Helen Eugenia Parker

Helen Eugenia Parker was born on November 17, 1909, in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, to parents Willie Parker and contractor Walter Eugene Parker.[1] The family of seven later moved to Little Rock, Arkansas.[1] When graduating in 1926 from Wiley High School-College (now known as Wiley College) in Marshall, Texas, she was a top student.[1]

It is also likely she attended Howard University in Washington, D.C.[1][2]

Parker briefly returned to Little Rock. There, she taught mathematics in the segregated public high school, served as a librarian at the segregated library, and consulted for the Southern Tenant Farmers Union.[1]

Around 1930s, Parker moved to Detroit, Michigan.[1][2] There, she was an instructor for the Shop Drafting Training Program, part of the National Youth Administration of Works Progress Administration.[1] As well as a drafter for the first two registered architects of color in Detroit, Alfonso R. Feliciano (1883–1940) a Puerto Rican graduate of Universidad de Barcelona, and Donald Frank White.[1] She was associate architect for Trinity Hospital in Detroit,[1] a black hospital which closed in 1962.[3]

Parker was a board member of the Peter Pan Nursery.[1] She was also active in professional associations, including Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority, the National Technical Association, and the Detroit Youth Assembly.[1]

Parker died after 1940.[1][2] Parker's profile was included in the book, African American Architects: A Biographical Dictionary, 1865–1945 (2004).

• African-American architects