Just days after Helen Coulson died, a 28-year-old man she had helped when he was a child called her for advice, said Coulson’s husband, Russ Coulson.
The man was one of scores of adults who kept in touch with Coulson — who had worked with neglected and abused children for 22 years.
She died Jan. 8 in a care facility after a short illness. She was 88.
A service is planned for today at 11 a.m. at University Park United Methodist Church, 2180 S. University Blvd.
Coulson absolutely believed every child could be saved from the streets or bad parenting or a mixed-up family life, said a former colleague, Peggy Rudden, executive director of Court Appointed Special Advocates.
Coulson “positively changed the lives of so many children forever,” Rudden said.
Coulson tried to reunite families when possible and keep siblings together or at least in touch with each other.
“She was an amazing woman,” said Rudden, of Englewood.
Doris Truhlar, a lawyer and former guardian ad litem for the courts, often picked Coulson to work with kids who needed help.
Coulson was one of dozens of court-appointed special advocates working the Arapahoe Advocates for Children. They are appointed by judges.
She visited the children in foster homes, detention centers and court.
She sometimes was the one constant in a child’s life, according to a 1997 Denver Post story.
Coulson told the reporter that one boy she was working with worried that Coulson might not show up for an appointment. “If you die, I will be awfully mad,” the child told Coulson.
Colleagues have many stories about Coulson, including her effort to make sure five small children in one family, who had been put in various foster homes, were together for holidays and birthdays.
Theresa Spahn, a lawyer, credits Coulson with her successful life. “I had a lot of struggles and was always in trouble” as a middle schooler, she said, but Coulson’s “positive, nonjudgmental” guidance turned her around.
Helen Torbert was born in Galveston, Texas, on Feb. 11, 1922, and grew up in Maplewood, N.J. She earned a degree in art and chemistry at Wellesley College and, after rearing her children, went to the University of Alabama, where she earned a master’s in guidance counseling.
She married Russ Coulson on July 15, 1944.
Before becoming a volunteer advocate, Coulson was a guidance counselor for almost 20 years at Scott Carpenter Middle School in the north metro area.
In addition to her husband, she is survived by three daughters, Helen Coulson Howe of Richmond, Va., Peg Bobbitt of Houston and Connie Karcher of Boise, Idaho; a son, Ted Coulson of Seattle; 10 grandchildren; and 11 great-grandchildren. Her daughter Dr. Elizabeth Coulson died in 1998.
Virginia Culver: 303-954-1223 or vculver@denverpost.com
