Helen Reimensnyder Martin Writer
Helen Reimensnyder Martin (1868–1939) was an American author. She was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, studied at Swarthmore and at Radcliffe colleges; and married Frederic C. Martin in 1889. She became known for her stories of "the Pennsylvania Dutch," the shorter ones contributed to Leslie's, the Century, the Cosmopolitan, the Ladies' Home Journal, and other magazines. Her early work was so harshly photographic and sensational that it was quite naturally resented by the people whom she portrayed. Her well known novel Tillie: a Mennonite Maid (1904) especially provoked many cries of misrepresentation. The story, about a young girl of Pennsylvania Dutch, but not Mennonite, background, though she briefly joins a Reformed Mennonite church in her teens, chronicles the early life of a girl who eventually becomes a school teacher, attends college, and marries, escaping the domination of her harsh father. Martin wrote: Warren Hyde (1897) The Elusive Hildegarde (1900) Tillie, a Mennonite Maid (1904) Sabina, A Story of the Amish (1905) His Courtship (1907) The Betrothal of Elypholate (1907) The Revolt of Ann Royle (1908) The Crossways (1910; new edition, 1914) When Half-Gods Go (1911) The Fighting Doctor (1912) The Parasite (1913) Barnabetta (1914) Martha of the Mennonite Country (1915) Those Fitzenbergers (1917) Gertie Swartz: Fanatic or Christian (1918) Maggie of Virginsburg (1918) The Schoolmaster of Hessville (1920) The Marriage of Susan (1921) Tender Talons (1930)