Helene Lipton

Helene Blank Slepin Lipton, 87, a prominent Philadelphia community service volunteer, cherished mother, wife, grandmother and friend died early Thursday morning.

Helene lived her entire life in Philadelphia, growing up during the Depression in West Philadelphia, where her father Murray Blank, and her mother, Frances Slepin, owned a hotel. Her father died when she was young and her mom remarried to Max Slepin, a war hero and candidate for Congress, who adopted her and then died in a car crash when she was 15 years old.

She went to Overbook High School, graduating in 1955, and Harcum Jr. College, where she graduated with a degree in child development, in 1957.

She then began a series of trips to Europe with girlfriends, becoming among the first generation of women to travel the world like this, before taking a job as an office assistant to a cardiologist at Jefferson Hospital.

She was married on Oct. 25, 1961, to Herbert Lipton, also a Philadelphia native.

Helene worked with her husband at Kay Automotive, an automotive parts warehouse and distribution company, for many years as an executive coordinator, organizing events and marketing for the regional warehouse distribution company.

She raised a family in Rydal, Pa., before moving to Society Hill across from Washington Square in the late 1980s. Helene, known to her friends as Sissie, became active in cultural and civil organizations, including serving on the board of the Wilma Theater and Friends of Moss Rehabilitation Hospital Board and as a long-time volunteer for the Red Cross Disaster Relief Services and Adopt a Child Program. While on the Wilma Board, she played a central role in the decision to move the independent theater from a small venue to a 300-seat theater on the Avenue of the Arts in Philadelphia.

For many years, she also worked with the Society Hill Civic Association, with a particular focus on helping raise funds to renovate and maintain Washington Square, the historic park where soldiers of the revolutionary war are buried, and she was twice recognized by the White House with a President's Call to Service Award for her volunteer work in Philadelphia.

Helene is survived by her husband, Herbert Lipton, her sister, Linda Slepin Breece of North Carolina, two children, Eric Lipton of Washington DC, and Heidi Lipton of New York, as well as seven grandchildren, Ally Engelberg, Isabelle Engelberg, Olivia Katz, Teddy Katz, Leila Lipton, Zara Lipton and Aria Lipton. Helene’s second daughter, Michelle Lipton, died at age 50 in 2013, after an 8.5-year fight with brain cancer.

Relatives and friends are invited to Graveside Services, Friday, 1:30 PM precisely at Haym Salomon Mem. Park, (Sec. AB), Malvern, PA 19355, and then a reception after the grave-side service at our family home in Philadelphia at 4 p.m. 

Contributions in her memory may be made to Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center at Jefferson Hospital.