Background
After her father"s death, Helen Griggs and her mother moved to the Santa Ana, California area.
After her father"s death, Helen Griggs and her mother moved to the Santa Ana, California area.
University of California, Berkeley.
Born March 2, 1917, in a Florence Crittenden home for unwed mothers in Sioux City, Iowa, she was adopted by George and Iva Griggs. While working a number of jobs, she earned an Associate of Arts from Santa Ana College and a Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of California at Berkeley in 1939. While working part-time for Lawrence in 1938, she met Glenn T. Seaborg, a scientist who frequently used Lawrence"s cyclotrons to create new chemical isotopes, including several with applications in nuclear medicine.
Seaborg dictated a telegram to Helen that was to be sent to Physical Review.
Prior to the United States entry in World World War II, Seaborg led a team that discovered plutonium. Seaborg was recruited for the Manhattan Project while he was dating Griggs.
Helen worked as an administrative assistant to the scientists working in Chicago. Throughout Glenn"s career, she was his traveling companion and provided behind-the-scenes administrative help that enabled Seaborg to pursue many side projects, including extensive publishing efforts.
As the wife of the chancellor of University College Berkeley she took on many formal duties related to protocol and dealing with official university guests.
Most notably, she filled in for First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy at a White House Dinner in the days following the death of the Kennedys" infant son. She was an active advocate of child welfare. She felt indebted to the Young Women’s Christian Association for assistance during her own periods of childhood poverty.
She served on the board of directors of the Young Women’s Christian Association in both Berkeley, California and Washington, District of Columbia In 1980, this trail was used as part of the HikaNation project by the American Hiking Society.
Later, much of the route became a part of the transcontinental American Discovery Trail.
She and Glenn had seven children: the late Peter, Paulette, who died in infancy. Lynne, David, Stephen, Eric, and Dianne. Helen Seaborg died of pneumonia on August 29, 2006.