Helen Dean Guinn

In Loving Memory of Helen “Dean” Guinn

July 25, 1934 – September 28, 2025

Helen “Dean” Guinn of Rome, Georgia, slipped peacefully into glory on Sunday, September 28, 2025, after ninety-one years of walking this good earth. She first saw the light of day on July 25, 1934, born to Clyde and Georgia Arnold, who gave her strong hands, a tender heart, and a love for the simple beauty of growing things.

Dean’s story is one of deep family roots. She is survived by her devoted sister Ann Welden; her nieces and nephew Nancy Payne (Ricky), Jane Fink and Doug Dukes; her great-niece Amy Raiford (Zack); her great-great nieces and nephews Cody Dobbs, Jake Dobbs (Caitlin), and Makenna Middleton (Austin). The circle of her life widened still more to embrace great-great-great nieces and nephews Blakely Dobbs, Paxton Dobbs, Houston Middleton, and Kaliga Middleton. She is welcomed in eternity by her parents, her sister and brother-in law Josephine A. and Tom D. Holder, brother in law Marlyn Welden and her niece Debra “Debbie” Dukes with whom she now rests in reunion.

Dean had a soul that bloomed with the seasons. She adored her garden, where flowers rose up like praise and soil answered to her touch. She was a proud member of the Three Rivers Garden Club in Rome, and there she found fellowship with others who understood how tending the earth was as much about faith as it was about flowers.

Her life will be honored at a graveside service on Friday, October 3, 2025, 1:00 PM Eastern Time, 12:00 PM Central Time, at City Cemetery in Stevenson, Alabama. Pastor Alfred Little will speak words of comfort, while Ricky Payne, Zack Raiford, Cody Dobbs, Jake Dobbs, and Austin Middleton will carry Dean tenderly to her final rest beneath the Alabama sky.

In lieu of flowers, the family asks that love be sown through donations made to Westminster Presbyterian Church.

Good Shepherd Funeral Home is honored to walk beside the family in this hour of remembrance, holding the story of Dean’s life with the reverence it deserves. And now, we like to think of Dean with her hands once more in the soil, planting gardens in heaven’s fields, where blossoms never fade and every season is spring.

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