Nickum, Helen, 1928-2015
Biography
Helen Nickum was born in Portland, Oregon, in 1928. In 1950, she earned a bachelor’s degree in secretarial science from the University of Oregon. She worked as a legal secretary for the Davidson & Nikoloric law firm in Portland, and in 1954, she became secretary for Senator Richard Neuberger in Washington, D.C. She continued to live in Washington, D.C., for nearly 20 years, and from 1959 to 1971, she ran an independent secretarial service, Helen Nickum an Associates. She then returned to Portland, where she worked for U.S. Bank, and later for CH2M Hill; was involved in the women’s movement; and was active with organizations such as Common Cause and Friends of the Columbia Gorge. In 1987, she was hired as executive secretary for Amalgamated Transit Union Local 757. After she retired in 2006, she volunteered as an oral history transcriber for the Oregon Historical Society Research Library. Over the following nine years, she transcribed 267 hours of interviews, including her own, conducted in 2011. Nickum died in 2015.
Sources: Vital records on Ancestry.com; information provided by Nickum in her interview; Nickum’s obituary in Northwest Labor Press, April 2, 2015 (accessed June 30, 2025), https://nwlaborpress.org/2015/04/helen-nickum-1928-2015/.
Found in 1 Collection or Record:
Oral history interview with Helen Nickum
Oral history interview with Helen Nickum, conducted by Gregory Karnes in seven sessions, from January 25 to April 7, 2011, as part of the Oregon Labor Oral History Program. Nickum talks about her career as a secretary in Portland, Oregon, and in Washington, D.C.; about her involvement in a sex-discrimination class action lawsuit; and about her work as executive secretary for Amalgamated Transit Union Local 757.