Helen Hoover

Helen Hoover (January 20, 1910-July 1984) studied chemistry, and though she never earned her degree, she worked as a metallurgist for Ahlberg Bearing Company during and after World War II. Hoover grew up in Ohio but later moved to Chicago with her family, which is where she met her husband, Adrian Hoover. Both Helen and Adrian held steady jobs when they decided to quit and move to their vacation cabin on the south shore of Minnesota’s Gunflint Lake.

With no steady income, the Hoovers struggled through their first Minnesota winter, and Helen began writing magazine articles. Her first book, The Long-Shadowed Forest, which recounted life in northern Minnesota, was published in 1963. She followed it with three more books inspired by the Gunflint Trail: The Gift of the Deer, A Place in the Woods, and The Years of the Forest, as well as a children’s book The Great Wolf and Good Woodsmen.