The Moral Vision
Labour of a Lifetime
~ 170 ~
LABOUR OF A LIFETIME
Helen Hooven Santmyer is now 88 years old, crippled
and half-blind. She also suffers from emphysema.
Because of her infirmity, she resides permanently in a
nursing-home in Xenia, Ohio, U.S.A.
Over fifty years ago, when Helen Hooven Santyer
was working as a reference librarian, she started to
write a book. At first she worked on it in her spare
time. Then, when ill-health forced her to retire, she
continued her work in the nursing-home where she
now lives.
She wrote the whole book out herself, in longhand,
on a ledger. In 1982, her work complete, she
presented it to the Ohio State University Press for
publication. The final manuscript filled 11 boxes. A
handful of copies were printed, but the book met
with no initial success. It seemed as if Helen
Hooven Santmyer’s name would vanish without
trace from the American literary scene.
But at least one person who bought the book read it
and liked it. He was praising it in an Ohio library
one day when the librarian overheard his