After over 102 years of life on Earth, Helen Grace Barnett Modugno went back to be with her savior, Jesus Christ, on Aug. 2, 2025.

Helen was born into this world on Oct. 20, 1922, near Paris, Texas, the youngest daughter in a poor sharecropper family of seven. Helen’s family moved frequently around East Texas, following work and still just barely making ends meet.

Her family worked together to survive the Great Depression. Helen got married and had a baby right after high school, but soon found herself a single mother, so she chose to move from Texas to California to be with two of her sisters.

During World War II, Helen shared a small house with one of her sisters in Burbank, where they both joined in the war effort by working at the Lockheed aircraft factory.

After the war, she got a job as a cashier at a market in Sun Valley, California, where she met Ralph, the man she would spend the rest of her life with. They were married while working together in the market.

Through the years, Ralph worked in the grocery business, and Helen took care of the growing family, eventually having six children. 

Shortly after marrying into Ralph’s Italian family, Helen willingly converted to Catholicism and was a devout Catholic for all of her life.

In 1962, they moved from the crowded San Fernando Valley to a brand new neighborhood right by the beach in Goleta called Santa Barbara Shores.

Helen spent the rest of her life in Goleta, working in the family businesses, at Glenda’s Bridal Cove, and at home raising her children.

Later in life, Helen enjoyed spending time with her grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and she left a loving impression on all of them.

 Helen never forgot the poverty of her youth, and always wanted to give back to those less fortunate than her.

She was very active in St. Raphael’s Church, and volunteered in a number of capacities. She served as a Sunday school teacher, the Women’s Auxiliary board president, and as an extraordinary minister, bringing Holy Communion to the sick and elderly confined to their homes.

Helen was always a women’s rights advocate, and she fought hard to give women a bigger role in the Catholic Church and in all aspects of life. 

At her 100th birthday, she was honored by the mayor of Goleta with a proclamation. Helen enjoyed her final days in the comfort of her home in Goleta and she never seemed to believe she would live so long.

She never had any secret formula for long life, but she did thank her husband Ralph for convincing her to quit smoking at a young age. 

Helen was predeceased in death by Ralph, all her siblings, and her oldest son, Jerry.

She is survived by five of her six children, David, Jonathan, Susan, Janet and Thomas; plus 11 grand kids and eight great-grand kids. 

A memorial Mass will be on Friday, Sept. 19, 2025, at 11 a.m. at the Santa Barbara Mission.