Seeking information about Helene/Helena Wolf (1899-1975)

Helene Wolf, née Pollak, was born in Vienna, Austria, on Sept, 24th, 1899. Trained as a gardener, she opened her own business called Helenium in Hadersdorf-Weidlingau near Vienna in 1920. This practice consisted of a perennial nursery, a landscape construction business and a well-established garden design studio. Helene Wolf was a great expert in perennials and together with her husband Willi Wolf designed various private gardens in and around Vienna in the 1920s and 1930s, like the Paula Garden, designed in 1927. With help from a woman in California, Helene Wolf immigrated to the U.S. in July 1939 and changed her name to Helena Wolf. She was offered an opportunity to lecture on horticulture at a California university.  It is believed that Wolf stayed at her sponsor’s estate and took care of her spacious garden. From 1960 on, Helena Wolf lived in 21430 Montgomery Avenue in Hayward, California. She died childless on May, 2nd 1975 in the Hayward Convalescent Hospital.

If anyone has information on Helena Wolf’s life and career in California or has an idea at which Californian university she could have worked as lecturer of horticulture in the 1940s, please contact:

Ulrike Krippner
Institute of Landscape Architecture
BOKU University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna
Peter Jordan-Strasse 82
1190 Vienna, Austria
Ulrike.krippner@boku.ac.at
T: 0043-1-47654-7235