Obituary

Helen Mary (Zimmerman) Canzoneri, 97, died on Nov. 18, 2010, at Larksfield Place in Wichita, Kansas.

Born in 1913 to Joseph and Myrtle Zimmerman, she was raised in Sterling and graduated from high school there. She earned her bachelor of arts Phi Beta Kappa from Stanford University and a master of arts in Japanese history from Harvard University. She met her husband, Vincent, while working on her doctorate in Japan. The couple returned to marry in 1936 in Sterling, then lived in Tokyo until September 1941. During World War II, she taught Japanese at the Navy Language School and worked as a censor of Japanese mail in Honolulu, where Vincent served in Navy Intelligence.

She raised three sons in Newton, where she was president of the library board and, at the request of local parents, taught a pre-college enrichment course for high school students. She moved to Wichita in 1971, where her husband was an executive at Ross Industries. In Wichita, she taught weaving, helped to run the Blue Warp weaving shop and served on the acquisitions committee of the Wichita Art Museum.

She is survived by her sons and their wives, Matthew and Sarah of Washington, D.C., Vincent and Tova of Newton, Mass., and Wren and Amy of Toronto, Canada; and her five grandchildren, Emily of Washington, D.C., Matthew and his wife Corinne of Boulder, Colo., Julian of Boston, and Vincent and Alexander of Toronto, Canada.

A memorial service, with music performed by members of her family, will be at 2 p.m. Sunday (Jan. 30, 2011) at Larksfield Place, 7373 E. 29th St. North in Wichita, after a musical prelude that will commence at 1:45 p.m. Donations in lieu of flowers may be sent to the Wichita Art Museum, 1400 W. Museum Blvd., Wichita, KS 67203.