Helen Guel (Spears) Gilliam

Helen Guel Gilliam, 95, of Marion, OH, passed away in Plano, Texas on January 13, 2025, after a prolonged battle with heart disease.

On August 22, 1929, her late parents, Rell Spears and Ada B. Layne, welcomed her into the world in Pikeville, KY. She would meet the love of her life, Richard Cecil Gilliam, while working at a retail store in Pikeville, KY when Cecil can home after serving in the Air Force. They got married in Blairtown, KY on December 31, 1949, and moved to Marion in 1950.

Their son Bruce was born in 1952, after which Helen was diagnosed with tuberculosis and was quarantined in a Columbus hospital for 18 months, Cecil visited her everyday. Their daughter Patricia was born in 1957. Cecil would leave her side on October 22, 2002, at the age of seventy-three.

Helen was a woman of faith and attended the 1st Free Will Baptist Church where she was the first person to accept Christ as her savior at the new church. She led the church choir for more than 30 years and was a member of the ladies’ auxiliary for many years. Her favorite hymn is “It is well with my soul.”

She and Cecil always sat in the second pew on the left, and Helen continued that custom until moving to Texas in March 2022 to be with her daughter. Faith and her family were the most important things to her.

Helen is preceded in death by her son, Bruce A. Gilliam, three brothers, Raymond Spears, Broadus Spears and Buster Spears, and her sisters, Betty Lou Saulsbury, Nettie King, and Evalena Bingham.

She is survived by her daughter, Patricia Byers (Dean) of The Colony, TX, and her brother Thomas Spears (Thelma) of Betsy Lane, KY and also daughter-in-law Joyce Gilliam and two step-grandchildren, Lisa Howe and Rick Howe, all of Marion, OH.

There will be calling hours at Boyd Funeral Home on Tuesday, January 28, 2025 from 5-7pm with the funeral services taking place Wednesday, January 29, 2025  at the 1st Free Will Baptist Church at 1pm. The committal service will be occurring immediately after the funeral at the Green Camp Cemetery.

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