Helen Svensson Fletre papers, 1894-1987

Biography/History: 
A native of Ødehøg, Sweden, Helen Fletre was educated in Sweden and London and worked as a governess in England before becoming a teacher in Norway. In 1934, she married Lars Fletre, a Norwegian sculptor who had previously lived in Chicago. The couple relocated to Chicago in 1954 with their three children and quickly became active in the city’s thriving Norwegian organizations, including DeLiSa (Det litterære Samfund), Nordmanns Forbundet, and the Norwegian National League.

Deeply engaged in preserving and interpreting Norwegian-American cultural life, she served on the Sesquicentennial Commission and was co-editor of From Fjord to Prairie, work that contributed to her receiving the Medal of St. Olaf in 1976. As a staff writer for the newspaper Vinland, she authored hundreds of articles, and she was a familiar presence at symposiums and conferences where she presented papers on Norwegian cultural life in Chicago. In her later years, she assisted in gathering material for Odd S. Lovoll’s A Century of Urban Life, published by the Norwegian-American Historical Association in 1988.

Scope and Content: 
Papers documenting the life and work of a prominent member of the Norwegian colony in Chicago.