Helen Reaves Box

Memorial services for Helen Wooster Reaves Box, 83 of Oxford will be 1pm Saturday, April 16th at the First United Methodist Church in Oxford with Rev. Chuck Worley officiating. A reception will be held for friends and family following the service in the Tommy Moore Memorial Center adjacent to the church. A private burial will be held Monday at Edgemont Cemetery. Helen was born on March 26, 1928, to John and Anna Barrett Wooster Waterbury, Connecticut. She graduated from Crosby High School in Waterbury, a college-prep high school. In 1946 she moved to Anniston, Alabama to work with her brother, John J. Wooster, doing bookkeeping in his accounting office (the only one in Anniston at the time). In Anniston she met Bill Reaves, and they were married in 1948. During those early years, while they were starting their family, she worked for Dr. Boozer, Anniston Electric Company, and Imperial Reading. After 21 years of marriage, Bill died, leaving her to raise three children alone. Her last employer was Hughes Beverage Company, where she worked as a secretary and bookkeeper. In 1978, Helen married Martin L. Box, who was a very devoted and loving husband to her, and they enjoyed nearly 33 years of marriage together. Helen had fallen in love with Florida during a trip there when she was a teenager, and she and Martin would travel there whenever they could to visit family members and enjoy the beaches. While living in Cheaha Acres in the 1950’s and 60’s, Helen was a member of the Cheaha Acres Garden Club, and in the early 1970’s enjoyed playing in a Canasta Club. While she was a single mother, she joined Parents Without Partners, and was the secretary for the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post #924 Auxiliary. Helen was always gentle, kind, and thoughtful, and was a wise and loving wife and mother who was treasured and will be greatly missed by her family. Her great love for her family, friends and neighbors overflowed from a heart devoted to Jesus Christ. Jesus said, “If you love Me, you will obey Me,” and Helen’s life is a testament to her love for Christ. She knows now by sight what she knew by faith in this life, that Jesus Christ is Lord of all, and that every word of the Holy Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, is true. She is survived by her husband, Martin L. Box ; daughters, Laurie Martin of Bynum, Melinda H. Watts (Sid) of Tallahassee, Fl; son, William (Bill) Hughes Reaves, Jr of Oxford; Sister, Mildred Clark of Hartford, Ct and one grandchild Lindsey K. Martin. She was also preceded in death by her infant son, John J. Reaves, two brothers; John J Wooster, Howard Wooster and by one sister, Millicent Bream. Memorial contributions may be made to the First Methodist Church of Oxford at PO Box 3261, Oxford, Al 36203.

Tributes

Helen Reaves Box

March 26, 1928 - April 12, 2011