Helen Z. Papanikolas (1917–2004)

Helen Z. Papanikolas was born Helen Zeese in the mining community of Cameron, Utah, to a Greek immigrant family. When she was a teenager, her parents George and Emily Zeese -- originally Zisimopoulos -- moved the family to Salt Lake City, where they opened a chain of grocery stores. She attended East High School and then enrolled in the University of Utah. She served as editor of Pen, the campus literary magazine, and graduated with a B.A. in 1939. She married Nick E. Papanikolas, with whom she had two children.

In 1950, she wrote an article about Greek communities for the Utah Historical Quarterly. Her subsequent article The Greeks of Carbon County broadened the scope of published Utah history, which previously had focused on settlement by members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons), and contributed to a fuller understanding of Utah’s cultural and ethnic heritage. She continued to publish works on ethnic history in the Utah Historical Quarterly and Western Humanities Review for 50 years. She wrote seven books, including . An Amulet of Greek Earth: Generations of Immigrant Folk Culture (2002) and The Peoples of Utah (1976), and novels and collections of short stories such The Time of the Little Black Bird (1999). She was instrumental in organizing and contributing to an ethnic archive at the Marriott Library, University of Utah. She presented papers at national and international conferences and served as a consultant for television documentaries and other projects.

Her efforts led to the establishment of the Hellenic Cultural Museum in Salt Lake City.