Life story: Lund thrived on business, family, community

Happy, friendly and forever busy, Helen Lund managed to run a business, put family first and keep smiling all her life.

She was the embodiment of the old saying that if you want something done, ask the busiest person.

“Helen never knew a stranger. She was friendly and open and fun to be with,” said Betty Robinett, a longtime friend of the Everett woman. “When they opened their business, her personality helped it go.”

For years, Lund was co-owner of Glass by Lund in Lake Stevens, along with her husband, Bob Lund. She was also well known in Lake Stevens, where her husband grew up, as the “voice of Aquafest,” the city’s annual festival.

“Everything was Aquafest. She was a big organizer,” said Rene Lund Vandervoet, the eldest of Lund’s three children. “She was on committees, in the information booth, out there at 6 in the morning and home at midnight. My mother absolutely loved people, and always wanted to help.”

Vandervoet said her parents were also very active in the Lake Stevens Historical Society.

Helen R. Lund died Nov. 20 at age 81. She is survived by her children, Rene Lund Vandervoet of Lake Stevens; Todd Lund and his wife, Marcy, of Everett; and Robin Rigdon and her husband, Bob, of Bothell; her grandchildren, Amber, Brett, Ally, Blaine and Molly; and her brother, Harley Robb of Arlington. Her husband, Bob Lund, died in 1992.

Small business was a way of life for Lund, who was raised in Arlington and graduated from Arlington High School in 1945. Her parents, Pearlie and Margaret Robb, operated Robb’s Tire Service in Arlington.

Helen met her future husband at a Navy base dance. The couple were married in 1948.

Todd Lund now runs the glass business his parents started in 1967 with the help of his wife, Marcy. He remembers how his mother managed to blend work and family in a time when working moms weren’t the norm.

“I was 11 years old when they started the business,” he said. “She’d do the accounting, the books, and every Saturday she’d come and answer the phones with my dad.” At the same time, his mother was a homemaker first. “She was always there for us, and for the grandkids,” Todd Lund said.

Helen and Bob Lund raised their family in north Everett, but had many friends in Lake Stevens from Bob Lund’s school days there.

Wherever she went, Helen Lund was known by her signature car, a Lincoln Continental with the personalized license plate “COZY.”

“They always drove Lincolns,” said Todd Lund. The luxury habit started with a used 1966 Lincoln. “From then on, Lincolns were all they ever bought,” he said.

Gardening was another passion. Helen was a constant helper when her older daughter opened her own business, Renee’s Bouquets, at Frontier Village near her parents’ glass shop.

Vandervoet said her mother was not only a great gardener, but a baker, candy-maker and wonderful homemaker. “She made homemade bread, cinnamon rolls, all that kind of thing,” she said.

Helen Lund’s younger daughter, Robin Rigdon, recalled her mom as a supportive sports fan. After Todd and Robin went to Washington State University in Pullman, their mother became an avid Cougar booster. “She watched all the games and listened on the radio,” said Rigdon, who also had her mother’s support and sponsorship as she played on recreational softball teams.

Both Renee and Robin counted vacations with their mother among the highlights of their lives. A trip to Las Vegas to celebrate Rigdon’s 40th birthday had the added excitement of an earthquake.

Staying at the Sahara Hotel on the Vegas strip, they were in bed after midnight when the lights started swinging, Rigdon said. From their room about 20 stories up, they could see guests scattering outside. They decided against trying to make it downstairs with their mother and a friend who was also in her 70s. “She wasn’t frightened,” Rigdon said.

Rigdon has wonderful memories of summers at a Camano Island beach cabin Helen Lund’s parents built in the 1920s. “I would always have a ladies’ party with my friends from work at the cabin. She just became one of our friends’ friends,” Rigdon said.

“Everybody loved her,” said Lund’s granddaughter Amber Vandervoet, 27. “She was always really warm and inviting to my friends. She was their grandmother, too.” Amber’s best memories are of holidays at her grandparents’ house, savoring Swedish meatballs after Christmas Eve church services.

In the last years of her life, Helen Lund had vision problems. Amber Vandervoet, who lived near her grandmother in Everett, helped her with grocery shopping. “She’d give me a list, but then call the next day with some completely off-the-wall item,” Amber said. “I think she wanted the company.”

Growing up, Renee Vandervoet remembers school friends telling her how lucky she was to have the mother she had. “We were very fortunate kids,” she said.

“It was all happy times,” Robinett said. “She was just tireless.”

Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460 or muhlstein@heraldnet.com.