Helen Whitney was born August 24, 1912 on the family farm to Asaph Whitney and Grace (Conrow) Whitney.  The Whitney Farm was in the College Hill vicinity.  She was the oldest of eight children.
Helen attended College Hill School, a two room school with grades 1 through 8.  Helen and her brothers rode ponies to school, and remembers they were fed and watered at noon in a barn near the school yard.  During recess the children played games, with the most popular being pump pumps, pull away, ante-over, baseball, jacks, and spelling bees.
After graduating from College Hill School, Helen didn’t have a way to get from her home to the high school in Manhattan.  She spent her first year of high school in Asherville, Kansas where she stayed with her Aunt and Uncle.  She played guard on the basketball team in Asherville. Helen then returned to Manhattan and spent her next three years at Manhattan High School, graduating in 1931.  Helen was active in sports and played basketball, volleyball and softball.
Helen continued to be active in sports after graduating from MHS and was first baseman on the 1935 Manhattan Girls Kansas Championship Softball team.
After graduating from MHS, Helen attended the Sacred Heart Academy Business School in Manhattan and graduated in 1936.
In later years, Helen worked at the Golden Belt Lumber Company and baked in the Manhattan High School cafeteria for 11 years.  Her baking talents included winning the Blue Valley Pork Producer’s Grand Champion prize for her cherry pie. 
Helen married Vernon Toburen on October 15, 1937.  They are happy residents of Meadowlark Hills.  Helen and Vernon have three children, seven grandchildren, and nine great grandchildren.
At the ripe young age of 93, Helen is currently a member of the Meadowlark Wildbirds basketball team.
- Sept 2005

A current resident at Meadowlark Retirement Community, Toburen was born in Manhattan on Aug. 12, 1912. Looking back over a century of changes, Toburen’s first thought is not of getting indoor plumbing, the Great Depression, or either of the two World Wars. Instead, she thinks of the city that has always been her home.
As she recalls her childhood, Toburen describes her idyllic life associated with old movies and nostalgia of “better, simpler times.” Entertainment was gathering around a piano and singing, children playing kick the can and talking to a friend meant walking to their house, Toburen said.
But life wasn’t always easy. Her family of 10 was poor, only spending money on what was deemed absolutely necessary at the time, and often forgoing what others had. But Toburen recalls it with fondness and an easygoing attitude.
“We didn’t have much at all. No electricity, no television or decorations or extra food or toys really,” Toburen said. “But we didn’t know anything differently, so we thought it was how everyone lived.”
Toburen remembers spending lazy Sunday afternoons with her family at Wildcat Creek as a young girl. Each weekend after church services at the College Hill schoolhouse, the family packed into their White Touring Car with a picnic lunch of meat and bread, fishing poles, books and blankets.
At the creek, Helen and her seven siblings played and swam. When the sun got too hot on their bare necks, they retreated to the sanctuary of the treelined banks for lunch.
While they swam, her mother spread out a hand-sewn patchwork quilt to read a book, often with a baby in her arms, relaxing under the shade of a towering cottonwood tree. Her dad often went downstream and cast his wooden fishing pole into the creek, relaxing against the gentle slope of the bank. Anything he caught was skinned and cooked for that night’s dinner.
“We had Wildcat Creek and that was our swimming hole. That’s a way we spent a lot of our Sundays, and I remember really enjoying it. And it didn’t cost us a dime,” Toburen said. “It really was a lovely, relaxing time.”
When Helen was a teenager, most of Manhattan’s business centered around what is today considered Aggieville. In the 1920s, the dirt street was lined with four grocery stores, two book stores, a candy kitchen, a drug store, two tailors and other establishments. Poyntz Avenue was a dirt road, and Manhattan had a population of little more than 12,000 people.
For the rich residents and visitors of Manhattan the main attraction was the new Wareham Motor Hotel on Poyntz Avenue. When it was finished in 1928, the hotel was the only six-story building in the state.
Toburen worked as a waitress at the hotel when she was young. While the structure is now a high-end restaurant and series of apartments, Toburen remembers it as a glamorous hotel, attracting the rich and successful in their three-piece suits and fur coats.
“The Wareham Hotel was the most popular place in Kansas for quite a while,” Toburen said. “It was simply stunning, the best thing in Manhattan. It looked just amazing from the inside and outside.”
At the time, the Wareham was adorned with intricate crystal chandeliers, gleaming, winding wooden staircases and Romanesque columns. It included a hair salon, in-house optometrist and had coin-operated radios in each room — luxuries for a hotel in Manhattan.
Toburen worked as a waitress in the hotel’s Sunflower Room seven days a week, earning $1 a day. Menu items included T-bone steaks for 85 cents, baked young hen with southern dressing for 60 cents, and apple, cherry and blueberry pie for 10 cents a slice. While she worked hundreds of hours at the hotel, Toburen says one specific incident stands out in her memory.
“One time we were so crowded I had to hold trays up above everyone’s heads because there was no room. I guess I tipped the tray a little, and some pea juice spilled and ran down on a lady’s dress,” Toburen said. “I’m glad I spilled it on that lady, because the lady who was sitting beside her had a real fit. I was sure glad I spilled it on who I did because she was very sympathetic and said she knew I didn’t have very much room to serve, and that I did a good job of serving.”
Around the same time, Helen met a charming young man named Vernon. Toburen remembers him being strong and tough, even as a 16-year-old.
“Someone told me that I once said that he was the man I was going to marry the first time I saw him,” Toburen said. “I don’t remember that. I did end up marrying him, though, so I guess it turned out all right.”
In the 1930s, courting was an entirely different process than today.
“He would come over once during the week, and once at the week’s end and we would sit on the front porch and talk, and spend time with my family,” Toburen said. “It doesn’t seem like much, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.”
After less than a year of courting, Helen and Vernon got engaged. Their wedding was a short time later.
“It was just a family thing,” Toburen said. “The pastor I wanted to do the ceremony just happened to be in town, so we went down to the church and had a ceremony that afternoon.”
Toburen recounted a specific, and comical, moment from her nuptials.
“Vernon told me afterward that he thought about escaping out the back door before the ceremony,” she said. “I asked him where that would have left me, and he said he hadn’t thought about that. He didn’t walk out.”
Vernon and Helen raised three children and saw them through primary school at Theodore Roosevelt Elementary School, high school at Manhattan High School and colleges around the state.
Over the decades, Toburen avoided many of life’s possible hardships. Her brothers and husband never fought in World War II or the Vietnam War, and her family’s modest life style spared them from the harshest realities of the Great Depression. While she is sure she probably faced some difficult times, she remembers her life as easy and happy.
“We obviously did have our challenges, but I never remember facing anything we couldn’t overcome,” Toburen said. “I thank God every day for how much he has blessed me.”
Even today, Toburen has never owned a cell phone or computer, and never wants to get one because she “doesn’t want to be bothered.”
Beyond a few vacations, she has never lived outside of Manhattan.
“I’ve always lived here, and I’ve loved it. I have no plans to ever live anywhere else,” Toburen said. “I don’t think I missed out on anything because I’ve had a very happy and full life here.”
Toburen has survived her husband, two of her children, and all but one of her siblings, but has little advice for those wishing to live a century or more.
“There’s no secret, really,” Toburen said. “All I do is thank God every morning that I am alive, and then thank God every night for the day that he blessed me with. That’s what I do every day, and it’s gotten me this far. This is all I could ask for in life, and I’m so happy with my years.”
- Feb 18, 2013

[Obituary]
Helen Louise Toburen passed away peacefully on June 8, 2016. She saw the world change during her lifetime of nearly 104 years and was always open to new ways of thinking while being respectful of others.
She was born August 24, 1912 to Asaph and Grace Whitney, she was the oldest of eight children. A lifelong resident of Manhattan, KS, she attented College Hill School and graduated from Manhattan High School.
She and Vernon Toburen met as teenagers at College Hill Sunday School. He helped pay her tuition for Sacred Heart Academy Business School. She graduated in 1936 after winning first place in the state by typing 98 words per minute. She went to work as secretary for Golden Belt Lumber Company, proudly earning $70 a month. Helen and Vernon were married a year later on October 15, 1937 at the First Congregational Church Parsonage and celebrated 70 years of marriage.
She said her secret to a long life was learning new things and staying active. As a child, she played games and helped with chores on the family farm. She grew to love sports, lettering in basketball, and even tore a dress playing football. The Manhattan Softball Team won the Championship in 1935 with Helen at first base. She enjoyed spending time with family and friends, gardening, traveling, and volunteering for her church and La Sertoma.
An enthusiastic fan of K State University, she followed sports and attended many women's basketball games. Upon moving to Meadowlark Hills in 2001, she took part in studies on aging and mentored K State students. Helen walked nearly every day and became a member of their Wildbirds Basketball Team.
Friendly, funny, cheerful, kind and accepting of everyone are just a few of the ways she was described by those that knew and loved her. Well known for her cooking skills, she became famous when she won the Pork Producers pie baking contest and was featured in the Manhattan Mercury, "She Could Bake a Cherry Pie," or anything else for that matter, just ask any of the students she served as a baker at Manhattan High School. She took pride in preparing good homegrown food and considered good nutrition another secret to living a long healthy life.
She was preceded in death by her siblings Walter, Clyde, Asa, Mildred and Willadeen; her husband Vernon; daughter Karen Walters; granddaughter Amanda Hardy, and great-grandson Phillip Walters.
She is survived by her sisters Donna Hartman and Irene Bavier; daughter Kathleen Beisner and son Lynn Toburen; grandchildren Anne Hultman, Matthew Walters, Joshua Walters, Nathaniel Walters, Rachel Cornett, Asa Toburen, and great-grandchildren Dustin and Sinead Hultman, Hannah, Maerin, Kelsey and Liam Walters, Shelby and Mason Cornett, Grant Walters, Kellen Hardy and Miles Walters.
The family will greet friends during a visitation from 5:30 until 7:00 p.m. Friday June 10, 2016 at the Yorgensen-Meloan-Londeen Funeral Home in Manhattan.
Funeral Services will be held at 10:00 a.m. Saturday June 11, 2016 at the First Congregational United Church of Church of Christ, 700 Poyntz Avenue, Manhattan, Kansas 66502, with Rev. Caela Simmons-Wood officiating. Interment will follow in the Swede Creek Cemetery north of Randolph, Kansas.