1923
Helen
2015
Helen Staynoff Abshire
May 15, 1923 — July 9, 2015
Helen Staynoff Abshire was born in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and named "Elon" (the Macedonian name for "Helen") by her parents who had immigrated to the United States from Macedonia after World War I. She was nicknamed "Lon" by her parents and siblings. A few years after settling in the United States Lon's parents missed their homeland and moved back to Macedonia where Lon attended a village school. The family did not sell their dairy farm and grocery store in Fort Wayne. When the year was up, they decided they should come back to America. Back in Fort Wayne she attended a one-room red school house through her high school graduation. On Pearl Harbor Day she was working in a drug store in Fort Wayne and always remembered how everyone was hunched over a radio as the news came flashing in. She knew this was a terrible event and that our country was going to war. The next year, she moved to join her sister Ann in Chicago where Helen completed Radiology Technology School and worked at St. Luke's Hospital in Chicago. It was there in Chicago that she met US Navy officer Gaulman Abshire, also known as "Ab". They married before he shipped out of San Diego to the Pacific Theater of War. She went with her husband by train to the West coast, and moved in with her sister Ann in Carmel, California, while Ab was overseas. While awaiting a radiology position at the US army hospital at Fort Ord, California, Helen proudly took a "Rosie the Riveter" job in North Beach San Diego where she riveted the wings of bomber aircraft.
After World War II, Helen journeyed with her husband to meet his family in Cow Island, and then on to Lafayette and New Orleans where Ab attended Tulane Medical School and they began their family. In 1951 the Abshires moved to Kaplan, and Lon found her life in Kaplan as a doctor's wife and the mother of four children. She was President of the Kaplan Garden Club in 1958. Her interests included art, painting, traveling, keeping up with current events, gourmet cooking and entertaining. Helen read widely to stay informed, including newsletters she subscribed to from Princeton, Rutgers and Johns Hopkins Medical Schools.
Mrs. Abshire liked art and she painted in oils, she liked flower arranging and traveling. She was a gourmet cook par excellence. She made better pie crusts and baked red snapper than her friends and family can remember eating anywhere. Everyone jockeyed for bottles of her homemade bread and butter pickles and also pepper jelly.
She is gone to glory to be reunited with her beloved Ab, but sadly missed and never forgotten.
She is survived by her children, Dr. Stephen G. Abshire and his wife, Martha Mikell Abshire of Lafayette, Linda S. Abshire of New Orleans, Richard A. Abshire and his wife, Karen Trahan Abshire of Forked Island, and Jane E. Abshire of Broussard; six grandchildren, Christine Helen Cook and her husband, Chris Cook, Catherine Rose Abshire Rountree and her husband, Gordon Rountree, Jr., Stephen Gaulman Abshire Myers and his wife, Sarah Voorhies Myers, Hampton Paul Forrest Myers, Nathanael R. B. Abshire, and Selia Grace Abshire; five great grandchildren; and her siblings, Christine S. Peterson of St. Petersburg, FL, Chris Staynoff of Fort Wayne, IN, and Mary S. Donner of Fort Wayne, IN.
She was preceded in death by her husband, Gaulman Abshire, M.D.; two sisters, Ann S. McNamara and Elizabeth S. Oven; two brothers, Nicholas Staynoff and Jack Staynoff; and her parents, Nicholas and Vacilia Staynoff.
In lieu of flowers the family requested that donations to be made to Hospice of Acadiana or the Kaplan Museum.
The family requests that visiting hours be observed at Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary Roman Catholic Church, 600 N. Church Avenue, on Saturday, July 11, 2015 from 1 p.m. until services.
To order memorial trees or send flowers to the family in memory of Helen Staynoff Abshire, please visit our flower store.
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