Helen Dore Boylston: Caregiver, Author, Adventurer

Screenwriters take note! Helen Dore Boylston’s life is a TV miniseries-in-waiting. She was born here on the Seacoast in 1895, moved to New Castle, NH, at age 10, and attended Portsmouth schools. Her father was a local doctor. Her mother died when she was four. After graduating as an anesthesiology nurse in Boston, Helen joined the British Army in France during World War I. Her experiences led to seven Sue Barton novels that sold millions of copies to young readers, launching countless healthcare careers. And the adventure only starts there.

I’m late to discovering this fascinating local “literary lion.” I just ordered a copy of her first book, Sister: The War Diary of a Nurse (1927). After the war, Helen worked for the Red Cross in Europe, where she met reporter Rose Wilder Lane.

Rose’ mother, Laura Ingalls Wilder, would later write the Little House on the Prairie series. (The Wilder family nicknamed Helen Boylston “Troub,” one historian reports, because her carefree attitude kept getting her in and out of troubling situations.) In 1926, Helen and Rose drove a Model T Ford from Paris to Albania. Their diary of the lively journey would be published decades later. After living in Albania with Rose for 15 months, Helen held traditional hospital jobs in Europe, New York, and New England. In the 1930s, her novels about a feisty red-haired nurse from New Hampshire took off. A second series featured a fictional actress named Carol Page, researched with help from the real actress Eva Le Gallienne.

There are more intriguing episodes in the Boylston miniseries. They swirl around true tales of the theater, a horse farm, coming under enemy fire, the stock market crash, World War II, the Red Cross,  a biography of Clara Barton, and more. She even considered cattle ranching. Although Helen reportedly never wrote about her sexual preferences, she has been adopted as a key figure in studies of gay writers in the early 20th century. 

The Portsmouth Herald is sprinkled with references to Helen Dore Boylston during her visits to her family in New Castle. Two of her Sue Barton books include New Hampshire settings and she is now included in walking tours of women’s history by the Portsmouth Historical Society. Increasingly troubled with dementia, Helen spent her final years in a Connecticut nursing home. She lived to age 89 and is buried in Newmarket, NH..

© 2026, J. Dennis Robinson. Thanks to the late John Ferguson for suggesting this topic.