Helen Burfiend Interview, 1973

Helen Margaret Allanson Burfiend was born on July 4, 1901 in the town of Wheaton, Minnesota to George and Bertha Allanson. Her great grandfather, Major Joseph Brown, was the founder of Browns Valley and Henderson, Minnesota. In this interview, Helen Burfiend discusses her family history, including Major Joseph Brown and his wife Susan Frenier Brown, her grandfather John S. Allanson and his wife Ellen Brown Allanson, and her father George Gray Allanson. She discusses her father\u27s storytelling, the family home, her grade school and high school experience in Wheaton, Minnesota, and social activities and sports. She discusses train travel, the Wheaton Post Office in the 1920s, organization memberships, World War I, and the Depression. She discusses her father\u27s history, newspaper business, politics, jobs as fire chief and justice of the peace, and history collection and job with the Works Progress Administration. She discusses Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Sinclair Lewis, World War II, and Hubert Humphrey. She talks about her father\u27s illness and death, her own personal life, and her plans for her father\u27s papers.https://digitalcommons.morris.umn.edu/mnoralhistories/1055/thumbnail.jp