Helen Lukia Kahele Shepard

Helen Lukia Kahele Shepard was born in Honolulu, Hawaii on December 14,1933 to Joseph E. and Josephine Kahele. She would spend her childhood there experiencing the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 at the age of 8. She would recall how the enemy’s planes were flying so low that she was able to look directly into the pilots faces.

After meeting and marrying a U.S. soldier, she moved to the mainland in 1951, settling in Lawrence, Kansas. She could not speak very much English, but with the help of the family she married into she was able to get her bearings. Her love for the Lord led her to join Ninth Street Missionary Baptist Church. She was employed with Holiday Inn in housekeeping, Hallmark Cards and retired from Lawrence Memorial Hospital with 28 years of service. Some of her most cherished friendships were with her coworkers.

Being the kind hearted person and lover of people (animals too), she became very active in the 1960’s civil rights movement as well as presidential campaigns.

Helen was preceded in death by her father, mother and sister Eliza Lena Chee.

Left to cherish her memory, her son, Harold H. Shepard (Lawrence, KS); grandchildren, Travis (Candice) Shepard (Lawrence, KS), Benji (Joy) Borland (Cleburne, TX), great grandchildren, Natalee, Damien, Austyn, Ryder, Adrian; her fur babies, JoJo and Fatty as well as a host of nieces, nephews family, friends, neighborhood squirrels, rabbits and any other animal that happened to find their way to her.

Memorial services for Helen will be held at 4:00 p.m. Wednesday, November 21, 2018 at Union Pacific Depot, 402 N. 2nd Street, Lawrence, KS.