Helen Rae Andrews
November 7, 1948 to July 28, 2025
Born in Karoomda, Australia on November 7, 1948 completed nursing school in the early ’60s and proceeded to work at various clinics and hospitals throughout Australia.
On two occasions she took nursing positions in Saudi Arabia. The first occasion she worked with a heart surgeon in Khamis Mushait in South Saudi Arabia. On the second occasion she served at the Saudi royal hospital (King Faisal) in Riyadh Saudi Arabia as the supervisor of the neonatal intensive care unit in the early nineties.
While there, she met her future husband Nick Andrews at an American embassy party. After a brief courtship that included trips to Switzerland, Portugal, Mallorca and Spain (Nick’s home base and owner of a mountain side restaurant/bar), they took an around the world plane trip that included Bahrain, Amsterdam, San Francisco, Fisherman’s wharf, Hawaii (Maui) attended a friend’s wedding and took an around the island boat tour. From there they traveled to Tokyo, Bangkok, Dubai and back to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
In January 1998, Helen and Nick got married in the Christian church of Bahrain.
After a few more years working in Saudi Arabia they left for Spain before returning to the U.S.
They first went to San Diego California to visit Nick’s relatives and purchase a 43’ sailboat. They sailed their boat along the California coast and Catalina islands and the Mexican coast. They then relocated to Texas and moored their sailboat in Galveston, Texas.
Helen and Nick then sailed across the Gulf of Mexico/America to Florida’s Key West, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach and other Florida locations. Helen got her permanent residence card and worked in Florida before sailing back to Texas. Over the next 17 years the couple lived aboard their sailboat and Helen’s power boat.
She was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in the mid 2000s. She eventually needed a DBS (Deep Brain Stimulation) along with other medication. She and husband Nick moved to the Pacific Northwest, Point Roberts in Washington state in 2022 where they resided in their RV next to Nick’s daughter April and son-in-law James.
Helen passed peaceably in the Hospice House in Bellingham, Washington on the afternoon of July 28, 2025.
