Anderson Toland, Helen , 1926-

Helen Anderson was born Helen Eileen Herndon on May 03, 1926 in Marceline, Missouri. She attended the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana and received her Master’s degree in speech corrections/therapy from the University of Southern California. In the early 1960s, a romance with Las Vegas, Nevada civil rights worker Jim Anderson budded in Los Angeles, California at the National Association for Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) meetings. In 1964, they got married and she moved to Las Vegas.

Anderson was immediately hired as a speech therapist and by 1965, she was moving up the educational hierarchy as the city dealt with civil rights. She became the first black female principal for Clark County School District when she took the position at Kit Carson Elementary School; a position she would hold for seven years. Jim Anderson passed away and Anderson returned to Los Angeles after marrying her second husband Elton Anderson, a Los Angeles hair products manufacturer. When Elton died, Helen moved back to Las Vegas. She frequently visited the continent of Africa and was active in the Las Vegas African American community.