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Rob snell detroit free press1/2/2024 They always enjoyed their time together and their love lasted over 50 years until Cancer took Earl’s life in 1997.Īfter his death, Helen sold her home and moved to Petoskey, Michigan. Helen finally learned to ride a bike there, but was too afraid to ride it out of the park area. While there they could visit family and friends they still had in the area. She made them so large sometimes that they joked they were the size of your head! When Earl retired from GM, they enjoyed many summers of camping together at Twin Lakes State Park in the U.P. The family feels that her pasties were always the best and no one could do better. She was a proud “Finn”! She joined the Finnish Center in Farmington, Michigan where she met many new and old friends and enjoyed visiting with her fellow Finns and sometimes helping to make “pasties” that they sold there. She also made quilts for her grandchildren during her active quilting days. They worked putting together quilts for the homeless. She was a longtime member of Northwest Emmanuel Lutheran Church in Southfield, Michigan where she was an active member of the Quilter’s group there. In her free time, she enjoyed tending to her many flower gardens around her home. Her focus and time were spent on her family. She never worked outside the home or ever learned to drive a car. Helen was the ideal homemaker – keeping a beautiful home and raising her six children. They proceeded to have five more children there. They eventually bought a new home and settled in Redford Township. Eventually, as jobs were scarce in the U.P., they moved to the Detroit area where he worked for General Motors. They began their married life by living in his family home in Dodgeville, Michigan with daughter, Patricia. Earl had just finished his time in the United States Army when they met and he had a job working in the local mines. They were married in a small ceremony in Houghton, Michigan by a Justice of the Peace and then went out to dinner. In 1946 she met and married the love of her life, Earl Robert Snell. She was teased a lot by family for her gullibility too. As an adult she continued to be rather timid and shy. She was a very shy, timid girl so it was hard on her. Her family moved around a lot for work, so she had to switch schools many times. Helen was of Swedish and Finnish descent and learned to speak Finnish as a young girl and even learned her Catechism in Finnish. She would tell of how they would dress for school in the harsh winters up there and how they would get to and from school. Helen loved to tell stories of how they played and the mischief they got into. ![]() This is where she and her two brothers Robert and Harold, grew up. They soon moved to the Upper Peninsula (Copper Country) when she was a year old. ![]() Helen Marie Paavola was born in Detroit on May 17, 1926, to Ellen (Erickson) and Waino Paavola.
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