Diann and Roc Ahrens attended a funeral for her mother, Helen Larson Burrows in Seaside, Ore. on March 3.

Burrows, 95, died Feb. 26 following a stroke and long illness. Burrows’ niece, Eileen Johnson, and her husband Arnie, also represented the family.

Burrows was born Aug. 16, 1915 in Polk County, Wis. to Swedish parents. She was raised on a dairy farm and learned to drive a Model T when she was 11 years old, family members said. Trained as a schoolteacher, she taught grades one through nine in a one-room schoolhouse in Wisconsin.

She also worked as a maid and cook for a Minnesota family and became a dispatcher for a trucking company before marrying Russell Lapham there in 1938. He came to Haines in 1941 and she followed in 1943.

Helen Burrows was a Cub Scout den mother and a member of the Presbyterian Church who attended regional presbytery meetings. She owned several restaurants, Haines Café, the Big Dipper and Lapham’s Roundhouse, a bar on Main Street.

"Back in the day she cooked at the Bamboo Room too, and babysat everybody’s kids," daughter Doris Bell said. Burrows left Alaska in the 1960s and settled in Canon Beach, Ore. where she lived for many years. "She liked to sew clothes for her children and grandchildren," Bell said.

"I’ll remember her as a very kind person," Marge Mathews said. "She sang in the Presbyterian Church choir and she was a friend."

Bell said her mother often repeated the phrase that she and her siblings still sign off with: "Love you and like you."

"She said that you will meet people who you may like but not love, and you’ll meet people you love, but then not like some of the things they do. When you can love and like someone, you give them a priceless gift," Bell said.

Burrows was preceded in death by husband Roland Burrows, brother Wilmar Larson and stepchildren David Hoppe and Stanley Burrows and grandson Matthew Wayne Bell. She is survived by children Doris Bell, Diann Ahrens and Pete Lapham of Haines and Roger Lapham of Anchorage; stepchildren Anita Taylor and Douglas Burrows; 16 grandchildren and 27 great-grandchildren.