DOVER-FOXCROFT – Helen Warren Grey, 95, died Sept. 7, 2011, at a Dover-Foxcroft nursing home. The youngest of eight children, she was born Feb. 10, 1916, in Dover, to John and Jennie (Brawn) Warren. Helen’s family descended from some of the first settlers of this area, John Spaulding and Peter Brawn.
Helen attended a one-room schoolhouse on Dexter Road and helped her parents at the family farm and gravel business before graduating from Foxcroft Academy in 1935. She was employed at J.J. Newberry’s before marrying George N. Grey in 1940. Coming from a particularly close-knit family, Helen thrived in her roles as wife and mother. She was a superb baker, seamstress and homemaker, and actually enjoyed preserving the vegetables from George’s huge garden. She also liked fishing and snowmobiling with George. After his death in 1977, she tended her brothers and sisters-in-law in their declining years while keeping up her health by walking and exercising at the Piscataquis Regional YMCA.
Helen will be greatly missed by her son and his wife, Robert W. and Dartha Grey of Dover-Foxcroft; her daughter and her husband, Judith and Clayton Bennett of Dexter; seven grandchildren, Tal Lancaster and his wife, Kari, of Burbank, Calif., Scott Lancaster and his wife, Pamela of Hampstead, N.H., Dr. Kurt Lancaster of Flagstaff, Ariz., Jason Lancaster and his wife, Janine, of Dallas, Pa., Joseph Lancaster of Washington, D.C., Jennifer Foley and her husband, Michael, of Dover-Foxcroft and Lorna Holman and her husband, Randy, of San Antonio; nine great-grandchildren, PJ, Colby and Joshua Bombero, Taylor-Rae, Christopher, Tessa and Samantha Lancaster, and Annabelle and Henry Holman; her sister-in-law, Shirley Warren of Dover-Foxcroft; and three special nieces, June Cassidy, Dianne Earley and Vicki Moschella. In addition to her parents and her husband, Helen was predeceased by six brothers, Albert, Harland, J. Colby, Harry, Robert and Lewis Warren; a sister, Hazel Kinsman; several nieces and nephews. The family thanks the staff at Hibbard Nursing Home for their loving care and support for Helen.
A graveside committal service will be conducted 11 a.m. Tuesday, Sept. 13, in the family lot at McAllister Cemetery, 1582 Dexter Road, Dover-Foxcroft. Arrangements are in the care of Lary Funeral Home. Messages of condolence and memories may be expressed at
www.laryfuneralhome.com.