Helen Renfrow

#3 in our series Our sister’s sisters we cover Frances Helen Renfrow Lemme.

A member of #DeltaSigmaThetaSororityIncorporated & sisters to #AlphaKappaAlphasororityincorporated members Evanel & Edith (passed in January of 2026) sister, Alice, and two brothers.  

Frances Helen Renfrow Lemme did not wear our letters, but she definitely lived a life of service.

Helen was a leader, and she turned her Iowa City home into a refuge and training ground for Black students long before campus housing policies caught up with justice.

Born in Grinnell in 1904, Helen came of age as one of the few Black students in her schools, winning academic prizes in classrooms that would deny her the rewards once they knew her color. After college she settled in Iowa City with her husband Allyn, and when the State University of Iowa refused to house Black students, the Lemmes opened 603 South Capitol Street. Their home became a living laboratory of care and accountability. The students slept, studied, argued, prayed, and planned there until university dorms finally opened to people of color in 1946.   Generations would remember her simply as “Ma Lemme,” the woman who cooked for them, listened to them, and insisted that they stay in school.

Helen carried that same ethic into public life. She served as a precinct committeewoman, delegate to state and county Democratic conventions, and member of the party’s Black Caucus, pressing for stronger Black representation at the 1944 Democratic National Convention. Locally, she worked through the Human Rights Commission, the Iowa City Area Council of Churches, and the League of Women Voters, where she became president in 1946 and later Iowa City’s Woman of the Year. She led PTA work, sat on YMCA, Girl Scout, and Civic Music boards, and used her church, First Baptist of Iowa City, as another platform for race and gender justice. An elementary school now bears her name, and students there are still asked to study what kind of citizen she chose to be. She was also a lab technician.

When we say “our sister’s sisters,” Helen stands beside Evanel, whose advocacy in Georgia helped create space for Alpha Kappa Alpha on the campus of my #almamater Savannah State University, and ultimately for Gamma Upsilon, the chapter that shaped my own life. She stands beside Diamond Soror Edith Renfrow Smith, who just left us at 111 after a lifetime of teaching, civil rights work, and careful storytelling about their family’s journey. She stands beside their sister Alice, who, though not in a sorority, shared the same Renfrow training in scholarship, church work, and community responsibility. Helen’s story reminds us that our pink and green roots stretch into households where Black women opened their doors to students, called them to order, and showed them how to stand in public. Our sister’s sister did not only make room; she made a way.