Corinne Sweet,
Advocate for Jewish Women

“If you close your mind, you miss so much.”

BY REBEKAH CLARK,

BETTER DAYS HISTORICAL DIRECTOR

During World War II, discrimination against Jewish people reached unprecedented heights. These attitudes spurred Jewish women into action. In a time of immense fear, anguish, and uncertainty throughout the world, Corinne Virginia Heller Sweet helped mobilize Jewish women in Utah to create a strong community, serve others, and make their voices heard. Sweet’s lifetime of dedication to civic engagement and volunteer work left a lasting impact on Salt Lake City’s Jewish and non-Jewish community.

Corinne Virginia Heller was born in 1914 in the upper West Side of New York City to a life of privilege. She later acknowledged that she was brought up “not with a silver spoon, but with a gold spoon” in her mouth, but she soon faced tragedy and loss.^[1] Devastated by the stock market crash in 1929, her family lost nearly everything and moved to San Diego, where her father took his own life and died in her arms. She began her studies at San Diego State College at age fifteen, but was forced to drop out during her senior year when she developed cancer in her eye. She recalled: “You grow up in a hurry with those kinds of experiences.”^[2]

After her treatments and recovery, she worked in the society department of the San Diego Union newspaper. She married Leon “Jack” Sweet on September 1, 1937, and they settled in his hometown of Salt Lake City where they eventually raised their three children. She later recalled:  “Having been active in civic affairs even as a teenager, I jumped right in with both feet” to serving in the Utah community because “I always felt it was my duty to do something for the community.”^[3] Within a month after arriving in Salt Lake City, the young newly-wed began volunteering at the Neighborhood House well-baby clinic and soon served on the executive committee of the Salt Lake Council of Women and as co-chair of the Women’s Committee for the Symphony. Although young and new to the area, Corinne Sweet quickly established herself as a pillar in Utah’s small but influential Jewish community.

When the United States entered World War II, Corinne Sweet again jumped into a new phase of community service with both feet. While her husband served as a naval officer in Okinawa, she tirelessly volunteered with the Red Cross and the USO in Salt Lake City to make bandages, knit, and ensure that the Jewish soldiers stationed at Hill Air Field had homecooked Sabbath and holiday meals. She used her influence to mobilize Salt Lake City’s Jewish women to advocate for the rights and needs of Jewish people overseas as well as people of Jewish faith within their own Utah community. She helped coordinate the resettlement of several Jewish refugee families fleeing the Nazi regime. In April of 1940, she founded and presided over the Utah Section of the National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW). As she told newspapers at the time, the Council planned to “become an integral part of the civic and communal life of the city,” with a community service program including social welfare, service to the foreign-born, religion, legislation, “the study of international relations, the promotion of peace and the advancement of education.”^[4] Her friend Esther Landa was among the first to join the Utah branch of the NCJW, recalling: “Whatever Corinne did, we followed. We affectionately called her the Madam.”^[5] Known as “the Council,” the organization acted as a social, political, and civic center to promote the voices of Jewish people in Utah.

After the war ended, Corinne Sweet’s extensive philanthropy and community service continued to make an impact on Salt Lake City’s education, religion, social services, health care, and the arts for decades. After her presidency at the NCJW, she went on to be president of B’Nai Israel Sisterhood and was the first woman appointed to the Board of Trustees of B’Nai Israel Congregation. By 1968 she was listed in the Salt Lake Council of Women’s Hall of Fame. She served as chairman of the board of the Salt Lake City Public Library, was appointed by the governor to serve on the board of trustees of the College of Southern Utah, was the first woman appointed to the board of directors of St. Mark’s Hospital, and was elected to the Utah Hospital Association Trustee Advisory Council. She was a co-founder of the Headstart Program in Utah, a board member of the Utah Shakespearean Festival, and chairman of Project Enable. She served in a myriad of other community organizations including the Girl Scout Council, Red Cross, YWCA, National Board of Family Service Society of America, Jewish Family Service, Utah Committee for the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Salt Lake Arts Center, and the Utah Society for the Physically Handicapped. Throughout her many roles, Corinne Sweet acted as a loud voice against anti-Semitism and was a trailblazer in the involvement of women in political conversations and change.

Corinne passed away in 1993 at the age of seventy-eight, having dedicated her life to volunteer work. In an interview in 1982, she reflected: “One of the reasons I have tried very hard to do the very best job I could do – never took the easy way out – is the fact that I’ve always had the feeling that I was a representative of the Jewish community. And as a Jew, I have to do things twice as well.”^[6] But her service was not limited to her religious community. Rather, she consistently built bridges of understanding and served alongside those of different faiths, ethnicities, and backgrounds. She explained: “To me there are two things that are important, and both of them will keep you from growing old too quickly. One is doing what you can for the other fellow always, the other is having an open mind. If you close your mind, you miss so much.”^[7] Putting this philosophy into practice, Corinne Sweet shaped Jewish women’s advocacy and became a change-maker during tumultuous times.

^[1] Jane Edwards, “Open Mind, Open Heart: Corinne Sweet Had Equal Embrace for All Humankind,” Salt Lake Tribune (24 March 1996), 131-32; Corinne Heller Sweet, oral history interview by Leslie Kelen, 1982 University of Utah Marriott Library, Accn 998, p. 44.

^[2] Corinne Heller Sweet, oral history interview, p. 39.

^[3] Corinne Heller Sweet, oral history interview, p. 3, 45.

^[4] “Council of Jewish Women Calendars First Meeting,” Salt Lake Tribune (7 April 1940), 62; “Jewish Women Form S.L. Group,” Deseret News (6 April 1940), 20.

^[5] Esther Landa, quoted in History of NCJW Utah Section – National Council of Jewish Women.

^[6] Corinne Heller Sweet, oral history interview, p. 11.

^[7] Corinne Heller Sweet, oral history interview, p. 50.