Helen Grace Cullen's Obituary
Helen Grace (Mears) Cullen passed away peacefully on December 2, 2025 at 84 years of age after a long and full life. Up until the end Helen maintained her love of family and friends, and expressed gratitude for her long life, full of wonderful and varied experiences. Helen’s life was full because she never met a stranger. All people were welcome in her home and she never wanted anyone to not have a place to go on the holidays. Because of her love for others, there were many people when she passed that felt like they were her children, even if they weren’t so biologically. She had many lifelong friends that were very loyal to her.
Helen spent her childhood years in the Charleston, South Carolina area, which instilled in her a lifelong love of seafood. She lived there with her parents, Henry Lollis Mears Sr and Martha Pauline (Shaw) Mears. She was the oldest daughter and had 3 brother and 2 sisters, Charles Rogers, Robert Rogers, Henry Lollis Mears Jr, Norville (Mears) McQuillan and Abbygail (Mears) Kupfer. Helen met Clay Cullen, a Tulsa police officer in 1971. There married in February of 1972 and were married until his death in February of 2017. Together they raised five children, Deborah Gail Vanderveen, Rebekah Lynn Bayler, Danny Leon Johnson, Edward Earl Johnson and Eric Shane Cullen. in 1976, she had her first grandchild and became one of her favorite names, Gram. When she passed, she had 17 grandchildren and 38 great grandchildren. Helen loved to be silly and was well known for her silly sayings. The most popular and well known was “I love you mieces to pieces” which she lavished on her children and grandchildren. Other ones included “home again, home again, jiggety jog, home again, home again, BIG FAT HOG” any time we pulled in the driveway. Others included “Aaron Slick from punkin crik”, “your face will freeze like that” and ”between the A and the T “ in response to where something was while using the preposition “at” at the end of a sentence or “ain’t ain’t a word because it ain’t in the dictionary. We think she would have trouble resting in peace if she knew that both of these grammar items were subsequently changed in our lifetimes. It was hard to resist the urge to tell her that it is now grammatically correct to use the preposition at at the end of a sentence and ain’t is now in the dictionary! We can all clearly still hear sayings in our minds.
Helen was a gem of a person who appreciated what life gave her. Even in her diminished state near the end of her life, she quickly made friends in her nursing care facility, where she was known as friend to the staff and residents
Helen expressed many times in her last couple of years how grateful she was for the peace God had given her and she was ready to go.
She was preceded in death by her parents, her husband and her three oldest siblings, Charles Robert and Norville.
Still living are her 5 children, her grandchildren and her great grandchildren, as well as their spouses and her brother Henry (Spouse Karen) and Her sister Gail, many nieces and nephews and many friends.
Webcasting is available at the following link for those that cannot attend in person:
Webcasting
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