Helen Grist

Helen was born September 12, 1929 in Foyil, Oklahoma. At the young age of 15, she found her true love and partner Jim Grist. They started their married life together in Twin Falls, Idaho and later moved to the Boise area. While raising three sons and a daughter – Jimmie, Gary, Mark and Linda, there was never a dull moment or lack of love. Helen was a stay-at-home full-time mother who could graciously set the table with a superb meal at a moments notice, paint a professional-quality oil or watercolor, compose poetry, tend a large garden, not to mention yearly family activities including camping trips or salmon fishing; even a few trips to Hawaii. Besides enjoying their children and grandchildren, she and Jim had dogs, cats, horses and even parrots (a blue and gold macaw named Ollie and a peach-colored cockatoo named ChaCha). After becoming widowed in 1996, she still loved life and adventure, taking advantage of traveling to the coast or Redwoods with her dear other widowed sisterly friends, site-seeing, shopping and filling every speck of empty trunk space with memorable finds from antique stores and what-have-you along the way. Her interests, experiences and life stories were never dull; her graciousness and humor were always a delight! Because Helen was an active student of the Bible, baptized as one of Jehovah’s Witnesses in 1951 and truly believed we are living in the prophesied ‘last days’, her hope was clear and bright. She never stopped looking forward to the glorious future ahead for survivors and the promised resurrection of dead loved ones. Her worship and sharing Bible truths with all she could was the center and focus of her life. Right up until a few weeks prior to her death, she was active in writing letters to neighbors, inviting them to learn about her God Jehovah and the trustworthy promises recorded in his Word. She stayed busy attending Christian meetings via Zoom (due to the pandemic). Much more could be said about Helen and all her wonderful talents and attributes. She will be dearly missed by all who knew and loved her. We can be encouraged by her strong hope of being remembered by God and resurrected to life in a restored paradise earth in his due time. One of her favorite scriptures was Luke 20:38 where Jesus was speaking of faithful men of old who had already died and were already in God’s memory. Speaking of his Heavenly Father, he said “He is a God, not of the dead, but of the living, for they are all living to him.” This promise she loved is the thing that keeps us strong.