A look at the life of Helen Lemme, Lemme Elementary School

IOWA CITY - Students and staff have a tradition at Helen Lemme Elementary School.

Every year they celebrate their namesake's Feb. 25 birthday. The annual party includes stories by visiting guests who knew Lemme.

Body copy ragged right:“It's a celebration of her life,” Principal Joelle McConnaha said. “She was someone who did what she could to help others be successful. We want our students to know her story.”

Iowa City's first “Woman of the Year,” Lemme was the first black woman in the Iowa City school district to have a school named after her; Elizabeth Tate High School opened in 2005.

It's an honor her son, Paul Lemme, still considers remarkable.

“How would you react if you simply went through your life doing what you thought needed to be done, and then found out later that others were very grateful for your efforts?” Paul Lemme said in an interview from his Massachusetts home.

Lemme Elementary School opened at 3100 Washington St. in 1970 - two years after Lemme's death, a tribute to a woman who valued education.

Lemme was the valedictorian of her high school in Grinnell. She attended the University of Iowa, graduating in 1928. Lemme worked as a research technician in the UI College of Medicine before she found her true calling as a community activist.

“The first thing people talk about, when asked to describe Helen Lemme, is her overwhelming need to help people,” said John Bacon, principal at City High School. Bacon was the principal at Lemme elementary for five years.

“She always thought of others and that's what we stressed to the students - to think of others before themselves,” he said.

That philosophy led to Lemme opening her home to house black students who attended UI, but weren't allowed to live in campus dormitories.

Tate, like Lemme, also ran a boardinghouse for black students.

“I am not sure how much people know about the impact of segregation on my mother's life in Iowa City,” Paul Lemme said. “Memory tells me that dormitories on the (UI) campus were segregated until 1947. Black students could not live there. Black students had separate homecoming dances. As a result, many students lived at our house.”

The Lemme home wasn't grand, but it was lively. The five-bedroom house was often filled with conversation and music.

“She opened up her home to us,” Orville Townsend said. “She'd have us over for dinner. We could have parties in her basement.”

Townsend met “Ma Lemme,” as the students called her, in the fall of 1962 during his freshman year at Iowa. Townsend didn't live in the Lemme house - his uncle had years before - but Lemme still considered him one of her own.

“She took a personal interest and let us know she was always available for conversation,” Townsend said. “When you talked to Ma Lemme, when you went before her, you knew you had to be for real.”

She'd advise, but she didn't pry. Townsend said Lemme would say her piece when she felt a student was doing something that wouldn't work to his advantage, but left the decision in their hands.

“It was like she held up a mirror and we could see who we could be,” Townsend said.

She did the same for the community, holding positions in numerous organizations in an effort to promote equality. She was on the board of directors of the Iowa League of Women Voters, warrant officer of the Iowa City Recreation Commission, a member of the Hawkeye Area Community Action Program and vice president of the Iowa City Area Council of Churches.

As a member of the Iowa City Human Relations Committee, Lemme helped spearhead a drive to get local businesses to display stickers declaring non-discriminatory policies. She also crusaded for more representation for blacks at the 1944 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

Lemme was the first black women to be named Iowa City's “Best Citizen.”

"She provided a home and guidance to many young college students who were experiencing an integrated America for the first time in their lives,” Paul Lemme said. “They were trying very hard to be successful in a world that, in many cases, fought hard against them.”

Lemme was inducted in the UI's Black Alumni Association's Hall of Honor in 1993. She was among the first group of UI graduates to receive that honor.