BOYNTON BEACH, FL – Our Mother, Helen Nadeau (née) Yoho (May 14, 1946-January 18, 2025) was the youngest of eight children, born into poverty on a farm outside of Elwood City, PA. Her mother was a homemaker, and her father was a coal miner and steel mill worker. Helen and her siblings worked on the farm to produce their own food and home goods. She grew up without heat or running water, wore hand-me-down clothes and shoes patched with cardboard, and slept three to a bed against the cold. As a teen, she excelled at Lincoln High School where she would hide in the bathroom during lunch, ashamed that she didn’t have money for lunch.
Winning a scholarship to Slippery Rock College transformed her life. There, she studied psychology and education while working three jobs. During summers she was bused from Pennsylvania (a so-called Pennsy girl) to work on tobacco farms in Massachusetts. Years later, she would drive by the same fields and share stories of hot, hard, work and hair-raising anecdotes, including the tale of a thwarted knife attack from the boyfriend of a girl she had disciplined. Fortunately, the only piercing she experienced was that of cupid’s arrow when she met her future husband Francis Nadeau. After he stood her up on a blind double date, his friends tracked him down in a Westfield parking lot on his motorcycle. There, he gave her a once over and decided she was worth his time after all. They would be together for 61 years.
After a summer and fall romance (and a stint doing factory work to save for tuition) Helen was able to complete her final coursework at Slippery Rock and found a job teaching a classroom of problem children who had driven their previous teacher to madness. By year’s end, she had turned the classroom around and knew that teaching was her calling. For the next 35 years, she would teach first grade and kindergarten at Woodland Elementary School in Southwick, MA. She was a pioneer in the use of learning centers in her classroom and tirelessly worked to make learning fun for her students. She was a proud union rep and fought doggedly for herself and colleagues, never forgetting a salient point in an argument—knowing precisely when to deploy it for maximum impact. She earned her Masters in Education from Cambridge College and completed the two-year Certificate of Advanced Graduate Study program at UMass in one year—while working full time and raising two boys. After retirement, one of her biggest delights was encountering former students who would share how much they loved their time with her.
Anyone who knew our mother knew she was passionate about music. In addition to listening, she would sing, dance, and rewrite lyrics for special occasions. We can only hope she understood and forgave us for our mortification and countless eye rolls.
In retirement, Mom continued to sing with her beloved karaoke club at the Italian Club in Port Charlotte, FL, and generously helped others in her community. Her final decade was marred by the mystifying and tragic progression of dementia, which first robbed her of her social awareness, straining treasured relationships with her dear friends and family. As the disease progressed, her world became smaller and more confusing; she lost her knowledge, her independence, and most tragically, her memories of even her closest family. Still, she maintained her love of music to the very end, crying to the lyrics of Dolly Parton’s I Will Always Love You while holding her sons’ hands, and smiling contentedly with ABBA playing in the background as she began her final journey out of this world.
Mom saved piles of notes from grateful parents, school photos, and newspaper clippings from her years of teaching. Among them, a boy’s thoughts in a yellowed newspaper from 1984 to the question: What Is A Mother: “Somebody who takes care of me at home and loves me. She puts me to bed, she’s nice, wait—that’s not enough!”
Helen is survived by her husband Francis Nadeau and sons Marc and Steven. In lieu of flowers, she would have appreciated donations to the Southwick Public Library or the Rotary Club of Southwick Helen Nadeau Memorial Scholarship. But most importantly, her family asks you to remember her young student’s sentiments; when it comes to mothers, the time and love you share with them is never enough. Don’t forget to tell yours how much you love her.
