Helen Holck

Nevertheless, she persisted. Wife, mother, sister, friend….Helen Holck’s time on earth ended but her sprit remains. After 14 ‘bonus’ years from a successful lung transplant, Helen passed away September 18, 2025, in Kansas City surrounded by her family.

She was born on October 16, 1946, in Des Moines, IA to Ardyth and Vernon Hibbing. They moved back to the farm in northwest Iowa where she was joined by “two great brothers, Paul and John and a best friend, sister, Sharon”. She graduated from Sutherland high school in 1964 and then attended UNI and Drake, graduating from San Fransico State University with a lifetime teaching degree for K-14. During that time, she was married to Richard Schultz and had her four children: Collette, Stephanie, Heather and Chris.

In 1974 she married her soul mate, Neil Holck and in 2024 they celebrated 50 years of marriage. She always worked hard and reinvented herself many times in her work life first as a teacher, then a business owner (nothing like a bar to teach you about people!), a computer coder, and then sales where she found great success and became the first female partner in her real estate venture before retiring in 1998.

She and Neil were known for their free spirit approach to life, and they sold and gave away their house and belongings to live and travel in an RV and sailboat. During this time, they also lived in Seattle as volunteers for Lutheran Volunteer Corp. In the 2000’s they added four grandchildren: Devin, Sam, Sophie, and Rachel who they helped care for and loved. They continued traveling until she was diagnosed with RA and interstitial lung disease which was the reason for her very successful lung transplant in 2011. She was literally given a new lease on life and took full advantage of this gift through traveling, riding horses, and working on all types of art, especially painting. In April of 2023 she was part of a two-woman art exhibit in Marceline at the NOMO Art Center, a gallery where her beautiful and unique paintings were displayed and she was celebrated by friends and family!

Her advice was to spend time with the people you love; the rest of the stuff “means less than you think it does”. “Life and happiness are really so much simpler than I ever thought they were. Enjoy the day you're living in!” She would ask that you treat others with kindness, see and listen to them, and that you strongly consider being a blood and organ donor.

Helen’s life will be celebrated by family and friends on October 18th close to her birthday which she was smart enough to know to celebrate in a big way each year.

Memorials could be directed to The Foundation for Barnes-Jewish Hospital (St. Louis) for the Organ Transplant Innovation Fund or the Transplant Patient Care Fund: https://www.foundationbarnesjewish.org/Give-Organ-Transplant