Helen Fox – in memory
From the WGBH QuickNooz (with permission) — 8/8/2003
Former ’GBHer Helen Fox passed away on Tues, 7/22. Helen worked at ’GBH during the Foundation’s early days. She started as a volunteer, and she stayed for 17 years, working in Fundraising and in ZOOM.
In an interview in the WGBH Archives (conducted by Fred Barzyk as part of an oral history project), the late David Ives credits Helen with showing him the fundraising ropes; apparently, Helen was known as WGBH’s human computer. She was 93 and died in Ft. Myers, FL, where she had resided since 1990.
Former ’GBHer Helen Fox passed away on Tues, 7/22. Helen worked at ’GBH during the Foundation’s early days. She started as a volunteer, and she stayed for 17 years, working in Fundraising and in ZOOM.
Helen Fox’s dedication to WGBH and to its contributors, her quickness at accomplishing tasks, her insistence on accuracy, and her ability to backstop the station’s early fund-raising efforts by processing mountains of paper before the age of computers and to remember the important facts about each of the station’s early contributors was legendary.
Helen managed her volunteers and tiny staff with complete dedication and skill, and would often make sure that a WGBH umbrella, tote bag, or Julia Child cookbook was hand-delivered to a donor’s home by a station staff member or volunteer.
Helen Fox came to WGBH after being widowed, and she often said that WGBH helped her over that difficult hurdle. She was much-loved by those who worked with her, and she was one of the dedicated people who helped WGBH build the current donor base that it now enjoys.