Anne Helman, at 51; cancer propelled her to help others

"Time has become more precious to me and to my family," Anne Rogal Helman wrote last July in a letter seeking donations for two ovarian cancer funds she had set up through Massachusetts General Hospital.

Valuable as the hours and minutes were, Mrs. Helman spent them generously, becoming a one-woman resource center for those touched by the illness she knew would take her life. She personally met with many patients and their families, and contacted others by e-mail, including Dunyelle Rosen of Boston, who has a friend with ovarian cancer.

"She'd never met me, she just heard about me through a law school friend and took it upon herself to seek me out, and she was truly concerned," said Rosen, who corresponded with Mrs. Helman though the two never spoke in person. ``There was absolutely nothing in it for her -- except to help someone she didn't know."

Mrs. Helman died Friday at her Needham home. She was 51 and had gathered and disseminated information about her illness so others might be diagnosed earlier and perhaps be spared.

"After her diagnosis, she was just sent home from the hospital and wasn't given a lot of information," said her daughter, Alison Borrelli of Norfolk.

Booklets, guides, miscellaneous facts -- all the things Mrs. Helman wished someone had handed her when she was diagnosed three years ago went into what she called her Ovarian Cancer Resource Kits.

``Something she knew nothing about had suddenly taken control of her life," said her son Andrew of Bath, Maine. ``One of the ways to make sense of it was to learn as much as possible."

Mrs. Helman created a website -- www.anne-ovarian.org -- with information and links to other resources. She also started a fund to support research at Mass. General, to cover the cost of sending free kits to those newly diagnosed and to offer financial assistance to uninsured women participating in clinical trials at the hospital.

Born in Philadelphia, she moved as a teenager with her family to the Boston area. She graduated from Newton High School and attended Boston University and Regis College.

Her first marriage ended in divorce and, in an experience that presaged her work with cancer patients, she found herself traveling on a journey without a guidebook. So she wrote one and created the Women's Divorce Forum, a support and education group she ran out of her Needham home. Mrs. Helman scheduled lectures in area churches and brought in lawyers and accountants to guide women through the complexities of ending a marriage.

Later, she met and married Jonathan S. Helman . She worked in his law offices for several years and had also designed jewelry.

``Anne liked to go out on the town," said her sister-in-law Katy Helman of Deer Isle, Maine. ``She liked to dress up, she liked to go to dinner, she liked to go to the theater. She just had a natural elegance about her. She was just very urban, and she loved the city."

After Mrs. Helman was diagnosed with ovarian cancer three years ago, her doctors initially said she would live three to five years.

``Her life changed dramatically," her daughter said. ``She had surgery immediately, then went right into chemotherapy treatments."

Ovarian cancer is sometimes called the disease that whispers because some early symptoms can easily be mistaken as common discomforts that lead to nausea or abdominal pressure. To make information about telltale signs easily accessible, Mrs. Helman had them printed on cards -- some as small as business cards -- and included the kinds of tests to request.

``She realized there was a lack of information in a particular area," said her son Noah of San Francisco. ``Just like a business entrepreneur would do, she would go after that hole of information and fill it up."

``When I think of her, she was a leader," said Matthew Borrelli , who is married to Mrs. Helman's daughter. ``If you asked her, she wouldn't think she was a leader, but she showed so many people the way."

In that Mrs. Helman was a natural.

``She was a very social person -- people were very drawn to her," Noah said. ``She had an amazing social intuition. There was something about her where people wanted to be her friend."

At parties, Mrs. Helman's husband would invariably find her at the end of the evening listening to the life stories of people she just met. Once the couple returned home, ``she could check her e-mail at 1 o'clock in the morning, and she'd already have two or three from new friends," her son said.

The online guest book for Mrs. Helman's newspaper death notice has postings from states across the country and from the Netherlands -- many from people she had contacted about ovarian cancer, and who had received her information kits.

``I'd like to think that with more information, there's a possibility for one person to not have to go through quite as much of a struggle," her son Andrew said.

In addition to her husband, her sons Noah and Andrew, and her daughter, Alison, Mrs. Helman leaves another son, Eli of Tucson ; her mother, Ellyn Rogal of Newton; a brother, Andrew Rogal of Boston; a sister, Carol Rogal of West Roxbury; and a granddaughter.

A funeral service will be held at 10 a.m. today in Levine Chapels in Brookline. Burial in Newton Cemetery.