The donor of the Lynch Family papers referred to the two women in the collection as her “Red Aunts” for their progressive and non-traditional lives.
Helen Lynch was a social and political activist who supported hunger marches, war veterans, and labor activism in the 1930s. She never married and rarely communicated with her family in her later years. She was known to live in squalor with little food, similar to the citizens that she would represent in her activist work. Helen passed away at the early age of 37 years old from a heart complication. Records indicate that her death resulted from several probable causes: reports of her being beaten at a rally, heart complications, exhaustion, and starvation were among the reasons her family and friends cite aside from hospital documents. These images are all of Helen.
Alice, the younger sister of Helen, was an educator, who taught writing at numerous universities, was married several times. Alice undertook a project to complete a biography of her sister Helen and her work. The manuscript, as well as the research, notes, edits, and publication correspondence, is included with several hundred pages of typed and written pages. The book was never completed or published, despite much interest and assistance from publishers, family friends, and Helen’s acquaintances.
The University of Colorado Boulder Libraries will celebrate the centennial anniversary of the Archives on June 6, 2018. This is story #82 in our series: 100 Stories for 100 Years from the Archives!