Kalispel, Flathead County, Montana, from a heart attack after surgery to remove half a lung because of lung cancer.

Helen HARRIS

1927 - 2012