Mrs. Mabel Helen McKenzie, 89, of Louisa, passed away March 9, 2025, at The Jordan Center following a brief illness.
Mrs. McKenzie was born November 12, 1935, at Walker in Stinking Creek, the daughter of the late Paul Bingham Sr. and Alice Messer Bingham. At 9 years old, Helen moved to her childhood home at a farm in Jarvis, Rt. 229 in Knox County. Her elementary schooling began in a one room schoolhouse when she was too young to formally attend, and she graduated from Knox County High School in 1952, at the age of 16.
Helen loved school and earned a certificate from business school in Nashville before her secretarial job in Detroit that was interrupted with a two-year hospitalization with TB. As Helen was recuperating at home, she had the opportunity to register as a freshman at Union College in Barbourville. In 1960, she graduated with a teaching certificate and began her first job as a social worker in Owensboro. She married the love of her life, David McKenzie, that year as well. They lived near Ft. Devens, Massachusetts for three years. She taught 7th grade in Fitchburg one year, substituted on the Army base school and had her first child, David Bingham McKenzie.
As a retired educator, her teaching career included substitute work in most Louisville Schools (where her daughter, Beth Anne was born), and classroom teaching in LaRue County five years. She also served twenty years in Lawrence County’s home bound program.
Helen used some of her early business school training in 1975, when her family moved to Louisa to open The Jordan Center, where she did the payroll and bookkeeping in their first year.
Helen remained a loyal and active Democrat and a member of the Louisa United Methodist Church.
In addition to her parents, she is also preceded in death by a sister, Judy Bingham Cobb.
Survivors include her husband of 65 years, David W. McKenzie; a son, David Bingham McKenzie; a daughter, Beth Anne Bailey and husband, Terry J.; grandchildren, Alexander James Bailey, Kaitlin McKenzie Stickler, Lauren Kate Prichard and Savannah Rhea McKenzie; great-grandchild Reid Thomas Stickler; siblings, Paul (Wanda) Bingham Jr., Greene Bingham, Stella Bea (John) Smith-Bowling and James (Christi Lynnette) Bingham and a brother-in-law, William “Man” Cobb.
Funeral services will be held at Hilltop Methodist Church in Louisa Monday, March 17 at 2 P.M. with Rev. Weyman McGuire officiating. A gathering of family and friends will follow at the Mont G. Warren Cemetery at Walker Wednesday, March 19 at 2 P.M.
Friends may visit at the Hilltop Methodist Church Monday, March 17 after 12 Noon until the service time.
Care for Helen and her family has been entrusted to our family at Wilson Funeral Home.
Local arrangements are under the direction of the Knox Funeral Home.
