Helen B. Garland Obituary
Helen Reid Bryan Garland of Gloucester, MA, formerly of Hastings-on-Hudson, NY, died peacefully at home on July 31st at the age of 96. She was the widow of Gloucester historian and columnist Joseph Garland.
Helen was born on October 5, 1925, in Miraj, India, where her parents were.
Presbyterian missionaries. Her mother, Marion Cuthbertson, was a teacher from Edinburgh, Scotland. Her father, Rev. Alison Bryan, was a minister from Chicago. When Helen was six years old, the family traveled to Scotland, then moved to Salem, NJ. She often shared stories about adjusting to life in the United States: about how she missed climbing the backyard banyan tree, and "playing" with monkeys; and how she was punished by her teacher for "making up a story" about her father shooting a cobra on the roof of their bungalow.
While her father served as an Army Chaplain in Europe during World War II, Helen attended the Northfield Seminary for Young Ladies in Northfield, MA. She would later recount that, as part of her student job, she made gravy for 300 diners. Helen attended Sarah Lawrence College and majored in International Affairs. A gifted tennis player, she was invited by famed champion Hazel Wightman to train for U.S. amateur tour events that defined women's competition at the time. An internship at the fledgling United Nations sparked a lifelong devotion to the concept of global cooperation. Upon graduation in 1947, she worked for the National Student Association in Cambridge, MA, coordinating arrangements for postwar student-travel between Europe and the U.S., once flying for seventeen hours on a propeller plane to Norway to charter a ship for students.
During WWII, childhood friends had introduced Helen as a pen-pal to US Army 45th Infantry soldier Joe Garland. Their correspondence launched a romance, though soon after Joe returned from fighting in Europe, they parted ways—Joe for a journalism job in Minneapolis, Helen to finish college—only to reunite thirty-three years later.
In 1952, Helen married Robert S. Carlson of New Britain, CT, a corporate and sports attorney. They settled in Hastings-on-Hudson, NY, where they raised their four children. Juggling work and family, determined to do some good in the world and inspired to be a role model for her children, she collaborated with organizations striving to clean up the Hudson River. She participated in the founding of Scenic Hudson and served on its board; worked with Pete Seeger on Sloop Clearwater events focused on protecting the Hudson River Valley; and served as U.N. Observer for International Union for Conservation of Nature, as well as World Society for Ekistics, headed by Margaret Mead. Helen also worked with Dr. Mead on environmental projects, referring to herself as "Margaret's eyes and ears at the U.N." For the first U.N. Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm, 1972, she insisted her children attend along with her.
Thanks to Helen's varied interests, the family home in Hastings was a destination for friends from around the world, including U.N. diplomats and staff, and her gravy-making skills came in handy. In 1969, Helen hosted officials from Anguilla, the tiny British island in the Caribbean where she and her children had vacationed in the early 1960s. Helen publicized the island's cause via the U.N. press office, resulting in front-page newspaper stories which, according to Alan Gumbs, son of Jeremiah Gumbs, Anguilla's roving ambassador, facilitated their appeal for self-determination at the U.N. and led to the resolution of the Anguilla Revolution.
After her first marriage ended in divorce, Helen married John H. Reurs, North American Managing Director for the Holland-America Line. That marriage also ended in divorce. In the late 1970s, Joe Garland traveled through New York on a research trip for his last book, Unknown Soldiers. He contacted Helen and, as Joe later put it, "the fireworks ignited!". They married in 1981 and Helen moved to Gloucester, where she wasted no time meeting Joe's friends and neighbors and making new friends through her other pursuits: knitting, singing, tennis, gardening and civic activism. She and Joe welcomed them all to Black Bess, their Eastern Point harbor-front home, creating a lively salon atmosphere. Her primary passion was meeting people and getting to know everything about them, then introducing them to other people, reciting their full bio which she had committed to memory.
Helen embraced Gloucester with gusto. She loved the waterfront and advocated for Gloucester's working fishermen and their families. She became an ardent supporter of Schooner Adventure when Joe teamed with Captain Jim Sharp to bring the vessel back to the city. Helen also travelled with Joe on subsequent research trips for Unknown Soldiers. Unfortunately, Joe could not refer to his wartime letters to Helen in the book because, in an impulsive moment, he had burned them after their breakup in 1946. Nonetheless, public radio reporter Ira Glass managed to capture their epic love story in a segment of "This American Life" on Valentine's Day, 2003.
Even after moving to Gloucester, Helen never stepped away from the U.N. She worked with Earth Society to sustain the original International Earth Day celebrations on the Equinox which she attended annually at the U.N.'s Peace Garden. She also supported many Cape Ann nonprofits tasked with preserving the health of the oceans and Gloucester's maritime and architectural heritage. When the moment called for it, she acted on her convictions: once, while shopping at a local hardware store, she informed the manager that unless the store stopped selling Monsanto's toxic RoundUp, she would never set foot there again.
In quieter moments at home, Helen and Joe watched crows perching in the gnarled cherry tree, and gulls, cormorants and ducks bobbing on the waves outside the windows of Black Bess—or sunning on the rocks from which the house takes its name. After Joe died in 2011, Helen continued to work with the organizations with which he was involved. She helped organize the 2018 Reenactment of the Revolutionary harbor battle between the British warship Falcon and the Gloucester defenders, as described in Joe's book The Fish and the Falcon. She continued to welcome people to Black Bess, never failing to express appreciation for the view of the goings-on from her special perch. Her children, grandchildren and friends visited regularly from afar, always for an annual Fourth of July clambake with a view of the fireworks over the harbor.
In later years, Helen was thankful for, and the family gratefully recognizes, the invaluable contribution of friends and caregivers who enabled her to remain happily at home.
Helen is survived by her children Anna Carlson (William Gannett), Janet Carlson (Jack Gale), Alison Carlson, and Robert (Elizabeth Reisch Carlson); and eight grandchildren, Theodore and Sarah Gannett; Alden and Erica Freed; and Emma, Robert, Alison and Anne Carlson.
The date for a Celebration of Life is to be announced. In honor of Helen, the family suggests donations to Schooner Adventure [ https://schooner-adventure.org ]; Cape Ann Vernal Pond Team [ https://www.capeannvernalpondteam.org ]; or "Gloucester Speaks," (Shep Abbott's film project for the Gloucester 400th,) c/o Center for Independent Documentary, 1300 Soldiers Field Road, #5, Boston, MA 02135. Arrangements by the Greely Funeral Home, 212 Washington Street, Gloucester.
