Helen Zeiner was determined to go to college, but it meant getting some unusual jobs because her parents didn’t have the money to send her.
One was working at a dance hall where young men paid 10 cents for each dance.
“It was during the Depression,” said nephew Leslie Haas of Valparaiso, Ind.
He said his aunt also worked as a Girl Scout camp counselor.
“She didn’t give up easily, and she had a lot of courage,” Haas said. “She was a role model for the rest of the family.”
Zeiner, who went on to become a botanist and university professor, died at her south Denver home on Nov. 14. She was 94.
A service is planned at 2 p.m. Tuesday at University Park United Methodist Church, 2180 S. University Blvd.
Zeiner and her husband, Frederick, who preceded her in death, loved camping and trout fishing, Haas said.
“They’d rough it, even digging a hole for the toilet,” said another nephew, Leland Haas of Brandon, Fla. “They both loved Colorado.”
And, of course, Helen Zeiner could identify everything growing. She also had a big flower garden, and “her favorite flower was whichever one she came upon,” said a neighbor and friend, Jan Lynch.
Zeiner was so expert at identifying plants that she was once called upon to testify in a trial concerning plant residue that was found on a suspect’s clothing, said niece Alice Harju of Jefferson, Ohio.
Harju said her aunt was a generous person, recalling that Zeiner paid for Harju’s high school graduation dress and shoes.
When Zeiner first moved to Denver, she was a “gray lady” who volunteered with the Red Cross at Fitzsimons Army Hospital, said her lawyer and personal representative, Jack Henderson.
Helen M. Marsh was born Oct. 5, 1912, in Sweet Grass County, Mont., and went to school in Big Timber, Mont., and in Geneva, Ohio, where she moved with her parents.
She graduated from A.B. Flora Stone Mather College, affiliated with Case Western Reserve University, in Cleveland, earning an undergraduate degree in botany. Later she earned a doctorate in botany at Indiana University.
She taught high school in Huntsburg, Ohio, then taught at Indiana University and the University of Denver.
She met Frederick N. Zeiner while in college, and they married Jan. 21, 1941. They moved to Denver, where they got jobs at DU. He taught zoology.
Before and after her retirement, Helen Zeiner was a dedicated volunteer at the Denver Botanic Gardens, led plant-identification trips and was given an honorary curator of herbarium award. She was a member of the editorial board of Green Thumb magazine, to which she was a regular contributor for decades.
Staff writer Virginia Culver can be reached at 303-954-1223 or vculver@denverpost.com.
