Helen Chavez, widow of farm labor leader Cesar Chavez, dies at 88
Helen Chavez, widow of civil rights and farm labor leader Cesar Chavez, died June 6 at a hospital in Bakersfield, Calif. She was 88.
The family announced the death in statement released through the United Farm Workers, the union her husband helped found. No cause was given.
Helen Fabela, the daughter of Mexican immigrants, was born in Brawley, Calif., a desert town near the Mexican border, on Jan. 21, 1928. She met Cesar Chavez in the mid-1940s and married him in 1948, after he left the Navy.
In the early 1960s, the couple left their middle-class life in East Los Angeles to organize farm workers in California’s Central Valley. There, Cesar Chavez, along with Dolores Huerta, founded the National Farm Workers Association, which became the UFW. His work would make him a deeply revered figure for Mexican Americans and activists.
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Cesar Chavez died in Arizona in 1993.
Share this articleShareThe couple had eight children, and Helen Chavez had to care for them alone for long stretches while he was traveling, his speaking and organizing skills in great demand. They lived in Delano, Calif., where she often did farm field work while he was gone, sometimes with her children working alongside her.
She also played a quiet but influential role within the union, according to her family.
“Her consistent humility, selflessness, quiet heroism and fiery perseverance were at the heart of the movement she helped build,” the family statement said.
Helen Chavez generally kept a low profile and did not speak often in public or in the news media. But she made public appearances to honor her husband and his cause.
Last year she appeared at her husband’s graveside and accepted a folded American flag as he was bestowed with military honors he had not been given at the time of his death.
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