Helen Zatterberg Collection

Helen Zatterberg was born on July 1, 1902 to Martin and Pauline Zatterberg. She graduated from Chicago’s Lake View High School in 1920 and began working for Chicago Public Library in 1921. She spent her early years with the library at branches such as Rogers Park and Lake View before joining Hild Regional Library when it opened in 1931. Shortly after Hild opened, after a suggestion from library commissioner Carl Roden, Zatterberg began reaching out to local community members to document local history. In 1935 she helped found the Ravenswood-Lake View Historical Association, and in the following years she continued to play an important role in collecting and preserving local history. She became Branch Librarian at Hild in 1953. In 1955 she was promoted to Regional Librarian for the West Side, but she spent just two years in this position before returning to the North Side as Regional Librarian in 1957. Zatterberg retired from Chicago Public Library in 1967. After her retirement, she continued to live in Chicago and stayed involved with the Ravenswood-Lake View Historical Association. In 1995, the historical room at Sulzer Regional Library was named in her honor. Helen Zatterberg died in Chicago on September 12, 2002.