Grenfell, Helen L. (b. 1868)

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Grenfell, Helen L. (b. 1868)

American educator and penologist. Born Helen Loring in Valparaiso, Chile, in 1868; married Edwin I. Grenfell, in 1889.

Helen L. Grenfell was born Helen Loring in Valparaiso, Chile, in 1868. After serving as superintendent of schools, she was made state superintendent of public instruction in Colorado; during her three terms from 1899 to 1905, she greatly increased the school revenues and revised and annotated school laws. From 1909 to 1914, Grenfell was commissioner of the Colorado State Penitentiary and Reformatory, with full control of the penal institutions of the state, the only woman at the time to hold such an office.

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