Helen Z. Papanikolas

Helen Zeese Papanikolas (June 29, 1917 – October 31, 2004) was a Greek-American ethnic historian, novelist and folklorist who documented the immigrant experience in Utah and the American West through histories, memoirs, fiction, and poetry. Her ethnographic themes drew upon her experience as a Greek-American in a small western community.

Helen Zeese was born in the mining community of Cameron (near Castle Gate) in Carbon County, Utah, to Greek immigrant parents George and Emily Zeese (originally Yiorgis and Emilia Zisimopoulos). The family moved to nearby Helper and, in 1933, to Salt Lake City, Utah where they established a chain of grocery stores. In her youth, Zeese attended Helper Central School and Carbon High School while living in Carbon County, and East High School in Salt Lake City.

While attending the University of Utah, Zeese served as editor of the campus literary magazine Pen and associated with several other students who would become prominent in the field of western history. These included historian and archivist Dale Morgan. She graduated with a B.A. from the University in 1939. She married Nick E. Papanikolas and the couple had two children, Zeese and Thalia.

In 1984, the University of Utah awarded Papanikolas an honorary doctorate. She and her husband established scholarship programs for minority students at the University of Utah and the College of Eastern Utah. Papanikolas died in November 2004.

In 1950, Papanikolas was asked to write about Greek communities for the Utah Historical Quarterly. The subsequent 1954 article The Greeks of Carbon County broadened the scope of published Utah history, which had previously focused on settlement and progress of the administration and membership of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons). The article contributed to a fuller understanding of Utah’s cultural and ethnic heritage and served as a lasting example for local ethnic historians. For fifty years, her works on ethnic history were published in the Utah Historical Quarterly and Western Humanities Review. She wrote seven books, both fiction and non-fiction. Publications also include historical monographs and anthologies such as Toil and Rage in a New Land: The Greek Immigrants of Utah (1970) and The Peoples of Utah (1976). Papanikolas' skill as a novelist and storyteller was demonstrated in The Time of the Little Black Bird, which won the Utah Fiction Prize for 2000.

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