From collection Candidates
Helen Loring Grenfell, a Republican, ran for County Superintendent of Schools for Gilpin County, Colorado in 1896 and 1898. She was elected State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Colorado, in 1898 and served through 1904. She campaigned for the position in 1904 but lost. She was greatly admired by politicians in her state and by national women's rights activists. Of Mrs. Helen L. Grenfell, one of the most famous of Colorado's women superintendents, an ex-governor of the state once said: "She is not only the best superintendent, but the best state official that Colorado has ever had." The following quotation serves to show, not merely the personality of the most prominent of Colorado's women office-holders, but also the type of woman who is calculated to win the greatest success in politics: "Mrs. Grenfell is strong, earnest, competent, yet womanly and inspiring. She has not made her office wait upon politics, and the result has amply justified her. ... Mrs. Grenfell asks no special recognition on account of her sex, though she has always met with courteous treatment. She stands on her merits alone, as all women who are successful in public affairs must do, and on account of reasonable and impersonal point of view has the faculty of working in harmony with the men associated with her." Page 137 [Note 1: 1 Chautauquan, 34:484. Raine, "Woman Suffrage in Colorado."] Grenfell was a noted educator who worked on behalf of good public education and good education in penal institutions. She served on several state boards. She was the first woman to the hold the title of Commissioner of the Colorado State Penitentiary and Reformatory. In 1913 Grenfell was one of many candidates for the Denver's Commissioner of Social Welfare. She was married to Edwin I. Grenfell. They had no children.
