Lifelong Southampton resident Helen Andrews died April 15 at the Hamptons Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation after a brief illness. She was 92.
Born January 22, 1918, in a farmhouse in Bridgehampton to Bertha and Joachim Grzybowski, she helped her mother run the farm along with her brothers.
She married Joseph Andrews on February 23, 1942, and together they raised four children, Joseph, Richard, Lorraine and Thomas. After deciding to give up farming, she moved to Southampton around 1951 and remained there ever since.
According to family, both Mr. and Mrs. Andrews loved music and were well-known as accomplished dancers—their favorites were the waltz and polka. Mrs. Andrews encouraged music in the lives of everyone, family recalled, and opened her home every Sunday for band practice to any teenager who wanted to play.
Also a faithful member of Our Lady of Poland Church, she was an inspiration to all who knew her, family said.
She is survived by two sons and their wives, Joseph and Susan Andrews and Thomas and Tracy Andrews, all of Southampton; a daughter, Lorraine and her husband Chuck Stachecki of Southampton; three grandsons, Derek, R.J. and Joseph; four granddaughters, Michele, Lauren, Lindsey, and Kristy Lee; a great-grandson, Jonathan; and a great-granddaughter, Ahmyri.
In addition to her husband, Joseph Andrews, she was predeceased by a son, Richard Andrews, and four brothers, Richard Miller, Sigmund Grzybowski, Stanley Grzybowski and Alec Miller.
Visitation was on April 19 at the O’Connell Funeral Home in Southampton. A funeral mass was held on April 20 at Our Lady of Poland Church in Southampton, with interment following at Southampton’s Sacred Hearts Cemetery.
on Apr 21, 2010