Helen Hoy, 90, passed away Tuesday, November 13, 2007, of acute respiratory failure.
Helen Frances Hoy was born October 18, 1917, to Louis and Leona Crane in Anacortes, Washington. The family lived in Friday Harbor, Washington, and Mill Valley, California, before settling in Medford, Oregon. Helen graduated from high school in Medford then attended Iowa State Teachers College. In 1940 she was wed to Richard Louis Hoy of Waterloo. In 1964 she obtained a master's degree in library science from the University of Northern Iowa.
She was employed as a librarian by the Malcolm Price Laboratory School in Cedar Falls and later by the Waterloo Public Schools, serving at Longfellow, Lowell, and Whittier Schools. She was an avid reader, gardener, and conservationist. She also enjoyed politics and history; she was a member of the League of Women Voters, the Democratic Party, and the Black Hawk County Historical Society. In 1983 she co-authored, with Margaret Corwin, a pictorial history of Waterloo. After retirement she was a regular volunteer at the Grout Museum and the Waterloo Public Library. S
he was preceded in death by her parents and husband, Richard. She is survived by two sisters, Wendy Williams of Boise, Idaho, and Mary Earle of Basin, Wyoming; son Howard and wife Kay Hoy of Boone, Iowa; daughter Jaclyn Hoy of Humboldt, Nebraska, grandson Eric Griffen and wife Tamara of Manly, Iowa; and great-granddaughter Erica Griffen, also of Manly.
Visitation: 3 to 7 p.m. Friday at the Locke Funeral Home with the family present from 3 to 5 p.m. Memorials may be made to the Grout Museum of History and Science.
Copyright Waterloo Courier, November 16, 2007, page A8.