Helen Snyder

Helen Laura Snyder, born Maria Elena Laura Chavez y Lucero on August 18, 1919 in San Pedro, Colorado to Maria Juanita Matilde Lucero and Jose Policarpio Chavez, died peacefully at the home of a daughter on June 25, 2020 (UTC).  Born a year following the devastating 'Spanish' flu pandemic of 1918, Helen survived the Great Depression of 1929-1939 along with her six orphaned siblings, lived through the tumultuous years of World War II, and left this world amidst the global COVID19 flu pandemic of 2020.

Instilled by her parents with a fierce determination to pursue an academic education despite extreme odds, Helen attended Adams State College in Colorado following high school, obtaining a degree in English, with teaching certification.  She taught 6th grade in Taos, New Mexico in 1945.  She then pursued higher education, earning a Master's degree in Sociology at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colorado, where she was awarded the Pi Gamma Mu key in 1947 in recognition of her research in Sociology.  While earning her Master's degree she met her future husband, Walter Raymond Snyder.  Married June 16, 1947 in Fort Collins, Ray and Helen eventually moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico and together raised seven children.  Because of the difficulty of raising children while trying to work outside the home, Helen gave up her teaching career and used her teaching skills to enhance the education of her own children.  Before she died, Helen's mother, Maria Juanita Matilde, was the organist for the Iglesia de San Pedro y San Pablo in the San Luis valley of southern Colorado.  Helen's father, Policarpio, died not long after his wife (Helen's mother), and, because of the hardships of these times, Helen had no opportunity to receive music education herself.  Yet Helen was able to direct her own children to learn music, and all seven went on to become accomplished musicians.

Helen was also a talented artist and painted in both oils and watercolors.  She was a member of the Nor Este Art Association for many years and, as secretary, wrote the newsletter for this Association for a number of years.  In later years Helen extended her artistic talents to china painting.  Helen and Ray met during their college days at Colorado State, brought together by a shared love of dancing.  Over the following years Helen and Ray did ballroom dance, folk dance, square dance, and clogging, and  they continued dancing together well into their senior years until Ray's death in 2003.

Helen was preceded in death by her six siblings: Maria Cauta Placida (Patsy), Maria Paulita Loyola (Lola), Maria Margarita (Sister Casilda, who belonged to the Sisters of Saint Francis), Maria Rumalda Agueda (Agatha), Jose Tomas Francisco (Tommy), and Anna Maria Francisca (Marie).  Helen is survived by her seven children: Alan, Laura, Cheryl, Kurt, Rita, Cynthia, and Tim; their spouses; seventeen grandchildren; and some twenty-one great-grandchildren.  Requiescat in pace.

A Funeral Mass will be held Monday, July 27, 2020, 10:30 a.m., at St. John the XXIII Catholic Church, 4831 Tramway Ridge DR. N.E. Albuquerque, NM 87111. It will be preceded by a Musical Tribute, performed by family members, to start at 9:45 a.m. A private burial will take place at the Santa Fe National Cemetery.