Obituary of Helen MC McGee

HELEN HUNTER MCGEE - Daughter of Stella Louise Willard and Stuart Mcklveen Hunter, she was born June 23,1926 in Northfield Minnesota. Graduating with honors from Carleton College in 1948, she was both May Queen and head of the Motor board Society. With Moral Re-Armament (Initiatives of Change), she launched into reconciliation work at home and abroad through music, theater, and personal contact; a year in Scotland, a year in Germany, three years in Brazil - travel in thirty-plus countries during two decades of volunteer service. She married Frank Chalmers McGee in Atlanta, Georgia in 1958 while touring with a musical based on the life of Mary McLeod Bethune, first African American woman to found a university. Color barriers came down when black and white used the same door and ground floor of the theater, and were welcomed to the wedding reception at the all-white hotel. In 1966 the McGees returned from Brazil to Los Angeles, where Frank joined PACE magazine. They lived in Newport Beach from 1971, and Helen worked at nearby U.C.Irvine, until moving to Tucson in 1999. In the new century she wrote a delightfully illustrated children's book: "IKKY DIKKY DAK: magical adventures with Googler." She then partnered with Frank in writing "A Song for the World," the remarkable story of Herb Allen and the Colwell Brothers, musical founders and creative engines of Up with People. She dearly loved the challenging multi-year process of writing and "shepherding" the book, and often described the experience as "The privilege of a lifetime." Helen is survived by her husband, Frank McGee, their two sons, Scott Stuart McGee and Hunter Frank McGee, his wife Sonja Peterson, and their son, Silas Aran McGee. Helen and Frank sponsor children through World Vision, and support the programs of Up with People. For memorial gifts please consider contributing there.