Helen Marx was born in Lake Charles, Louisiana on May 13, 1894. She attended Belmont College for Young Women from 1908-1911 and received a special degree in English. After school, she returned to Lake Charles and eventually married Richard Joseph Zander on June 18, 1919. The couple moved to Pennsylvania where he worked as a partner in a men’s clothing manufacturing business and Helen was a homemaker. They had four children: Judith, Richard Jr., Julia, and Simone. Richard Zander Sr. died on December 17, 1954, and Helen passed on March 5, 1982.