EDITORIAL: Helen Thrash Fraser
Helen Thrash Fraser passed away at home on March 20, 2020.
She was born in 1930 to Dorothy Louise King and Charles Wilson Thrash. Helen had one brother, Charles Wilson Thrash, Jr. – deceased. She suffered with emphysema, COPD, and congestive heart failure. Helen took her Southern twang, grace, wit, beauty and talents with her.
She attended the University of Georgia and was in the top two percent of her class and a member of Phi Mu sorority, Pythagorean Math Club, and Alpha Lambda Delta, a national society honoring academic excellence.
While still in college, in 1949, she married Richard (Dick) MacDonald Fraser to whom she was fiercely devoted and loved for 71 years. They were best friends and loyal companions – rarely apart. She adored her children and grandchildren.
Helen was a stylish and attractive woman, vivacious in her younger years. Her husband’s business moved them from Atlanta to Nebraska for two years and then to Boston. There, Helen was a member of the Junior League, Ladies Committee and Overseer at the Museum of Fine Arts, Somerset Club, and member of the Wellesley Country Club. She volunteered with trainable and educable children in Wellesley, Mass. where they lived. In 1960, they built a home in Weston, MA, and she became an avid flower and vegetable gardener at their summer home on Chapoquoit Island, West Falmouth, MA. Helen loved tennis, opera, reading and bridge, although she never mastered the newest bidding system. In the sixties, she tried her best to become a skier (unsuccessfully) where they had a home in Weathersfield, VT.
Helen and Dick traveled to over 50 countries, some more than once. Wintering in Boca Grande for the last twenty-five years, she joined the Woman’s Club and served on the boards of the Boca Grande Clinic Foundation as well as the Gasparilla Island Conservation and Improvement Association. She was a ‘self-achieved’ architect in drawing floor plans and an artistic designer/decorator for their own homes in Boca Grande, FL, Tuckers Town, Bermuda, and Cape Cod.
She loved being with friends. Celebrating and entertaining were a specialty wherever they lived. Christmas was a special time because she decorated a 14’ tree in their Florida home and celebrated the Christmas season by having two festive parties. She and Dick established a Family Foundation and were active, generous philanthropists wherever they lived.
Helen will be lovingly remembered by her husband Dick, their children, Jody Clinger (Alan) of Barnstable, MA, Carlyle Fraser (Dee) of Millican, TX Leslie Gold (Alex) of Winchester, MA, and Malcolm Fraser (Beth) of North Falmouth, MA.
She will also be fondly remembered by her four grandchildren Kate and Lily Fraser of New York city, Duncan Richard Fraser of North Falmouth, MA, and Olivia Fraser of Coconut Creek, FL.
Helen was predeceased by her children Stuart Fraser of Wellesley, MA, and Duncan Fraser (Angela) of East Falmouth, MA.
