Helen Eliza Melvin was born on May 10, 1857 and graduated from Mount Holyoke in 1879. She taught at a variety of schools before returning to Mount Holyoke in 1882, where she taught rhetoric and the U.S. Constitution until 1883. She then sailed for Turkey to work as a missionary. She taught at the Girls College in Istanbul until 1891. She returned to the United States very ill, and could not return to Turkey. From 1895-97 she did social work in Manchester, New Hampshire. She died on December 12, 1936 in Chester, New Hampshire.