Helen Johnson Obituary

ATTENTION Due to the heat index, the location for Helen's Funeral Service has been changed to be held at the Geise Funeral Chapel location in Estelline, SD. Please notify others! Thank you for your understanding! Helen Johnson, age 97, passed away on Tuesday, July 22, 2025, at the Estelline Nursing and Care Center in Estelline, SD. A Funeral Service will be held at 12:00 pm Monday, July 28, 2025, at Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church in rural Estelline, SD. Visitation will be held the day prior from 4:00 pm to 5:30 pm on Sunday, July, 27, 2025, with a 4:00 pm Prayer Service at Geise Funeral Chapel in Estelline. Gunda Helene Lee Johnson was born and raised on the family farm, rural Ortley, SD on July 5, 1928 to Halvor and Gunhild Lee. She attended rural country school through grade eight and was baptized and confirmed at Goodhue Lutheran Church near Florence. Helen's parents were immigrants from Norway and spoke only Norwegian, so her first language was Norwegian. She learned to speak English in school and helped her parents learn English. She loved writing poetry and music as a child. She enjoyed climbing trees and playing by the Big Sioux River that was near her front yard. As a teenager, Helen had chores to do on the farm. She gathered eggs and helped her parents milk cows. She took care of the horses and loved to ride them. She enjoyed singing in the church choir. Her dad, Halvor, a fiddler, bought a piano and taught Helen to play so she could accompany him. They played traditional Norwegian music, songs that her dad brought from Norway. Carrie, Helen's older sister, worked for Woolworths in Aberdeen, SD in the 1950's. Helen moved to Aberdeen and they shared an apartment. Helen worked at Woolworths too, for a while, and then for Jones Drug. She moved back to the farm after her father had a heart attack and took care of him so he wouldn't have to live in a nursing home. In 1963, Helen and her parents moved to her "Little House on the Prairie", just three miles from where she grew up. She continued to take care of them until their deaths. In 1967, Helen rented her pasture to a young man named Arnold Johnson. Over a cup of good old fashioned, black Norwegian coffee, Arnold learned that Helen played the piano and Helen learned that Arnold was a fiddler. The rest was history. They were married on April 17, 1982 at Ortley Free Lutheran Church. Helen moved to Estelline after their marriage and she and Arnold worked hard to make a go of it. They raised cattle and pigs and planted crops. Helen took jobs in restaurants to make ends meet when the farm income wasn't enough to pay the bills. She was a hard worker. They enjoyed playing with the South Dakota Old Time Fiddlers for decades. Arnold competed in fiddling contests and Helen accompanied him on the piano. They won a lot of those contests. Helen sang for many weddings and family funerals over the years. She had the gift of a beautiful voice and that girl could "yodel". Helen loved thrifting, antiquing and collecting. She once bought a necklace from Goodwill for a dollar and later found out it was sterling silver and worth several hundred dollars. She was very proud of that necklace and wore it every day. Cooking and baking were Helen's specialties. She made a chocolate cake that church ladies envied and friends and family raved over. Arnold often said she made the best dumpling soup on the planet. In the later years of her life, Helen's appreciation for "all that is Norwegian" grew and grew. She enjoyed visits with her cousins from Norway. Family was very important to Helen. She loved all of her nieces and nephews and their families. She was very proud of her great nieces and nephews and spoke of them often. An author, Helen wrote two books over the past four years. One, Rural Refections, is a collection of poetry and the story of her life growing up on the prairie of SD with her family. The other, Peaceful Valley Ranch, is a book of fiction. Helen also loved to draw as an adult and won some area artist contests. Helen lost her mate and music partner, Arnold LeRoy Johnson, age 102 ½, on October 14, 2024. Helen is preceded in death by her parents, Halvor and Gunhild Lee, her husband, Arnold Johnson, her sister Carrie Fredrickson and brothers, George Lee and John Lee. She is survived by nieces and nephews and cousins.