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By SHARON KILPATRICK
Rappahannock News Staff Writer
Pat and Dick Helmer have recently returned
from Europe, where they vjsited^Xvith several of their grown children. These were six of the nine former exchang^jjtudents who have lived with the Helmers during the past 10 years.
When the Helmers moved to Rappahannock from upstate New York in 1970, they brought with them two horses, two ponies, 13 cats, two rabbits, two dogs and three young daughters.
Mr. Helmer was an industrial arts teacher. He had started his career on Long Island but moved to the Schenectady area when the schools on Long Island were cutting back on their industrial arts programs. After three years there, they decided to move where the weather was warmer and their girls would be safer.
They had honeymooned in Virginia and liked the state, so they wrote inquiring about teaching jobs in Virginia. They took their Easter vacation and came down for interviews. “We left snow and drove into 90 degree weather, and we had only winter clothes,” Mrs. Helmer said.
Of the places they went for interviews, they decided they liked Rappahannock best, and they next started looking for a house.
Real estate agent William Lyne found them some land in the Castleton area with a house that was full of trash. “We had to climb over a pile of trash to get in the back door,” Mrs. Helmer said. “The front door was completely blocked.” Mr. Lyne offered to remove the trash, and he cut the lawn while they were looking at the house. “I’ve never seen anyone work so hard for a sale,” she added.
With school out in New York,'they moved to Rappahannock and worked to make the house habitable. Their neighbors kept them in fresh vegetables during the summer, and with the coming of fall, their oldest daughter Wendy started first grade, and Mr. Helmer started teaching.
Mrs. Helmer was finding life in the country with two small girls at home lonely. “After crying for six months, I decided I had to do something,” she said. Wendy had joined a Brownie Girl Scout troop, and Mrs. Helmer started helping out.
The next year she had her own troop,
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