Helen Churchill Candee was an American author, journalist, interior decorator, feminist, and geographer. Today, she is best known as a survivor of the sinking of RMS Titanic in 1912, and for her later work as a travel writer and explorer of southeast Asia. Helen was born Helen Churchill Hungerford, the daughter of New York City merchant Henry and Mary Elizabeth (Hungerford) 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 her abusive husband 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. Candee obtained a divorce in 1896, after a lengthy separation.