Person:Helen Hawkins (7)

Gazette, The (Cedar Rapids-Iowa City, IA) - Saturday, June 6, 1998

Helen Hawkins Sebesta, 90, died Thursday, June 4, 1998, in Mechanicsville Nursing and Rehab Center after a short illness. Memorial Mass: 10:30 a.m. Monday, St. Mary's Catholic Church. Burial: Rose Hill Cemetery. Friends may call from 2 to 4 p.m. Sunday at St. Mary's Church, where a wake service will be held at 4 p.m. Arrangements by Morgan Funeral Home, Mechanicsville. Survivors include her husband, Walter; her brother-in-law and sister-in-law, Jim and Helen Ertz of Burlington; and many nieces and nephews. Helen was preceded in death by her parents; her sons, Tommy and Frank Joseph; her sister, Mildred Herdich; and her brother, James Hawkins. Born July 31, 1907, in Burlington, Iowa, the daughter of James and Ella McGraw Hawkins, Helen attended St. John's High School and Burlington Junior College. She was the chief telephone operator for Bell Telephone until she moved to Mechanicsville in 1946. Helen married Walter E. Sebesta on Nov. 27, 1941, at the Shrine of St. Theresa, Juneau, Alaska. They had the distinction of being the first couple to be married there.