`Ginny' Helsell, Volunteer

There were no lines between sacred and secular, formal or casual, for Virginia Satterberg Helsell, who died of heart failure Friday at 68.

Whether wearing knickers and argyle socks to church because she later had a golf date "with the girls" or taking water aerobics because a frail, elderly friend needed help getting there, "Ginny" was her own person: joyful, genuine, organized to the teeth.

There also was no line between giving and getting.

"Virginia loved the parish, and the parish loved her," said Father Andrew Bullwinkel, pastor of Seattle's Christ the King Church, where Mrs. Helsell had been a member since 1964. "She was very active in the Volunteer Chore Ministry, which helps people who have handicaps and the elderly."

Parish Chore Ministry coordinator Pat Anderson called Mrs. Helsell "a dedicated volunteer, very willing, with at least one full-time client that she was helping. One rainy night, she put her family's dinner on hold so she could take one lady's cat to the vet."

Ever "trim, slim, with great taste in clothes" according to her husband, attorney William Helsell, Mrs. Helsell took up golf "10 or 15 years ago" to get closer to his late wife's children. She wound up becoming an avid golfer herself, and a frequent tennis player with him.

"She tried to drag me into the golf thing on Sundays," William Helsell said. "I went a few times, but I hated it. I was into flying the Staggerwing Beech and Gullwing Stinson on Saturdays."

Mrs. Helsell then became interested in flying. She even earned her private pilot's license, and the couple flew many places in their antique craft, to fly-ins around the country and on her husband's business.

Mrs. Helsell loved to travel. Every year she'd tell her husband, "We're taking the month of August off," to get him away from work. They traveled to Antarctica twice and to the South Pacific, and one trip started in London and ended in Kowloon.

"She was an eternally optimistic, tough little Swede," said Helsell of the woman born into a Seattle banking family.

"Ginny was totally organized, although not in an obsessive way," Helsell said. "When we put our families together, she asked for all our help and made up a list of chores for the kids to do each week. On top of all that, she was a beautiful cook."

Mrs. Helsell, until she married Helsell in 1964, also was one of the nation's first owner-operators of a Volkswagen dealership, which her late husband Pat Pigott, a race-car driver, had owned in Bellingham.

Marion Karn, a longtime friend of Mrs. Helsell, noted, "While she could be serious, she was a joyful person. You'd ask, `Will you help me out on this?' and she'd say, `Well, I'll certainly try.' "

A Phi Beta Kappa graduate in business and economics from the University of Washington, Mrs. Helsell also had served on the board of Seattle-King County Council of Camp Fire Boys and Girls, United Way of King County and Seattle Prep-Matteo Ricci College Form 1.

Other survivors include her sister, Sally Brookbank of Friday Harbor; her children, Judy Pigott Swenson of Seattle, Kate Helsell Lazarus of Sunnyvale, Calif., Mary Pigott of Pine Lake, Pete Helsell of Edmonds, Frank Helsell of St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, and Michael Pigott of Seattle; and 15 grandchildren.

Mass will be celebrated at 2 p.m. Monday at Christ the King Church, 405 N. 117th St., Seattle.

Remembrances may be made to Seattle Commons Share the Vision Campaign, 2201 Ninth Ave., Seattle, WA 98121.