Obituary of Mabel Helen McKenzie

Mabel Helen McKenzie, 89, of Louisa, Kentucky passed away March 9, 2025, at The Jordan Center following a brief illness.

Mrs. McKenzie was born November 12, 1935, at Walker Stinking Creek, Kentucky the daughter of the late Paul Bingham Sr. and Alice Messer Bingham. At 9 years old, Helen moved to her childhood home at a farm in Jarvis, Rt. 229 in Knox County. Her elementary schooling began in a one room schoolhouse when she was too young to formally attend, and she graduated from Knox County High School in 1952, at the age of 16.

Helen loved school and earned a certificate from business school in Nashville before her secretarial job in Detroit that was interrupted with a two-year hospitalization with TB. As Helen was recuperating at home, she had the opportunity to register as a freshman at Union College in Barbourville, Kentucky. In 1960, she graduated with a teaching certificate and a began her first job as a social worker in Owensboro. She married the love of her life, David McKenzie, that year as well. They lived near Ft. Devens, Massachusetts for three years. She taught 7th grade in Fitchburg one year, substituted on the Army base school, and had her first child, David Bingham McKenzie.

As a retired educator, her teaching career included substitute work in most Louisville Schools (where her daughter, Beth Anne was born), and classroom teaching in LaRue County five years. She also served twenty years in Lawrence County’s home bound program.

Helen used some of her early business school training in 1975, when her family move to Louisa to open The Jordan Center, where she did the payroll and bookkeeping in their first year.

Helen remained a loyal and active Democrat, and a member of the Louisa United Methodist Church.

In addition to her parents, she is also preceded in death by a sister, Judy Bingham Cobb Woolum.

Survivors include her husband of 65 years, David W. McKenzie; a son, David Bingham McKenzie; a daughter, Beth Anne Bailey and husband, Terry J.; grandchildren, Alexander James Bailey, Kaitlin McKenzie Stickler, Lauren Kate Prichard, and Savannah Rhea McKenzie; great-grandchild Reid Thomas Stickler; siblings, Paul (Wanda) Bingham Jr., Greene Bingham, Stella Bea (John) Smith-Bowling, and James (Christi Lynnette) Bingham, a brother-in-law, William “Man” Cobb.

Funeral services will be held at Hilltop Methodist Church on Monday, March 17, 2025, at 2:00 pm with Rev. Weyman McGuire officiating. Private burial will follow on Wednesday at the M. G. Warren Cemetery at Walker, Kentucky.

Visitation for friends will be held at the Hilltop Methodist Church on Monday, March 17, 2025, from 12:00 p.m. until 2:00 p.m. service time.

Care for Helen and her family has been entrusted to our family at Wilson Funeral Home.