Helen Dumville

ROYALTON — Helen Phipard Dumville, 88, died November 18, 2005. She was born in New York City, August 26, 1917, in the kitchen of her family home, the daughter of Dr. Willard and Hazel (Dealing) Phipard.

During her mother’s illness, she spent summers with her brother, visiting her great-aunt and uncle, Dr. Chauncey and Cora Munsell in South Royalton. After her mother’s death in 1927, she lived with her grandparents, Leonora and Charles Kelsey Phipard; and later with her father’s sister and her husband, Elizabeth and Edgar Lanphear, on Clinton Avenue in Brooklyn, N.Y.

She graduated from Packer Collegiate Institute in Brooklyn, Ashley Hall in Charleston, S.C.; and Mount Holyoke College. She did additional study at Adelphi University, Cornell University, and the University of New Mexico, and was working on her Ph.D. in archaeology at Columbia Uni-versity at the outbreak of World War II.

Her calling was archaeology and she worked at Chaco Canyon in New Mexico and at the American Museum of Natural History in N.Y.C. During the war, she worked at Coastal Geodetic and later at Grumman Aircraft. During this period of her life, she lived in Brooklyn, moving to Garden City. N.Y. in the mid-1940’s, and spent summers at Pleasure Beach in Waterford, Conn.

In 1946, while visiting her great aunts Cora Munsell and Jessie Bigwood in South Royalton, Evelyn Kratky introduced her to the recently-widowed Robert Dumville, who gave up a career on Wall Street and had moved to Royalton two years after graduation from college to follow his life dream to become a farmer. Ther were married, August 2, 1947 and lived at Woodlawn Farm in Royalton.

She was active with the Cub Scouts, 4-H, PTA, and was pres-ident of the South Royalton Woman’s Club. For many years, she was treasurer of the Royalton Historical Society, regent of the Thomas Chittenden chapter of the D.A.R., New England Woman, and a founding member of the Green Mountain Rug Hookers. Most of all, she was proud to be a stay-at-home mom.

She was predeceased by her husband in 1998 and a son in 1948.

Survivors include five children: Thomas S. Dumville and his wife, Opal, of Houston, Texas; John P. Dumville and Stuart Dumville and his wife Bonnie, all of Royalton; Catherine Romeo and her husband, Rob, of Sharon; and Nancy Hatch and her husband, Ted, of Chelsea; and six grandchildren: Jeris and Caitlin Romeo of Sharon, Cody and Heidi Hatch of Chelsea, and Whitney and Molly Dumville of Royalton.

A private service for the family wil be held at Riverview Cemetery in Royalton. Memorial contri-butions may be made to the Royalton Historical Society, in care of Ralph Eddy, Back River Road, Royalton, Vt 05068. The Boardway & Cilley Funeral Home of Chelsea is in charge of arrangements.

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