The golden-rod is yellow,
The corn is turning brown;
The trees in apple orchards
With fruit are bending down.
(September, 1-4)
Helen Fiske, born in Amherst, Mass., took her two last names from her husbands. She married Edward Bissell Hunt first, was widowed young, in 1865, and shortly afterwards had lost both sons from that marriage as well. Ten years later, she married a quaker, William Sharpless Jackson and lived in Colorado Springs with him. Helen was a long-time friend of Emily Dickinson and, besides becoming much more famous than her friend as a poet, produced many novels, including Ramona (1884). It dealt with the white man's subjugation of the native American indian, whose cause she energetically championed for much of the later part of her life. See her A Century of Dishonor: A Sketch of the United States Government's Dealings with some of the Indian Tribes (New York: Harper, 1881; HUS. J127c Robarts Library), and Report of Mrs. Helen Hunt Jackson and Abbot Kinney on the Mission Indians in 1883 (Boston: Stanley and Usher, 1887; Pam E 78 C15 J3 Victoria College Archives).
Given name: Helen Hunt
Family name: Jackson
Maiden name: Fiske
Birth date: 18 October 1830
Death date: 12 August 1885
Nationality: American
Education
Ipswich Female Seminary
Abbott Institute
Religion: Unitarian
Literary period: Realistic
Residences
Amherst, Massachusetts: 1830
Colorado Springs, Colorado: 1873 to 1874
Cause of death: Stomach Cancer
Buried at: Evergreen Cemetery, Colorado Springs