In Memory of

Helen

Liston

Harvey

Obituary for Helen Liston Harvey

Helen Marie Liston Harvey died peacefully in Brooklyn, on October 14, 2018.
Helen was married to the late John F. Harvey. She was the daughter of the late Michael Liston and Margaret Kelly, and was pre-deceased by her younger siblings, Mary, Thomas (“Buddy”), and Frank. She is survived by her sisters-in-law Eldona Liston, Sally Takacs, and Helen Convery and her husband James, as well as by her children, daughter Mary and son-in-law Joseph McCarthy, her son John, and son Patrick and his wife, Margaret Hershman.
She is also survived by her grandchildren, Owen, Neil, Terence, and John McCarthy, and Sarah and John Patrick Harvey, and her step-grandchildren Helen and James Hershman. She was cared for during her last years by her home health aide, Tellinta.
Born in Manhattan, in January 1922, Helen moved when she was five with her family, including her grandfather Thomas H.F. Kelly and grandaunt Catherine Smith, to newly-developed Marine Park, Brooklyn. In 1935, she was a member of the first graduating class of Good Shepherd Grammar School. She graduated from St. Brendan High School in 1939, and, in 1943, from St. Joseph’s College with a Bachelor of Arts.
As a member of the American Red Cross in 1944-1945, Helen’s planned Pacific Theater posting was cut short—en route to California—by war’s end. After the war, she worked as a junior clerk for the Alcoa Corporation and the Turkish National Shipping Line.
Helen obtained a graduate degree in 1950 from Fordham University’s School of Social Work, and thereafter pursued doctoral studies at Fordham.
In 1951, she began working for the New York City Department of Welfare, where she met her late husband John. They were married in 1954, and after raising their family in St. Thomas Aquinas Parish (Flatlands), she returned to work at Brooklyn College as Senior Administrative Assistant to the Dean of Instructional Personnel, where she was long a key figure in the process of hiring professors and awarding tenure. She retired in 1988.

During her active retirement, and even earlier, Helen participated in many groups and associations, particularly those involved with social justice, world peace, and the role of women in the Catholic Church. She volunteered at Providence House, assisting women to re-enter society after incarceration; and at the Dwelling Place, whose mission was the care of homeless women. Near home, Helen was longtime Eucharistic Minister at St. Thomas Aquinas Parish.
Since the early 1960’s, Helen had been a member of the Grail, a world-wide lay Catholic women’s group dedicated to ecumenism. She deepened her participation in the Church when in December 2000, she made a formal commitment as an Associate of the Sisters of Mercy.
Besides these groups and ministries, Helen was also an active member of Brooklyn College’s Faculty Circle and of its Newman Center. She was enthusiastically involved in many other Catholic social action and women’s groups, including Pax Christi, Another Voice, and Mercy Feminists. She toured Israel and the Holy Land to better understand the lives of women in the Bible.
She was a close and avid reader of modern literature, including the works of (and about) her favorite authors, Willa Cather and Edith Wharton, obtaining additional insights by visiting their homes and places associated with their works, including in New England, Europe, and the American Midwest. In later life she was able to share her literary enthusiasm with the good and loyal friends of her book club who met together for over 20 years.