In celebrating her 102nd birthday this year, Helen Mulrennan Young is being lauded for her big heart, kind spirit and deep roots in the pioneering lore of eastern Hillsborough County.
The middle school at the corner of Durant and South Mulrennan/Pearson roads bears the name of the Mulrennan family, and it was Young’s brother Bud, at age 93, who sat on the stage for the dedication ceremony months after the school opened in 2004. The school sits on a slice of the 160-acre spread once owned by the pioneering Mulrennan family, which included citrus groves and the family’s home.
Mulrennan, a renowned citrus farmer, was a charter member of the 65-year-old Kiwanis Club of Greater Brandon, which originally met at an eatery called Harris’ Restaurant, where Culver’s today is in business, at the northwest corner of Brandon Boulevard and Kingsway Road. At the time, women were not allowed to be club members, but Young was involved nevertheless, as the waitress who would take and deliver menu orders at club meetings.
Years later, Young would join the club herself, becoming one of the club’s most-active and most-beloved Kiwanians. She turned 102 on Feb. 27.
“Helen is one in a million,” said past club president Julie Knurek. “Her pioneer roots, that history is important to this club.”
Young is known also for an impressive, decades-long crochet ministry, which involved knitting newlywed and newborn blankets for family, friends and members of her beloved Cornerstone Baptist Church in Brandon, as well as blankets and caps for the homeless and cancer warriors. For years she crocheted blankets for auctions at the club’s annual golf tournaments.
“That really touched me,” Young said in a past interview, “that my little hands could make something that could bring thousands of dollars to the club.”
“Helen is a true mentor into how to live a good life and give back,” said club president-elect Lynn Langowski. “Helen is all about good living, faith in God, faith in family, and true love. She epitomizes all of that.”
Indeed, “what can you say about mom, as she’s lovingly referred to here in the club,” said long-time Kiwanian Dustie Amatangelo. “There isn’t a kinder person on earth.
The club that was chartered May 11, 1960 is the club Young joined 40 years later, when her son, Jim Powell, was club president.
In prefacing his remarks about life lessons learned at the hand of his “kind, generous, loving, amazing mother,” Powell noted that she grew up during the decade-long Great Depression, having turned age 10 in the year considered the worst of the nation’s longest and deepest economic downturn. As for a lesson learned, “just be kind to other people, Powell said, “and treat others like you want to be treated.”
As the days approached for her 100th birthday celebration in 2023, at Cornerstone Baptist in Brandon, Young herself addressed what she’s learned from her life on earth.
“For one thing, everything is not just about you,” said Young, a woman of deep faith, who survived a burst appendix at age 9 and a cancer diagnosis while taking care of her blind husband battling Parkinson’s disease. “It’s about other people too. Think about other people and be thankful and grateful for what you have and keep a positive attitude no matter how dark things might get at times. It’s not going to be that way forever.”
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