Übernommen von Communist Party U.S.A.:
In 1908, as the first decade of the 20th century was coming to a close, Helen Winter was born in Seattle, Washington. Her parents, Alfred Wagenknecht and Hortense Allison, as leaders of the Washington State Socialist Party, no doubt hoped that their daughters would grow up to understand and fully participate in the ongoing struggles for a more just world — struggles to which they had dedicated their lives. Helen and her sisters did not disappoint them. The Wagenknechts moved to Cleveland, Ohio, when Helen was five years old. At a tender age she participated in a socialist Sunday school, helped mail issues of the Ohio Socialist, and visited her father in the Canton, Ohio, workhouse where he had been imprisoned for his opposition to the First World War. Helen’s first involvement in labor activity came when she and her father traveled to Passaic, New Jersey, to help with a textile workers strike. Her father was the relief organizer, and Helen spent the summer of 1926 working in the union’s relief office, helping the striking families secure food, car fare, and other necessities. She picketed alongside the workers and helped organize recreational and athletic programs for the children of the strikers.
At age 15, Helen joined the Young Communist League and shortly after that, the Communist Party. Helen met Carl in Cleveland when she was a senior in high school and he was a college student at Western Reserve University. Their relationship, forged in their mutual love and respect for each other and their commitment to revolutionary struggle, was to endure through six decades, ending only with Carl’s death in 1991.
Pro-labor, anti-fascist Helen continued her involvement with labor when she and Carl went to New York City in the late twenties. Helen worked in the office of the…
Quelle: Communist Party U.S.A. – Helen Winter, CPUSA leader, labor and peace activist