Helen K. Groetzinger

The life and times of Helen Groetzinger are an amazing story. The daughter of Berger and Ruby Peterson, Helen was born July 19, 1930 in the front bedroom of the family home on Cleveland Avenue. Growing up she helped her mother can fruits, vegetables and sometimes squirrel and rabbit during the depression. Her brother, Lee, was six and a half years older than she was and would chase her with snakes when she wanted to play with him and his friends. Helen loved to sing and during her school years was a member of the Bethany Methodist Church choir. She sang for years, from her first solo at age 7, to eventually singing for friends' weddings.

Helen was an excellent seamstress and for years made many of her own clothes and clothing for her four girls. One of her favorite recollections was when Katie looked at Randi wearing one of her creations and said, “I can’t wait until you grow out of that”! Helen was an accomplished knitter, too. One Christmas she knit beautiful sweaters for every member of the family, big and small -- some 22 sweaters in all. It took her a year to knit them all and each one was unique.

In 1947 Helen met Donald Groetzinger when he came into the jewelry shop where she worked and asked to see some lighters. He was not really interested in lighters, he was checking out the cute blonde. A few days later they happened to be at the same dance at Memorial Hall and they danced all night and had a first kiss on the balcony! Helen had a date with another fellow the following Saturday, but after that Don was the only one for her. They were married on December 23, 1950 at the parsonage of Bethany Methodist Church. Counting the years they were dating, Don and Helen had a wonderful 66 years together. Over the course of nine years, Helen and Don’s family grew to number six children, Randi, Chuck, Katie, Sarah, Amy and Eric.

Being the mother of six children was no easy task, but Helen made it look like a breeze. With six children, she had her own little workforce. She was very organized with a chores chart and each of the children had specific chores (the schedule rotated each week so they couldn’t get bored). During the summer the children were not allowed to go anywhere until everyone was done with chores. You never saw a house cleaned so fast. Looking back, each one of them said, “We certainly did learn how to clean a house”. When Barbie (Butman) Mizer moved into the neighborhood and spent so much time with the family, Helen dubbed her “the 7th child” and put her to work too! The family belonged to the North Shore Club and spent many summers baking in the sun, swimming in the pool and playing tennis. Helen attended just about every swim meet for about six years running while the older children swam on the swim team. Helen also attended most of Randi, Katie and Sarah’s gymnastic meets. Listening to the floor exercise song “Matilda’s in the Kitchen” zillions of times must have driven her crazy, but she never let on. She was always there. Helen would pile the children in the car and take off on field trips to Little Switzerland, the Cave of the Mounds, the State Capitol, anywhere she thought they could learn by seeing and doing. Trips to Michigan to see her brother Lee, his wife Bernice and their six children were always fun.

From Brownie Leader to the President of the Wind Point PTA, Helen was very involved in many facets of her children’s lives. She was frequently a room-mother at school and she would come in for art class with fun art projects for the children to make. Her children were always very proud when she came to school.

In 1969 she was elected to the position of President of the Racine County Republican Women, and that same year was the Vice Chairman of the Racine County Republican Party. During that time she was a delegate to a number of city and state party caucuses and on one occasion the national caucus in Washington DC.

In the early 1960’s Helen and Don decided to take a ceramics class at Wustum Museum. Helen turned that class into a years-long passion for potting. With her own wheel and kiln, Helen created beautiful pottery which she sold for five years at art fairs around the state. Most of the children helped her at one time or another at the fairs which was always a special one-on-one time spent with Mom.

Helen eventually gave up the art fair circuit to start a business, Perma, Inc., selling a new design of automatic lubricator to industrial accounts. Helen traveled the country for several years, selling maintenance men a product they didn’t know they needed. She was very good at it. From not knowing anything about industrial lubrication, to the day an engineer at Harnischfeger asked her, “Where did you get your engineering degree?”, she had come a long way. The business Helen started in 1970 employed, at one time or another, each of her six children and almost all of her grandchildren. The business continues to thrive today. Helen eventually retired from the company, leaving her plenty of time for a new passion, painting. Helen took some classes in acrylic painting and she was off. She spent many years painting flowers on any surface she could find. She painted beautiful landscapes of places she loved, from Door County scenes to Fortun, Norway.

Helen and Don started sailing in 1975. A progression of boats, from the first 22 foot Catalina, Nirvana, to the 36 foot, Loverly, provided many years of enjoyment for not only Helen and Don, but all the members of the family. Helen and Don would take the boat up to Door County at the beginning of summer and Helen would stay on the boat for three months. The grandchildren always loved going to Door County and spending weekends with Gram and Gramps on the boat. Helen and Don spent 30 happy years sailing on Lake Michigan. Helen and Don also had a condo in Sister Bay, Door County that Helen loved. She enjoyed having family come up and visit. A visit with Helen and Don in Door County always involved drives through Peninsula State Park, North Port, Sand Bay, just to name a few of Helen’s favorite places. If one was lucky and the waves weren’t too bad, a trip to Washington Island and Jackson Harbor on the ferry was a treat. In the fall, after the trees turned, a “valk in da voods”, with a picnic midway, was always in the plan. Helen spent many years painting pictures of her favorite places, and Door County certainly received its due.

Helen decided when she was 53 that she wanted to learn to ski. She asked Randi to teach her and when Don saw how much fun she had, he decided to learn to ski too. They spent many a winter vacation in Aspen. Helen had a favorite run at Snowmass Mountain called “Elk Camp” that she would cruise down over and over and over. Randi dubbed it “Helen’s Run”.

Helen and Don became avid travelers after their first business trip to Germany in 1975. Germany was usually their destination, but they hit pretty much every country in Europe. Helen planned each trip; she never used a travel agent. Back in the days before the internet it was no easy job. She would scour travel guides and maps for months before the next trip. Helen and Don would be gone for six weeks, always with a hotel booked for the first night and the last night, the rest of the trip, as they always said, “they winged it”. She loved it. In 2003, there was a business meeting scheduled in Brussels, Belgium which Helen, Don and Sarah were to attend. Sarah had not been to Europe and Helen was so excited to share her favorite places -- Brugge, Belgium; Rothenburg, Germany; Lenggries, Germany; Salzburg, Austria and ending with a HUGE beer at the Hof Brau Haus in Munich, Germany. Helen and Don met their very special friends, Oskar and Elisabeth Buchbinder on their first trip to Germany and always stopped to visit with them (and eventually their son, Norbert, his wife, Uta and their children) whenever they were in Germany. Helen was very proud of her Norwegian heritage. Helen and Don took a trip to Norway and went up the Sognefjord to find the farm on which her father grew up. Not only did they find the farm, they also met someone who remembered her father. On that trip, Helen was able to trace her ancestry back some 400 years and discovered a Norwegian King in her lineage. She brought back silver Viking Ship necklaces for her four daughters so they could always remember they are Norwegian Princesses!

Helen was a beautiful, vibrant person who wanted everyone around her to be happy and enjoy life. Loving wife, mother and grandmother, Helen will be missed by everyone who knew her.

Helen K. Groetzinger, passed away on Sunday, June 23, 2013 at her home. She is survived by her husband of 63 years, Don, and her children: Randi Young (Terry) of South Fork, CO; Katie Kramer (Keith) of Le Claire, IA; Sarah Herr (Mark) of Brookfield, WI; Amy Dienberg (Don) of Racine; Eric Groetzinger (Shannon) of Ashland, OR; the “7th child” of the family, Barb Mizer (John) of Racine; and brother Lee Peterson of Lansing, MI. She is also survived and will be greatly missed by her thirteen grandchildren, eight great-grandchildren and nieces and nephews. Helen was preceded in death by her parents, eldest son Charles, mother-in-law, Isabelle Taylor and sisters-in-law, Marjorie Caplin, Susan Lambert and Bernice Peterson.

A memorial celebration will be held at 11:00 A.M. on Friday, July 19th at Maresh-Meredith and Acklam Funeral Home at 803 Main Street, Racine. Relatives and friends may meet with the family on Friday, July 19th from 9:30 A.M. until the time of the service at 11:00 A.M. In lieu of flowers, donations in Helen's name may be made to The Foundation Fighting Blindness http://www.blindness.org/ or Alzheimer's Association, http://www.alz.org/