Helen Augusta Halsey Haroutunian

Helen Augusta Halsey Haroutunian, 1914-2003

On November 16, 2003, Helen Augusta Halsey Haroutunian, resident of Milbridge, Maine, and former resident of Cincinnati, Chicago, and Iowa City, died peacefully at the age of 89. Helen was born to Jesse Halsey and Helen Isham Halsey (Quass) in Cincinnati in February 1914.

In 1942, she married Joseph Haroutunian, a well-known theologian who taught at McCormick Theological Seminary, and the University of Chicago. Joining the McCormick faculty in 1940, Dr. Hartoutunian taught Systematic Theology and for the next 20 years was among North America’s leading theologians. He died almost 35 years to the day before Helen on November 15, 1968.

Helen Haroutunian was an artist, writer, and teacher who enjoyed the benefits of a fine education. She was a 1932 graduate of Miss Doherty’s School in Cincinnati.

The third child and first daughter of Jesse and Helen Halsey, she was named for her mother and for the Great Aunt who raised her father. Helen earned a bachelor’s of arts degree from Western College for Women (Miami University), Oxford, Ohio, in 1936, where she performed in The Peabody Players' “Gammer Gurton's Needle,” January 27, 28, among other productions. [Program Letter to Miss Helen Halsey from Rosamond Gilder, March 15, 1939 & April 11, 1939. The New York Times noted that Rosamond Gilder, as founder and former president of the International Theater Institute, a worldwide organization with 65 national centers, was an influential theater figure in New York and overseas.]

In 1940, she received a master’s of arts degree in general studies from the Yale Drama School, and in 1980, a second master’s degree in art history from the University of Iowa.

She was an early scholar of Joseph Cornell’s work, writing her masters thesis on Cornell's Medici Slot-Machine at the University of Iowa in 1978.

Helen lived in Chicago from 1940 until 1970, where she studied at the Art Institute with George Breur.

Helen Halsey Haroutunian
Chicago Lake Front, 1955

Her works of art in oil, watercolor, pastel, charcoal, and collage covered subject matter from urban scenes to rural landscapes. She showed her work at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Milbridge Historical Society. In 1998, Helen and her son, artist Joseph Haroutunian, had a joint retrospective show at the University of Maine-Machias that revealed influences of mother upon son and vice versa. Her published works include, “Incident on the Bark Columbia: Being Letters Received and Sent by Captain McCorkle and the Crew of his Whaler, 1860-1862” (Cummington, MA), 1941, a true story conveyed through letters, which she compiled and edited, and “Joseph Cornell in ‘View,’”Arts Magazine, 1983.

Teaching was another life-long interest. Helen taught both visual and language arts in middle and high schools, at the Cummington School, Cummington, MA, and at the Francis W. Parker School in Chicago.

While at Cummington, Helen dated the poet Sameul French Morse. Although she'd broken up with Morse, having found him and his friends "too snobby and only interested in their own opinions," Morse attended the funeral of her older brother Frederick in 1940.

Above all, Helen was a loving and devoted wife, mother, aunt, grandmother, great-grandmother, great-aunt, and friend. Her paintings, writings, and teaching, indeed all her endeavors, were characterized by remarkable care and attention to detail. She was an exemplary cook and gardener, and a committed member of her church. Her sweetness, style, intelligence and command of the English language inspired all who knew her.

Helen Halsey Haroutunian
Still Life, 1960

[Ed note: HAHH's obituary from which much of this text is drawn appeared in the Bangor Daily News on November 22, 2003; http://www.bangordailynews.com/detail/84582.html. Additional information comes from sources noted above and in conversations between the author and HAHH between 1996-2003. Images of paintings come from the artist's gallery at http://www.yessy.com/helenharoutunian/index.html?s=keagwae245hvyo45yn4v5pfh]