The loving life of Helen Ilawean Hooper ended peacefully on July 17, 2023 in Denton, Texas. It was a life of nearly 95 years that spanned the sun-baked fields of Alabama, the golden hills of California and the frozen landscape of Minnesota with many stops along the way.

Helen Hooper is survived by son, Mark Hooper of Highland Village, Texas, his fiancé Keli Pirtle,  grandsons Brennan Hooper and his wife Erin,  and Corey Hooper and his wife Amie, and her beloved great grandchildren Levi, Evie, Grace, Riley, Nolan and June Hooper. In Alabama she is survived by her sisters Janet Smith and Jackie Williams.   She was preceded in death by her husband, Tom and daughter Margaret as well as brother Herschel Smith Junior and sister Kay Battles.

Ila, as she was known to family, was born on September 22, 1928 in Gadsden, Alabama. She grew up in a modest farm house with three sisters and one brother on Chandler Mountain Alabama.  There was little indoor plumbing and a party-line shared with a half dozen other families was her link to the outside world.

Ila made education a priority, living away from home to attend high school and then onto college in Birmingham where she trained to become an x-ray technician. It's a career she pursued for some 40 years in California and Minnesota.

In 1953, Ila married Arthur Thomas Hooper, a Minnesota native, serving in the army in Alabama. Together they spent the next 51 years pursuing careers and raising a son and daughter in Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Davenport Iowa and ultimately in Winona, Minnesota.

The hardships that confronted Ila never diminished her spirit.  As the oldest child she helped run the families tomato farm when her brother went into the army during the Korean war. Her mother, Lois Ramsey Smith, passed away from brain tumors, husband Tom and daughter Margaret died of medical complications. But  Ila remained upbeat, and active in the Lions club, and helping babysit the many children and grandchildren of her family surrounding Steele, Alabama.

Ila's past two years were spent in Denton, Texas at an assisted living facility where she was a fixture at bingo and Sunday church services.  She loved reading the newspaper and raising house plants. But her passion was caring for six great grandchildren,  keeping tabs on them through her I-pad, and then showering them with stickers, coloring books, sweets and love, whenever she could visit.

Her joyful spirit, un-relenting optimism, generosity and love for family is Ila's legacy. And it is a model, and a memory that will sustain everyone who knew her.

A visitation to celebrate Ila's life will be held Saturday, July 22 from 3 to 5pm at Mulkey-Mason Funeral home, 740 South Edmonds Lane, Lewisville, Texas 75067. She will be buried on Chandler Mountain alongside her husband, Tom.  Funeral arrangements are pending.