After NJC

Courier-News, June 7, 1944

After graduating from NJC, Veronica Henriksen pursued a career in social work. She received a fellowship that helped her pursue graduate studies at the New York School of Social Work, Columbia University. She became a psychiatric social worker, first working for the Family Service Bureau of Newark and then for Catholic Charities in New York City, where she spent over 20 years working with children and their families. She also worked at a private psychotherapy practice in Cranford, NJ, in the 1970s. It appears that she never married or had children. She lived her whole life in Plainfield.

Despite digging in the census records, combing through local newspapers, and perusing through her alumna file, unanswered questions remain. One thing I noticed was that she changed the spelling of her name to “Veronique” in the 1960s. What was the meaning of this change? What does this say about who she was or how she sought to present herself? Perhaps it was an assertion of a cosmopolitan or “cultured” identity. Whatever the case may be, completing research for this project and finding Veronica Henriksen added texture to our understanding of what it meant to be a black Douglass Woman.

Obituary for Veronique Henriksen