Helen Krogh dies at 78; started Widowed Persons Assn. of California

Overwhelmed by the grief of widowhood in the early 1980s, Helen Krogh placed an advertisement in a newspaper seeking others in the same situation in Sacramento who might want to gather to talk.

Six days later, she was exhausted from answering the phone but had knit together a core group of “founding mothers” of what became a statewide support group, Widowed Persons Assn. of California, her family said.

Krogh died Aug. 20 of a cerebral hemorrhage at her Sacramento home, said her son, Randy Atkinson. She was 78.

Twice divorced, she married Donald Krogh – pronounced “crow” – in 1978. Theirs was a “great romance,” she later said, that ended when he died from cancer at 57 in 1982.

Widowed at 50, Krogh was seemingly a prisoner of the armchair she sat in every day for six months while staring at a blank TV screen.

“You know the TV’s not on, right?” her son recalled asking his mother as he encouraged her to channel her emotions “and get living again.”

Everything Krogh did, “she went full-tilt boogie,” her son said, and that included starting the support group that helped her and others with the grieving process

She got counselors trained and set up informal get-togethers called “chat and chews,” which were held at restaurants. Krogh made public appearances to speak about grief and organized classes to teach independent living skills.

“The story she always liked to tell was that, in her generation, the men didn’t know how to do laundry or cook and the women didn’t know how to pay the bills,” her son said.

For about 12 years, Krogh ran or was deeply involved in the organization, which has almost two dozen chapters throughout the state.

She was born Jan. 8, 1932, in Rochester, N.Y., and lived in Washington, D.C., during World War II when her father, an Army colonel, worked at the Pentagon.

After earning her bachelor’s degree from Hood College in Maryland, she became a reporter at a Rochester newspaper and taught school in New York and Florida.

She held two master’s degrees, one in journalism from the University of Florida and the other in sociology from UC Riverside, her son said.

From 1963 to 1967, Krogh taught at San Bernardino High School and was “proudest of the lives she touched as a teacher,” which included those of many journalism students who stayed in touch, her son said.

“She would quote Shakespeare one moment then tell a joke the next,” said Dodie Alsop, a former student. “She was brilliant, a great deal of fun and the biggest-hearted person in the world.”

After moving to Sacramento in 1974, Krogh became a public information officer for the California Department of Corrections. She retired in 1987.

Her car sported a license plate that served as a memorial to her third husband – she’d had it made for him – and a reminder of her wit. It read “OL KROGH.”

In addition to her son, Krogh is survived by her fiance, Pete Keller; three grandsons; and two great-grandsons. Her daughter, Renee, died in 1995.

valerie.nelson@latimes.com