Helen Mae Derksen, 93, a resident of the Baker City area for the past six years, died Jan. 13, 2006, at Pendleton, where she was living temporarily.
Her memorial service was today at the New Bridge Church of the Nazarene near Richland, where she had attended regularly for the past three years. Her cremains will be buried later with her husband at the Willamette National Cemetery in Portland.
Mrs. Derksen was born on Nov. 17, 1912, in Dayton, Ohio, to George and Louise McClelland Martin. She was educated in Ohio and graduated from Davis Business College there. She also graduated from Moody Bible Institute in Chicago.
She married William J. Derksen on Sept. 20, 1942, at Long Beach, Calif. She was a clerical worker most of her career, working at Douglas Aircraft and Norton Air Force Base in Southern California. She also was a California state social worker for a short time. She retired in 1972 after moving to Oregon and working for a few years.
Mrs. Derksen grew up in a Christian home and attended church all of her life. The church was her life, family members said. She was a member of a Brethren Church in Southern California.
She and her husband were among the first members of the Morning Star Community Church at Salem, where they lived in the 1980s. After moving to Baker City in 2000, she attended the Baker City Church of the Nazarene and, since 2003, the New Bridge Church of the Nazarene.
Survivors include her daughter, Margaret Brickey of Sparta, and her husband, Dean; nine grandchildren, David Hoover of Brookings; Mike and Dan Hoover of Bonanza; Lisa Baker of Simi Valley, Calif.; Cindy Creager of Hermiston; Matthew Derksen of Portland; Heather Wood, Josiah and Adam Derksen, all of Molalla, and 13 great-grandchildren.
She was preceded in death by a daughter, Helen; a son, George; her husband, Bill; and two sisters, Barbara and Georgia.
The family suggests memorial contributions to the Sunday School Room Furnishing Fund at the New Bridge Church of the Nazarene or the Baker Camp of Gideons International through Tami’s Pine Valley Funeral Home, P.O. Box 543, Halfway, OR. 97834.
Used with permission from: Baker City Herald, Baker City, Oregon, January 20, 2006
Transcribed by: Belva Ticknor