Helen Mahoney

Helen C. Mahoney, age 87, of Wayne passed Sunday, December 23, 2018.

She was born and raised in Queens, New York and graduated from the William Cullen Bryant High School in Astoria Queens.  Helen married her high school sweetheart Richard “Dick” Mahoney.  Along with other students Dick and Helen often went to the local soda fountain after school. They took such a fond liking to each other, as was the custom of the day, on April 18, 1948, they declared that they were going steady. After high school Dick was drafted into the United States Marine Corps to serve during the Korean War.  Separated from each other during the war, Dick and Helen kept in touch primarily through written correspondence. In one of his letters, Dick asked Helen to be his wife. Then, as was their custom, every Sunday night Helen would walk from her house down to the corner where there was a pay phone. There she would wait for Dick’s weekly call. When the phone rang, Helen excitedly answered and accepted Dick’s marriage proposal. During his next two-week leave, Dick came home and on Sunday, July 13, 1952, he and Helen were joined in marriage before family and friends at St. Mary’s Church in Woodside Queens. With a two-week military leave, they took a bus to their honeymoon vacation in the Catskill Mountains of New York State. One of Dick’s favorite honeymoon memories was riding horses with Helen because for some reason, her horse always refused to go forward. After the honeymoon, Dick returned to Quantico Marine Base and Helen continued to live with her parents. She eventually followed her parents from their home in Queens to a new home in Lodi, NJ. There she waited for Dick to finish his Marine Corps service. He was honorably discharged in 1954 – a proud recipient of the National Defense Service Medal. He and Helen could now begin their married life together.

Just out of high school Helen worked on Wall Street as a secretary and when Dick came back from the military they moved to Queens. Helen gave birth to a beautiful baby girl which they named Nancy. They were living in Jackson Heights at the time but soon after Nancy’s birth they moved back to New Jersey where their sons Kenny and Bob were born. Helen and Dick moved to Wayne in 1962. Helen retired from Valley National Bank in Wayne where she served as a loan officer for several years.

As a young girl Helen and her sisters would take her by train to the beach at Coney Island.  These beach visits gave her a lifelong love of the beach.  She and Dick were able to purchase a home down the Jersey Shore in Long Beach Island (LBI).  On the older maps it was ocean front property but capitalism must have motivated someone to build two houses in front of it before they purchased it. Ocean front property or three houses in from the ocean – it didn’t matter that much to Helen and Dick because the sun was just as beautiful and that’s what they really liked. They enjoyed the sun, surf and most importantly, making family memories with their children and grandchildren at LBI. One memorable occasion on the beach is when her umbrella was launched from the sand by the wind. Helen grabbed the umbrella and did a perfect back flip.  The crowd on the beach saw this and applauded her.  Helen and Dick had the privilege of traveling extensively with cruises being their favorite way to travel. In all they took twenty-four cruises including trips to Alaska, Bermuda, the Caribbean, up the east coast of the U.S. and two cruises to Hawaii. They really loved Hawaii – so much so that, in addition to the two cruises, they took seven additional trips there. Helen also loved going to New York City to see Broadway shows and musicals.

She was a devoted and dedicated mom who, when her daughter joined the Girl Scouts, volunteered to serve as a Girl Scout Leader.  She will be lovingly remembered for her quiet way, great sense of humor, and once she started to laugh it was hard for her to stop.  She loved to bake and all would cherish the tins of assorted Christmas cookies she would give out each year. Helen was also a dedicated New York Yankee fan that knew any and all players and could recite all kinds of stats. She inherited her love of the Yankees from her mom who was also a long time Yankee fan.

Helen was the loving and devoted wife of sixty-three years to the late Richard “Dick” Mahoney; cherished mother of Nancy Mahoney of Pequannock, Kenneth Mahoney and his wife Linda of Jersey City, and Bob Mahoney and his wife Suzanne of Wayne; Helen was the dearly loved grandmother of Nicholas, Shannon, Jake, and Lia; she was the dear sister of Marie Tishy, John Revel, and was predeceased by her sister Joan.

Memorial donations to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital would be greatly appreciated.