| Birth Name: | Helen Leidy |
| Other Names: | Helen Leidy Hamlin Mrs. Willis Hamlin Helen Lennon Helen Hamlin Lennon Mrs. Robert Earl Lennon |
| Birth Date: | 26 June 1917 [1] |
| Birth Place: | Fort Kent, Maine |
Helen Hamlin (1917-2004) was an American author who is known for her two books on life in northern Maine.
Helen Austin Leidy was born in Fort Kent, Maine[2] and grew up in Aroostook County, Maine.[1] In 1937 she graduated from the Madawaska Training School, later a part of the University of Maine at Fort Kent.[3] [4] Her father and grandfather were Maine fish and game wardens.[5] She met her first husband Willis ('Curly') Hamlin, also a game warden, at a dance while she was teaching at Churchill Lake. Being a speaker of both french and English helped in her teaching job since she had students in Churchill Lake who only spoke French.
Her first book, Nine Mile Bridge: Three Years in the Maine Woods, described her first years living in the woods with Curly Hamlin in the area known as St. John Valley.[6] The book became a best seller in 1945[7] and was reprinted in 1973 and 2005.[8] The book also became the basis for later discussions about living in the Maine woods.[9] Hamlin's second book was about tales from Aroostook county and the news covered the process she used to gather information for this book.[10] The book was titled Pine, Potatoes, and People and was published in 1948.[11]
In 1947 she married Robert Lennon, who worked at the United States' Department of Fish and Wildlife.[12] She moved to Michigan in the 1950s, where she painted portraits that appeared in shows in Washington, D.C. She later moved to Wisconsin where she obtained a teaching degree from the University of Wisconsin at La Crosse in 1961.[13] In Wisconsin she taught French at Central High School in La Crosse.[14] She also traveled, and worked for the United States' State Department as a translator in Africa. She died in Minnesota in 2004.
In 1946, Hamlin was named to the Pen and Brush Club, a group founded in 1863 to recognize women writers and artists.[15] In 1988 she was named an outstanding alumnus of the University of Maine at Fort Kent.[16]