Helen Paula Simmons

One day during the depths of the Great Depression, a desperately poor single mother living in Manhattan dropped her two young children off at the New York Foundling Hospital. Helen was only 17 months old, her brother Walter a year older.

Thus began a long and difficult but inspiring journey for Helen Paula Simmons, who died last June and will be memorialized when Helen's Hope Chest opens in Mesa on February 13, 2010. Located in an unused municipal building at 415 N. Pasadena, just off University Drive between Center Street and Mesa Drive, Helen's Hope Chest will provide local foster children with necessities such as clothing and school supplies, as well as toys, at no cost as state assistance to foster families is cut.

Soon after being abandoned by their mother, Helen and Walter were placed in a foster home, where they grew up. Their foster parents, who had children of their own, took in other children who all eventually were adopted. The siblings wore hand-me-downs from their foster parents' children and were teased at school.

Front row, from right: Helen Paula Simmons, Regena's son Cooper, Regena Field, husband Bill and son Connor. Back row from right: Debbie's daughter Jessica, Debbie Jacobus, husband Nathan, son Joseph and his wife Holly. (Family photo taken in 2005)

The experience left Helen with a haunting sense of being unwanted, according to her daughters, Debbie Jacobus and Regena Field. It also instilled in her a fierce determination that, no matter what hardships life dealt her, she would never abandon her own children. She would love them and somehow provide for them, no matter what, so they always would feel valued.

Life was very tough for Helen, the sisters relate. Her brother Walter, who had been her rock of emotional support throughout childhood, was killed in the Korean War. There were a few years of happiness as Helen married and had her two daughters. But soon after the young family moved from the East Coast to Phoenix, tragedy struck again when husband Gene, a contractor, was killed in a car crash.

Debbie, who was 5, recalls those sad and difficult days as the little family struggled to get by. There was no car and scant food, but Helen managed to keep them together and a roof over their heads.

A year or so later Helen married a gruff but successful businessman who the sisters remember as distant and often harsh. But their mother ever was the loyal and devoted wife, and later nursed him in failing health until his death about 10 years ago.

As the sisters grew up and witnessed their mother's endless struggles, each determined to become educated, professionally accomplished and financially self-sufficient.

Today, Regena is a successful certified public accountant raising two teenage boys in Jackson, WY. Debbie has served as U.S. Sen. John McCain's East Valley office manager for 16 years.

But Helen's influence on her daughters went far beyond encouraging them to succeed in the conventional sense. Her love and devotion, unfazed even during the most trying times, imbued in them her own belief that nothing is more precious than your children.

Debbie married and had two children of her own, a boy and a girl who is cognitively challenged. "When Jessica was born, my mother stepped right in to help," Debbie says. "Without my mother there to support me and help, I don't know what I would have done."

Debbie marvels at her mother's ability to cope with adversity. "I don't know how she did it. She just carried through; she never showed frustration. She always emphasized the importance of family, because she didn't have any when she was growing up. Our little family was very close knit."

After Helen died last June, the sisters took on the sad task of going through their mothers' belongings. They came across a piece of paper on which their mother had written a single sentence, a simple but powerful thought that their mother lived by: "Children are the anchors that hold a mother to life."

The sisters want to share with the community their mother's legacy of love and determination. "A child without parents is still a human being that needs the love and nurturing that they didn't receive from their parents," says Regena. "Without the caring of others, the possibilities for those children are more likely to be very limited.

"So often people are involved with pursuing wealth and power and are unhappy. But if they make helping others a priority, everything else will fall into place. That's what gives you joy in life."

Helen's legacy will live on through Helen's Hope Chest, providing our community with a priceless opportunity to help instill in foster children the love, security and self-worth that every child needs and deserves.