Helga Gonzalez

The sun set on Helga Gonzalez’s, 77, Bismarck, life on Earth on June 15, 2009, a day her family will always commemorate with fond remembrance. Her family is thankful to have had front-row seating to her graceful life. She has peacefully embarked on her eternal journey and final destination. Memorial services will be held 11:00 am Thursday, June 25, 2009, at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Bismarck, with Rev. Jeff Tengesdal officiating. Interment will be held in Fairview Cemetery, Bismarck. Cremation has taken place. Visitation and a gathering time will be held from 5:00 pm until 8:00 pm Wednesday, June 24, 2009, at Parkway Funeral Service, 2330 Tyler Parkway, Bismarck. When the sun rose on March 10, 1932, Alfons and Luise Lagger Schulz rejoiced in the birth of their first child, Helga. Helga spent her formative years on the fertile steppe of Eastern Europe in the German Russian community of Shabo, Bessarabia then a part of Romania, today a part of the Ukraine. Helga grew up immersed in the culturally rich and diverse Black Sea region; many of her culinary specialties and favorite family meals originated in this region. In the spring of Helga’s eighth year, Russian military forces confiscated her family’s land and property. Her family spent the next five years in refugee camps and itinerant quarters in Sudetenland Czechoslovakia, Slovenia Yugoslavia, and Austria, until the end of World War II. As stateless refugees, Helga’s family eventually immigrated to the United States in 1951, with the assistance of a cousin, the late Honorable Henry Gross of Freeman, SD, and Lutheran Social Services. In South Dakota, she taught in a one-room school and then attended nursing school at Sioux Valley Hospital, Sioux Falls, SD, and South Dakota State University in Brookings. When her studies were completed, she became a nursing instructor at St. Anthony Hospital in Rockford, IL In 1956, Helga met Gilberto Gonzalez, a surgical intern at Sioux Valley Hospital. They married on September 11, 1958. The newly formed Gonzalez family moved to Chicago where Helga was employed as a nurse at Michael Reis Hospital. The family moved next to Iowa City, IA, in 1962, and then to Bismarck, ND, in 1964, to raise a family and to establish the treasured friendships and relationships of her life. After 32 years of war, frequent moves, interrupted education, and early career development, Helga found the place she would call home for the remaining 45 years of her life. She grew deep roots in her adopted home of Bismarck. She loved its people, the land, and even the climate, though generally with an annual one-month winter respite in Mexico. She was the foundation of her family. She taught them manners, though errors by her students should not reflect on the competency or example of the teacher. She gave them values and morals that these might have been forgotten or misplaced by her students should not reflect on the benefactor. She impressed upon them the need for humility and compassion and the failures of members of her family are not her failures. She conducted her life, including her unmerciful decline in health, with dignity. She was an example of fortitude and stoicism, qualities perfected to a fault if not necessitated by a childhood and adolescence disrupted by war. Helga committed herself to a few of Bismarck’s enduring and enriching groups, such as the Bismarck-Mandan Symphony League, the North Dakota Medical Association Auxiliary, Meals-on-Wheels, and the Fortnightly Club. She enjoyed her time and friends in the Gourmet Club, Bismarck Bridge Club, and the French Club, among others. Helga is survived by her husband of 50 years, Gilberto; her sister, Ursula Schulz; her children and their families: son, Mark, daughter-in-law, Kristen, and grandchildren, Ian Straehley, Gabriel, Adrian, and Sophia of Bismarck; son, Andre, daughter-in-law, Linda, and grandchildren, Vanessa and Natalie of Lakewood, CO, and daughter, Christina of Denver, Colorado. She was preceded in death by her parents; and one infant son, Gregory. The lieu of flowers, the family requests donations to the Bismarck-Mandan Symphony League.

Helga Gonzalez

March 10, 1932 - June 15, 2009