Helen Eileen Mallory of Mullen passed away peacefully at home on Feb. 8, 2023. She was born Aug. 20, 1941, to George and Eileen (McNitt) Stichka in Mullen.
She grew up in the Sandhills region attending school in Thedford.
Helen enjoyed doing trick riding in her high school years; practicing daily in hopes of doing it with her father’s rodeo contracting company, but with the loss of her father in a motor vehicle accident that dream came to an end.
She then met and married Richard Gordon Mallory from the Merna-Anselmo area. They moved to Phillips, Nebraska, where she worked in the ammunition plant in Grand Island during the Vietnam War. Eventually she bought a café in Grand Island and called it the White Horse Café. Helen then moved her family to Loveland, Colorado, to be near her in-laws. While there she was a cook at the Skylark Café until she took a job at Hewitt Packard.
In the mid 1980s she returned to the Sandhills and bought the cafe/bar in Seneca. There she ran the Last Chance Saloon for many years. She left the Sandhills and went out to Washington State in the ’90s to be near family and while there she began working for Flexilite of Fife, Washington, where she could assemble kit bags at home while attending to and enjoying her many grandchildren.
She returned to the Sandhills in the last few years of her life so that she could spend time with her many Sandhills friends and family members, especially close to her were Bernard and Barb Stichka, June Morris, Pat Mc-Nitt and Bonnie Hilderhoff.
Her passion in life was cooking, family and spoiling grandchildren. She loved grocery shopping and filling her pantry with “it was on sale” items, then she would say, just couldn’t pass it up as I know I will need it soon.”
Helen is survived by her children Gregg (Dawn) of Mullen, Rhonda (Nash) Alarcon of Washington, Teresa of Wyoming, daughter-in-law Linda of Colorado, Howard (Julie) of Maxwell, adopted daughters Kenna and Brandi (Josh) Peters of Washington, 24 grandchildren, 37 greatgrandchildren, her brothers Marv Stichka of Oklahoma, Bob Stichka of Arkansas, and half-sister Sandy of Texas.
Helen was preceded in death by her parents George and Eileen Stichka, brother Bernard Stichka, sister Rose Marie Uldrich and adopted sister Cheryl Humphries, husband Richard Mallory, son George Mallory and daughterin-law Sherry Mallory.
A Celebration of Family Life will be held at a later time when she will be laid to rest in the Seneca Cemetery.