Helen K. Bortnick

Mrs. Bortnick was born 1/2/22 in NYC to Louis and Bessie Koch, Jewish immigrants from the town of Gombin, Poland.  After graduation from high school she worked for a year in a doctor's office.  With the advent of WW2, she enlisted in the WAVES with the first group to do so from NY. After completing training in Stillwater, OK, she reported to the Naval Hydrographic Office in Suitland, MD, working there until the end of the war.

In late 1944 she met her future husband, Morris, at a dance for servicemen and servicewomen at the JCC in Washington, DC.  They both left the service following  VJ day and married in 1946. Initially they resided in Silver Spring and moved to Kensington in the late 1950s where she was a homemaker and volunteered with the Hebrew Home for the Aged in Rockville and with B'nai Brith.  After Morris retired from Giant Food, Inc, the couple moved to Florida, and also maintained a home in MD.  She remained in FL after her husband's death in 1992, spending summers in MD.  She loved traveling, going on Safari in Africa, riding in hot air balloons in Australia, visiting the Amazon, Israel, Europe, Costa Rica, Mexico and numerous other places.  She is survived by four children, Alex (Irene), Ken, Bob (Rose) and Joey, 8 grandchildren: Tammy (David), Becky (Dan), Keith, Yael (Kevin), Katie (Brendan), Rafi (Amy), Amy, Molly and 6 great grandchildren. 

Family asks that you make donations be made to National Alzheimer's Association