Helen Juanita Standiford
LOWELL - Helen Juanita Shelton Standiford, 98, went to Heaven on Saturday, March 23. She spent the week she died surrounded by and being loved on by her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She reminded everyone how much she loved them and told them to remember how God has blessed all of us. She said she heard Jesus calling her, and that she was ready to go to Glory.
Helen lived a remarkable life. Born in 1925 to Joseph Henry Shelton and Otmar Dakota Rood Shelton, Helen was raised in Hot Springs, Arkansas. She was their only child. She experienced and remembered much of the past century’s history that most of us only learned in history books.
Helen said the Holy Spirit drew her to church and to Christ at a revival when she was a young girl, and she joined and was baptized at Park Place Baptist Church in Hot Springs, Arkansas. She met her husband A.J. there in 1940, when his family moved to Hot Springs from Texas. They married in 1942 in the midst of World War II. A year later when A.J. was called into the Army Air Corp, Helen spent some of the time he was overseas taking flying lessons in hopes of going to visit him.
When A.J. returned home safely, they started their family. Her eldest daughter Donna was born in 1946, followed by Tricia in 1951, Kathy in 1958 and Jeanie in 1961. Following A.J.’s time in the service, Helen and A.J. moved back to Hot Springs and opened a store and later, a café. In addition to working in the store, she also worked as a cashier for the Ozark Bath House in Hot Springs for a time. During these years, she also earned her real estate license and took and passed the Civil Service test to be able to work for the government. She had always had a desire to be an executive secretary in a government position because she had an aunt who did that and it intrigued her.
In 1961, she and A.J. moved to Fort Smith, Arkansas. That year they completed their family of 4 daughters. Three months after the birth of her youngest daughter, the Civil Service contacted her and she was hired at Fort Chaffee as the secretary for a colonel in the intelligence division for about 5 years, fulfilling her childhood career goal. Following that, she and A.J. formed Real Estate Brokers, Inc. At one point during her years selling Real Estate, Helen served as president of the Fort Smith Women’s Board of Realtors
During that time Helen and A.J. and their girls were active members of First Baptist Church in Fort Smith. Later they moved their membership to Eastside Baptist Church, which was closer to their home.
In 1980 she opened Career Classics and sold career wear for the growing female workforce. The store was located close to Sparks Hospital and the surrounding physician’s offices, so she had many customers come in who worked in the medical field. Seeing a need she could fill, she added medical clothing and supplies to her store and Career Classics soon became the premier medical clothing store in that area. She was so kind and friendly that some customers would come in and spend a lot of time just chatting, finally remembering they came in to buy something. She enjoyed the store and her customers. She also used her secretarial expertise during this time to help A.J. in his appraisal business. In the mid 1980’s, they purchased one of the first IBM personal computers, and she took courses to be able to operate the software and type his appraisals. She was always ready to embrace something new.
After her husband A.J. passed away in 2006 after 64 years of marriage, Helen continued in Career Classics by herself, working until 2013 when she was 88. The next year she moved to Northwest Arkansas, where she flourished independently in her own home until the last few weeks of her life. During her 90’s, she learned how to use Facebook and spent a lot of her time enjoying her friend’s and family’s posts and commenting and encouraging people.
She loved her family and spread kindness and encouragement to everyone. She made a choice in childhood to never hold grudges, and she seemed to live by that. Helen welcomed everyone into her home. She cooked you a meal and loved visiting for hours. Her homemade spaghetti is legendary among family, and during her last week she spoke of wishing she could cook a batch for all of her visitors.
Helen was beautiful, kind, forgiving, loving, and possessed a gentle spirit; but she was also intelligent, determined, and self-reliant. We are so very proud of her and cannot express how much we will all miss her; but we all hope to carry with us many of the qualities we observed in her.
Helen passionately and actively loved her family and was beloved in return. She was predeceased by her husband, A.J. Standiford, and by her eldest daughter, Donna Gentry. Helen is survived by 3 daughters, Tricia Story and husband Wayne, of Elm Springs; Kathy Patton and husband Terrell, of Fort Smith; and Jeanie Jones and husband Darrell, of North Richland Hills, Texas. She had 10 grandchildren, Kerry, Travis, Sarah, Heather (deceased), Blake, Julie, Leah, Jillian, Meredith, and Audra. She also had 23 great-grandchildren and one great-great- grandchild. Additionally, she is survived by and kept in touch with many cousins, nieces and nephews, and dear friend Sally Hunt, whom she referred to as her “adopted daughter.”
Funeral will be held at 2 p.m. March 29 at Edwards Funeral Home in Fort Smith. Immediately before the funeral, there will be a visitation at 1 p.m. Helen will be buried next to her husband, A.J., at Woodland Memorial Park in Fort Smith.