Longtime Montour teacher and proud Lithuanian
Helyne Palecki McMullen exuded kindness whether teaching her elementary school students, aiding those suffering from social injustices or being an aunt to her large extended family.
Mrs. McMullen, who was born in Pittsburgh and was a longtime teacher in the Montour School District, died May 3 at Casey’s Pond Senior Living Community in Steamboat Springs, Colo. She was 93.
“She was one of the kindest people. She had a great heart. She was generous to a fault,” said her niece Jean Ray.
She was also “a very strong person, very strong-willed,” Ms. Ray said. “She was very wise, very honest. She had an opinion — an educated opinion — about everything.”
Following graduation from St. Francis Academy in Whitehall, Mrs. McMullen earned a bachelor’s degree in education from Duquesne University in 1947 and a master’s degree in literature from the University of Pittsburgh in 1951.
She was particularly fond of teaching fourth grade, her niece said. “She’d talk about what a rewarding profession it was and how you really felt you were doing something worthy for the world.”
“She was a proponent of education,” Ms. Ray said, adding that Mrs. McMullen bought all of the books and supplies for her nieces and nephews when they went to college.
Her nephew Michael Palecki, who is Ms. Ray’s brother, said after his aunt retired they were shopping at the Giant Eagle in McKees Rocks and “so many people of different generations were coming up to talk with her. There were fathers and sons, both of whom she’d taught. She was a very good teacher. She ran a tight ship, but she had a good sense of humor.” He hopes that some of her students will come to the visitation.
She was known for her laughter, her niece said. “Sometimes she would laugh so hard she would cry. I’ve never heard any person who had a more beautiful and contagious laugh.”
Mrs. McMullen grew up in the Esplen neighborhood, where her family lived above their Palecki Grocery. It operated from about 1930 until the early ‘60s and was famous for its homemade Lithuanian sausage, which Mrs. McMullen helped to make, her nephew said.
When her parents retired and moved to Florida, the sausage recipe was lost, he said. Twenty or 30 years later, Mrs. McMullen and her husband, Hugh — they had season tickets to the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra — began talking to the people next to them during an intermission. The topic of sausages came up and it turned out that the man they were speaking with had purchased the shop’s sausagemaking machine at a used equipment sale. Taped to it was the sausage recipe, which he returned to the family and which they periodically make.
As a young woman, Mrs. McMullen was already adventurous. In the 1950s, she and three of her friends drove a car through Mexico, her nephew said.
“She was very much involved in civil rights in the late ‘50s and ‘60s,” he said. “I’m so proud of her.”
A devout Catholic, Mrs. McMullen was active in the Legion of Mary and was secretary and board member of the Catholic Interracial Council of Pittsburgh, which operated in the 1960s and ‘70s. She volunteered to serve with Dorothy Day at the Catholic Worker House in New York City
Ms. Ray’s family was living on Long Island at the time and Mrs. McMullen would visit. “Then she would go into New York City. We’d ask, ‘Why is she going to New York?’ and our mother would say, ‘She’s out doing good.’”
She loved to travel. In 1990, Mrs. McMullen, her nephew Michael and her brother Edward went to Lithuania, where her parents, Adolph and Anna, were born, to look for relatives. During a little over a week, they traveled from a small farm town to the capital Vilnius, meeting family that Mrs. McMullen continued to keep in touch with. “Helyne was our interpreter. She spoke Lithuanian fluently,” her nephew said.
Helyne Palecki met Hugh McMullen in 1948 through a family connection, and they were companions for 25 years. “Both were very brilliant,” Ms. Ray said. “They loved fine food and dining, the symphony, the museums, the arts.” In 1973, they married.
“He asked her, ‘Aren’t you glad you’re Irish now?’ And she answered, ‘I’ll be glad I’m Irish when you’re glad you’re Lithuanian.’ It was a way they teased each other,” Ms. Ray said. Mr. McMullen died in 2007.
In addition to Mr. McMullen, she was preceded in death by brothers Anthony and Edward Palecki. She is survived by nieces and nephews; great-nieces and nephews; and great-great-nieces and nephews.
Visitation will be held from 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday at McDermott Funeral Home, 1225 Chartiers Ave., McKees Rocks. A Mass will be celebrated at 9:30 a.m. Friday at St. John of God Parish — St. Mary Church, 1011 Church Ave., McKees Rocks. Following Mass, Ms. McMullen’s ashes will be placed with those of her husband at St. Casimir Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, the family suggests donations to a homeless shelter or food bank.