Education
She was educated in Sweden and London.
She was educated in Sweden and London.
Helen Svensson was a native of Ödeshög, Sweden. She earned a teacher"s degree in London in 1931. She served as a governess in England and later as a teacher in Norway.
On a 1932 trip to see relatives in Chicago, she met prominent Norwegian-American sculptor Lars Fletre.
Fletre handled translation and was a guide for the Chicago portion of Olav V of Norway"s state visit to the United States. When King Olav V of Norway visited Chicago in 1975, she took him on a personal tour of the Edvard Munch exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago.
The visit was to celebrate 150 years of Norwegian emigration to America. She served on the Sesquicentennial Commission and was co-editor of From Fjord to Prairie.
Her mother had been an early feminist in Sweden, and Fletre herself marched here for the Equal Rights Amendment and against nuclear weapons.
She also helped found a neighborhood association to combat crime, and was a consultant to Victory Gardens Theater when it staged Ibsen and Strindberg plays. She had written hundreds of articles in Vinland, the Chicago-based Norwegian-American newspaper. As a staff writer for the newspaper Vinland, she contributed numerous articles to that paper.
Helen Fletre served as a journalist for the Vinland until it ceased publication with the death of owner-editor Bertram Jensenius in 1976.
She was a familiar figure at symposiums and conferences where she presented papers dealing with Norwegian-American cultural life in Chicago. She was frequently consulted in anything related to Norwegian-Americans in Chicago.
In 1984, she read a paper at a Norwegian-American seminar in Norway and also was editor of Bridges to Norway: 1934-1984. During her later years, she was helpful in collecting information for A Century of Urban Life by Odd South. Lovoll and published by the Norwegian-American Historical Association in 1988.
Chicago Tribune.
She became a prominent member of the Norwegian-American community in Chicago.