Grand Rapids resident Helen Ouellette, who had 'a blast living life,' dies at 107

Helen Ouellette often uttered the phrase "every day is a new beginning."

The 107-year-old Grand Rapids, Minn., resident lived a holistic life, one free of all types of medication. An avid consumer of news, she relished reading and talking about current events and frowned on gossip. She had no time for sharing any of her aches and pains, and she insisted on doing things herself, even after she sailed past age 100. Before she finally moved to an assisted living facility a few years ago, she had a practice of tying a rope to her laundry basket to drag it to the elevator so she could do her own wash in her apartment building's laundry room.

She would get on a bus to shop for her own groceries, and she scrubbed her floor by wrapping a rag around her foot. A proud, self-sufficient woman, she maintained a positive outlook, which was likely a key to her long life, said her sister, Marianne Lipscy, 102, who lives in the same assisted living facility that Ouellette did.

Ouellette died June 23. The combined age of the sisters before Ouellette's death was 210 years, making them among the oldest living siblings in Minnesota.

"It amazes me we lived so long," Lipscy said. "We never worried. Maybe that's it."

Ouellette was one of seven children — five boys and two girls — born to Charles and Edith Olson, both of whom emigrated from Sweden. The family lived on a farm on Dinner Pail Lake in Itasca County's Spang Township, where they kept cows and honeybees. Born in 1913, Ouellette attended a one-room schoolhouse. She and her sister both worked at a military defense plant that manufactured gloves in Milwaukee during World War II, Ouellette as an inspector.

She married Louis Ouellette and lived with him in Minneapolis, Cloquet and Duluth. They had a son, Dean, who died as an infant. Because of that loss, her sister said, she wouldn't have another child.

"Helen was flamboyant, and Marianne is down to earth," said Sarah Green, house coordinator at Oak Hill Assisted Living in Grand Rapids. The sisters "balanced each other out and held each other's hands."

Her positivity was her calling card, niece Linda Lipscy said, "even this last year when she was slowing down."

"You'd think it would be sad to call her," she said. "But I always felt better when I got off the phone."

Bovey resident Sandy Wahlquist was Ouellette's home health aide for several years, and remained her friend after Ouellette moved to Oak Hill.

"She never asked for help," Wahlquist said. "Most of our arguments were when I wanted to do something for her and she would get upset with me because she could do it. That was inspiring to me."

Fellow residents thought the sisters "were two of the most fascinating people they could meet," Green said. "I've never seen two girls with as much knowledge and experience, having a blast living life."

In the weeks before Ouellette died, Lipscy would go to her and they'd reminisce about their childhood and the dancing and socializing they did as young women. When she became less alert, Lipscy said, they would just look at each other.

"And I would tell her stories," she said.

A service for Ouellette will be held in the fall.