Helen Churchill Candee

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Helen Churchill Candee (October 5, 1858 – August 23, 1949) was an American author, interior decorator, and socialite. Today she is best known for surviving the sinking of RMS Titanic in 1912.

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[edit] Early Life

Candee was born Helen Churchill Hungerford, the daughter of New York City merchant Henry Hungerford and his wife Mary Churchill. She spent most of her childhood in Connecticut. She married Edward Candee of Norwalk, Connecticut, and had two children by him, Edith and Harold. After the abusive Edward Candee abandoned the family, Helen Candee supported herself and children as a writer for popular magazines such as Scribner's and The Ladies' Home Journal. She initially wrote on the subjects most familiar to her-- genteel etiquette and household management-- but soon branched into other topics such as child care, education, and women's rights. For several years she resided in Oklahoma, and her stories about that region helped to catapult her to national prominence as a journalist. Helen Candee divorced her husband in 1895, after a lengthy separation.

[edit] Career

Candee was a strong feminist, as evidenced by her best-selling first book, How Women May Earn a Living (1900). Her second book, An Oklahoma Romance (1901), was a novel that promoted the possibilities of settlement in Oklahoma Territory.

Having become an established literary figure, Candee moved to Washington, DC, where she established herself as one of the first professional interior decorators. Her clients included Henry Stimson and Theodore Roosevelt. Candee's book, Decorative Styles and Periods (1906), embodied her principles of design: careful historical research and absolute authenticity. While in Washington, Candee also pursued an active social life, served on many civic boards, and involved herself in Democratic politics. She was a close friend of William Jennings Bryan.

[edit] RMS Titanic and Later Life

Candee was traveling in Europe in the spring of 1912, when she received a telegram from her daughter, Edith, informing her that her son, Harold, had been injured in an automobile accident. Candee hurriedly booked her passage home on a new luxury ocean liner, the Titanic. On the voyage, she socialized with other prominent travelers, such as President Taft's military aide, Archibald Butt, and the painter Francis Davis Millet. Candee survived the great ship's sinking, in spite of fracturing her ankle while boarding a lifeboat. Candee subsequently gave an interview to the Washington Herald and published a detailed account of her experiences in Collier's Weekly.

During World War I, Candee did nursing in Rome and Milan under the auspices of the Italian Red Cross. One of her patients in Milan was Ernest Hemingway. After the war, she traveled to Japan, China, Indonesia, and Cambodia, and these experiences became the basis for her book New Journeys in Old Asia (1927). As late as 1935-36, when she was almost 80, Candee was still traveling abroad and publishing articles in National Geographic.

[edit] Further reading

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