Helen Cornelius: Positive thinking helped heal cancer

Award-winning country singer - and Ralls County native - Helen Cornelius shared her testimony about how a positive attitude helped her make a quick recovery from breast cancer, as she spoke to the large crowd at the Hannibal Country Club Monday night. Cornelius was honorary chairperson of the Pink Ribbon Golf Tournament benefit for the American Cancer Society, which took place earlier in the day. Dr. Patricia Hirner was the featured speaker.
Before introducing Cornelius, Sarah Deien shared a brief outline of her career, including writing songs for the Oak Ridge Boys and others before signing her first recording contract in 1975. She won duo of the year and album of the year for “I Don’t Want to Have to Marry You,” her duet with Jim Ed Brown.
In 2005, Cornelius was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.
Cornelius began by explaining that although she is a cancer survivor, she is still working “all the time.” She was diagnosed with breast cancer more than two years ago. After having only two weeks of treatment, - include surgery and radiation - she was “back on the road five weeks later.”
She attributed her rapid recovery in part to “friends who prayed for me.”
After learning she had cancer, she said, “I cried for the first week,” but she decided to overcome it, with the attitude that, “I have cancer, it doesn’t have me.”
Combining her medical treatment with proper diet and a positive attitude is what healed her, she explained. Her “health food guru” advised her about supplements and what foods helped heal and prevent a return of her cancer. She is now cancer free, Cornelius said.
Green tea, and “eating the rainbow” is her advice to anyone fighting illness. “Cancer loves sweets,” she added, and it’s important to “have a strong faith.”
After she was is remission, she said, her radiologist said, “I can’t tell you how important what you have between the ears is,” meaning her positive outlook.
She told the crowd she chose to sing the song, “The Rose,” because “there’s so many descriptions of what love is. ...You can grasp hold of whatever kind of love there is.” She added that “my son that was killed loved for me to sing that song - he’s my rose.”
Later Cornelius sang another song for the crowd, “Wind Beneath My Wings.”

Began singing
at age 5

Before addressing the group at the benefit, Cornelius explained she first sang at age 5. Her first two solos were “Just Because” (you think you’re so pretty)  and “All I Want For Christmas is My Two Front Teeth.”
The daughter of Joe and Luelsie Johnson, Cornelius was reared in Huntington near Monroe City, where she attended and sang at a country school, then graduated from Monroe City High School. She grew up singing in churches. Her music career included teaching piano, “but my heart wasn’t in it,” she explained. She sang with her sister and others “at every funeral and farm bureau and FFA meeting.”
After moving to Nashville, she toured with Jim Ed Brown, with whom she recorded, “I Don’t Want to Have to Marry You.”
Still based in Nashville, she later enjoyed touring nationwide with “Annie Get Your Gun.”
Her advice for anyone seeking to become a successful singer is to “believe in yourself. A lot of artists are not great singers but have a style. ...If you don’t believe in yourself, nobody else will.”