Never Stop Writing, Helen’s Story at The Sequoias Portola Valley

A Childhood Filled With Stories

Helen Bigelow has spent a lifetime paying attention to stories.

As a child growing up in Berkeley during the Great Depression, she sat in the rumble seat of her family’s 1935 Ford convertible while traveling back and forth across the country with her sister. Together, they imagined stories about the people living in the homes, farms, and towns they passed along the way.

“I wrote a novel while I was in junior high school,” Helen says. “But I don’t think I ever let anybody read it.”

The instinct to observe, reflect, and create never left her.

Over the decades, Helen raised three daughters, lived in several states across the country, made pottery professionally for 20 years, and co-owned Country Sun Natural Foods in Palo Alto with five partners for more than five decades. Through it all, writing remained a constant thread in her life.

Personal essays and narratives slowly found their way into newspapers and magazines. Later came books, including David Park, Painter: Nothing Held Back, a memoir about her father, the influential Bay Area figurative painter David Park, followed by Given Time, a deeply personal end-of-life memoir and love story about her husband, Ed Bigelow.

Then, in her eighties, another meaningful chapter began.

At age 83, Helen moved to The Sequoias Portola Valley (SPV), a Life Plan Community where she quickly immersed herself in community life, serving on resident committees and the Board of the Residents Association.

What she did not expect was how much inspiration still waited ahead of her.

Among the familiar faces at The Sequoias was her longtime friend, Sue Crane.

The two women first met nearly 60 years earlier at a pottery workshop while raising children and building careers. Life pulled them in different directions over time, but their friendship endured through decades of change, loss, and new beginnings.

Then fate quietly reunited them again.

Within months of one another, both women, now widows, moved into the same community.

At The Sequoias, their friendship deepened in new ways. They shared conversations over meals, stories from their pasts, and reflections on growing older.

Helen became fascinated listening to Sue talk about Ridge Vineyards, the now world-renowned winery that Sue’s family helped found in 1959.

“Sue would provide these glorious wines, and people are so appreciative,” Helen once reflected. “I became more and more curious.”

That curiosity sparked another creative project.

Together, the two friends collaborated on Behind the Barrels: The Women of Ridge, a historical book preserving the untold stories of the women behind Ridge Vineyards. Told through Sue’s memories and written by Helen, the book explores the families, land, and relationships that shaped one of California’s most celebrated wineries.

The project became more than a book. It became an extension of friendship, storytelling, and purpose later in life.

All proceeds supported the resident-led scholarship fund for children and grandchildren of staff, and the employee holiday gift fund for The Sequoias Portola Valley employees.

All proceeds go to two causes – the community’s employee holiday gift fund and the scholarship fund for children and grandchildren of team members at the Portola Valley senior living community.

Helen continued writing into her nineties, later publishing Pat’s Cat, a children’s book set within the community itself at age 92. Even now, at 93, she is completing work on a memoir reflecting the many stories and experiences that shaped her long life.

In a guest article written for the community, Helen once described The Sequoias as a “University of Courage.”

“Every day, I see courage,” she wrote. “The aging process just naturally gives us the opportunity to develop the fine skill and gift of courage.”

Her life reflects that idea fully.

Courage to begin again after loss. Courage to stay curious. Courage to remain creative. Courage to continue evolving.

For Helen, writing has never been about arriving at a final chapter.

It has been about continuing to discover meaning in every season of life, one story at a time.

At The Sequoias, residents continue pursuing creativity, connection, lifelong learning, and meaningful friendships at every stage of life.

Discover a community where you can continue to Never Stop Growing.