Helen Lewis Bidwell died on December 9, 2014, in Chicago, Illinois, at the age of seventy-nine. She is survived by her husband, Charles Edward Bidwell; her sisters, Mary Elizabeth Ward and Agnes Kinschner; her son, Charles Lewis Bidwell; her daughter-in-law, Rebecca Colescott Mullen; and two grandchildren, Andrew Charles Mullen Bidwell (six) and Emma Helen Mullen Bidwell (five).
Helen was born in Washington, DC, on January 24, 1935, the second daughter of Thomas Deane Lewis and Ann Elizabeth Claxton Lewis. The family lived in Bethesda, Maryland. Helen attended the College of William and Mary, transferred to the University of Maryland and then back to William and Mary, graduating in 1957; her studies focused substantially on Spanish, philosophy, and sculpture. Shortly after graduation, while she was working in Washington, DC, she was introduced to Charles, at the time a Specialist in the Army who was stationed at the Pentagon and was, by chance, precisely three years her senior. Eleven months later, on January 24, 1959, Charles and Helen were married in Washington, DC – not surprisingly, on their twenty-seventh and twenty-fourth birthdays. Immediately after their honeymoon, they moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, and lived there until 1961, when Charles accepted an appointment at the University of Chicago. Their only child, Charles Lewis, was born in 1964. For many years, Helen devoted her time to charities in Chicago, including the auxiliary of the Bobs Roberts Memorial Hospital for Children, and the Women’s Board of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Charles and Helen lived together in Chicago, and travelled the globe, until the time of her death.
Helen was a person of extraordinary intellectual curiosity, passion, and creativity. She was a genuinely talented pianist and sculptor. She had a deep and sustained interest in cosmology, ancient civilizations, and the performing and visual arts, but in truth her fascination with the universe and all forms of human endeavor seemed boundless. She was a loving and gentle wife, sister, mother, and friend, but did not spare the sword in social and artistic criticism. Her energy and wit were magnetic, and she made a lasting impression upon virtually everyone with whom she spent any appreciable time.
A memorial service will be held at Bond Chapel, on the University of Chicago campus, on December 29 at 2:00 p.m.
In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the University of Chicago Medicine Comer Children’s Hospital (online at http:www.uchicagokidshospital.org/contribute/donate/index.html; or by mail at Medicine and Biological Sciences, Development Office, 5801 S. Ellis Avenue, Chicago, IL 60637).

Arrangements by Lane-Moynihan Funeral Directors, Central Chapel, Downtown Chicago. To express your thoughts or memories in the online guest book, visit www.chapelc.com or www.facebook.com/centralchapel. For information call 312-944-6060.

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