Helen Chavez, Wife of Labor Activist Cesar E. Chavez, Dies at 88

BAKERSFIELD, CA: The wife of late California civil and labor rights activist Cesar Chavez, Helen Fabela Chavez, who mothered not only her husband's eight children but played a vital role in helping him give birth to what would become the first farm workers union in U.S. history, has died at age 88.

Helen passed away Monday from natural causes at a Bakersfield hospital, surrounded by three generations of family members, according to a statement from the Cesar Chavez Foundation.

Born Helen Fabela on Jan. 21, 1928 in the small Southern California town of Brawley in Imperial County, her family lived in a converted horse barn outside Kern County's McFarland before moving down the road to Delano.

It was there, in the 1940s, where she met Cesar. They wed in 1948 after his discharge from the U.S. Navy. Together, they couple had eight children: Fernando, Sylvia, Linda, Eloise, Anna, Paul, Elizabeth and Anthony, leading a comfortable middle-class life in East Los Angeles until their move back to Delano in 1962 to begin organizing farm workers.

"Enduring greats hardship, Helen often had to raise the children by herself while Cesar was on the road," said Marc Grossman, spokesman for the Cesar Chavez Foundation. "She returned to fieldwork while Cesar organized up and down California’s vast Central Valley; on weekends Cesar and some of the older children joined her."

"Quiet and humble but fiercely determined and strong willed, Helen didn’t speak in public or talk with reporters, but she held deep convictions," Grossman's statement continues. "In September 1965, while members of Cesar’s young Latino union debated whether or not to join a grape strike begun that month by members of a largely Filipino union, Helen in her quiet, no-nonsense way, settled the debate by asking, 'Are we a union or not?'"

Helen stood beside her husband as he led United Farm Workers of America for 31 years.

"Her consistent humility, selflessness, quiet heroism and fiery perseverance were at the heart of the movement she helped build," Grossman said.

Cesar, who died in 1993 at age 66, is remembered each year on Cesar Chavez Day, a federally-recognized holiday held each year on his birthday, March 31.

In 1994, a year after his death, Helen accepted the Medal of Freedom on her husband's behalf from President Bill Clinton, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Memorial arrangements were pending Tuesday for Helen, who is survived by the couple's seven surviving children, 31 grandchildren and 16 great-grandchildren.

(Image via Cesar Chavez Foundation)