When Helen hitched a ride with a brother from her home in Star Valley, Wyoming to San Francisco, her life changed dramatically, along with many others during World War II. Born on April 13, 1923, Helen was the oldest girl in a dairy farming family with eleven children born to Walter and Sylvia Clark Weber. Her surviving sibling, Edith Haderlie, still lives in Star Valley. After high school graduation, instead of settling down with the cattle rancher who had proposed, she decided to contribute to the war effort by working for Western Union and then as a clerk for the Navy at Treasure Island.

It was there that she met the handsome Naval officer Robert Williams, and married him in Idaho at the end of the war. She supported him through the completion of his college education and his minor league baseball career. She helped him get his start as a teacher and coach, became hooked on sports, and for the rest of her life was the kind of fan who gave personal advice to umpires and corrected TV announcers. Bob and Helen had their family of five children in Lewiston, Idaho, then moved to Oregon in 1959. They divorced in 1973.

An old family friend and recent widower, Emil Ostoja, showed up to woo Helen and swept her off to married life in Sacramento. With Emil she got to enjoy an expanded family, old friends, an active church life, and traveling throughout the United States and Europe. He died in 1988, and Helen returned to Oregon to live near her daughters around Portland.

Helen was a phenomenal game player. She played a very competitive game of bridge, regularly beat her daughters in Scrabble, and had enthusiastically taken up the game of Hand & Foot in her Kennewick, Washington Canyon Lakes retirement center, to which she moved in 2004.

Helen Ostoja died peacefully at home from age-related causes on the morning of January 13, 2008. Her children, who will miss her love and frequently-dispensed advice, include: Robert Williams & Melinda of Valdez, Alaska, Patricia Turley & Jerry of Junction City, Oregon, Ann Marie Navarette & Vance of Beaverton, Oregon, Brenda Schuhmacher & Gary of Kennewick, Washington, and Janet Ballantyne & Brad of Woodland, Washington. Helen also enjoyed six grandchildren, and had seven great-grandchildren. They are all grateful for the care of her doctor, Luczel Tuazon, Hospice, and her At Home Care assistants.

There will be no service, but Helen would recommend saying a few prayers and eating ice cream. Her family will gather in Portland to celebrate her life on her 85th birth anniversary.