Helen Chastain Jernigan, 98, of Oak Ridge passed away January 18, 2024, at Canterfield Senior Living in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Helen died of natural causes.

Helen was born July 31, 1925 in Pleasant Hill, Cumberland County, Tenn., the only child of the late Will and Nota Hamby Chastain. She graduated from Pleasant Hill Academy and Tennessee Wesleyan College, with studies in music and English. In 1944, she took a summer job in Happy Valley, the satellite construction community of 13,000 for the building of the K-25 facility west of Oak Ridge. After college, she returned to Oak Ridge and was employed by Union Carbide Corp. as an editor of The Carbide Courier, K-25’s company newspaper. Many of her wartime experiences are documented in an oral history interview on the AtomicHeritage YouTube website. After the end of World War II, she worked as office manager for the local office of Bush Building Company and later managed the office of Oak Ridge physicians Cordell Williams and Harry Helm.

In 1965, Helen and her first husband, the late Edward Fairstein, founded Tennelec, Inc., in Oak Ridge, a precision scientific instrument company. The instruments are used worldwide and in outer space. She served as corporate secretary of that company for 12 years, also serving as public affairs officer and editor of The Scanner, a company newsletter. During this period, she worked part-time for The Oak Ridger, reporting local government activities, and founding and writing the action-line column “Ask Incky” with her friend, the late Mary Smyser.

Following the sale of Tennelec to The Nucleus in the late ‘70s, she began work at Oak Ridge National Laboratory as an editor in the Energy Division, assigned to the Solar and Special Studies group. Working with the late Cresson Kearny, she edited his book entitled Nuclear War Survival Skills.

With friend and partner, the late Dorothy DeBerry Gibson Levin, she established The Pine Tree, a women’s clothing shop on New York Ave. in Oak Ridge, which the pair operated for 13 years.

Helen was elected in 1984 to the office of Anderson County Circuit Court Clerk, serving Circuit, Criminal, General Sessions, and Juvenile courts. She was re-elected to two more four-year terms, retiring in 1994. During her tenure in that office, she was appointed to the board of directors of the Tennessee State Court Clerk’s Association and compiled and edited a History and Directory for that organization.

Helen has always been involved in a variety of community activities. She served as president of the Oak Ridge Nursery School and as president of the Oak Ridge Chamber of Commerce -- not at the same time. She was a member of the founding boards of directors of Clinch River Home Health, Oak Ridge Big Brothers Big Sisters, and the Anderson County Literacy Council. She was also a member of the boards of directors of Community Services for Exceptional Citizens, League of Women Voters of Oak Ridge, Anderson County Democratic Women’s Club, Highland View Neighborhood Association, and secretary of the Pleasant Hill Academy Alumni Association. While serving with the League of Women Voters, she chaired a committee which published a handbook entitled A Citizen’s Guide to Anderson County.

Helen was a member of the Oak Ridge Unitarian Universalist Church. Over the years, she served the church as pianist and choir accompanist, chairperson of public affairs and personnel committees, board member, and congregation vice president.

Her political activities included membership in the Anderson County Democratic Party, chairing its Rules Committee, serving as precinct chair for Highland View, and for several years co-chairing, with her friend Tom Burns, the party’s Platform Committee. She worked in many campaigns, partisan and non-partisan, local and national. In addition to her political interests, shared by her husband, Helen enjoyed writing, reading, dancing, entertaining, and music. She liked chamber music, Bach, jazz, blues, country, and bluegrass. A lifelong vegetarian, she was a member of the Vegetarian Society of East Tennessee.

Helen was predeceased by her husband of 40 years, Harold W. Jernigan in 2012. She is survived by children, John Fairstein of Hardin Valley and Joel Fairstein, and his wife Qiuping Wang of Oak Ridge; Mary Jernigan Wool and her husband, Dennis, of El Dorado Hills, California; Hal Jernigan, Jr. and his wife Pam, of Oak Ridge; four grandchildren, Michael Li of Oak Ridge; Angela Wool Gillen and husband Greg, of Oakland, California; Joshua Wool and wife Monique, of Reno, Nevada; Kate Jernigan Ballantyne, and her husband David and great granddaughter Charlotte, of Great Britain. She is survived by several cousins with whom she kept in close contact, and with close friends the Juni family of Michigan and the Knezevic-Hecimovic family of Croatia. The family thanks her longtime friends and caretakers Joe Lee, Judy Dodd and Brenda Joyner Womack for their friendship and devotion.

A memorial service will be held at the Oak Ridge Unitarian Universalist Church, 809 Oak Ridge Turnpike, Oak Ridge, Tennessee on February 17 at 2:00 PM. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that memorial contributions be made to Statewide Organizing for Community eMpowerment (SOCM), P. O. Box 12667, Knoxville, TN 37912-0667, (865) 249-7488, https://www.socm.org/ or to the Southern Poverty Law Center, 400 Washington Ave., Montgomery, AL 36104, (334) 956-8408, https://www.splcenter.org/