Helen was born Oct. 31, 1919, on her grandparents’ homestead in Langford, S.D., and passed away on Monday, July 8, 2024. When the farm was sold in 1923, her parents, Francis and Nellie Richardson Tweedy, moved the family to Tahoe Ridge near Kooskia. There she grew up in a large family during the Depression attending the country school on Tahoe Ridge and graduating from Kooskia High School in 1938. After graduating from Lewiston Normal School, now Lewis-Clark State College in 1941, she taught at the Big Cedar School near Kooskia for $80 per month, and Westlake near Craigmont, before transferring to Winona, Wash., to teach in 1944.
She married Julius Yenney on Nov. 17, 1945, in Moscow while they were both teaching in Winona.
In 1950, they moved to Endicott, Wash., where he became the principal and eighth grade teacher. They lived there until 1992. In 1952, Helen and Julius were blessed with the birth of their daughter, Eileen. After Julius’ death in 1989, Helen continued living in Endicott until she moved to Lewiston in 1992.
Helen joined the Winona Grange in 1945 while teaching there, was a former member of the Endicott Congregational Church and, at different times during the years, was a 4-H Leader and taught Sunday School and Bible study. She was also a member of the Washington State Retired Teachers.
Her interests were her family, helping other people and working with children, sewing, crocheting and traveling in their motor home when her husband was alive. She enjoyed books, music, beauty all around her, but her favorite hobby was writing. On her 80th birthday, she published a 327-page hardcover family book titled “Tweedy Tracks: Frank and Nellie’s Family” with records back to the Mayflower and beyond for her family.
Helen was preceded in death by her parents, her sister Irene (1942), brothers Earl LeRoy, Seth Thomas, Emerson, Glenn, Verl, Cecil, and daughter, Eileen Osmundson. She is survived by her son-in-law, Ossie Osmundson of Woodland, Wash., two granddaughters and their husbands, Andrea and Jason Milstead of Woodway, Wash., and Katie and Keith Stevens of La Center, Wash., three great-grandchildren, and one sister, Ethel Jones of Vancouver, Wash.
A burial service was held at Lewis-Clark Memorial Gardens in Lewiston on Tuesday, July 23.
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