Helen Aldrich De Kroyft papers

Helen (Aldrich) De Kroyft (October 29, 1818 - October 1915) was born in Rochester, New York. Christened Susan Helen Aldrich, and the oldest of twelve children, she was schooled at the Westfield Academy, Westfield, New York and at Genesee Wesleyan Seminary at Lima, New York. Following an engagement of some years, she married William De Kroyft, M.D. on July 25, 1845. He died later that day.

The cause of his death is variously explained. An obituary describes him as beginning his medical practice "with health somewhat impaired," and Mrs. De Kroyft's account in A Place in Thy Memory (1849) describes "hemorrhage of the lungs" and "consumption" during the two months preceding their marriage. Mrs. De Kroyft's long-time companion, Effie Douglass Fox, mentions a "fall from a carriage", "three days prior" as the cause of internal injuries which killed him. In any event, Dr. De Kroyft died and a month later Mrs. De Kroyft became blind, apparently from some infection of the eyes.

Helen De Kroyft then attended the New York Institution for the Blind, in New York City, where she learned to write straight across a page with the help of a card which guided her hand. Her first book, A Place in Thy Memory (1849), is a collection of letters to family members and friends written during this period, 1846 to 1849.

Mrs. De Kroyft's success as an author was as much her success as a book seller. Her method was to call on businessmen and public officials who entered their own subscriptions in her order book, and usually paid the price of the book in advance. In this way Mrs. De Kroyft personally sold over 150,000 copies of various of her works. This method produced an order book with the signatures of seven U. S. presidents, their cabinets, and many members of Congress including the entire Senate of 1850, state governors and numerous prominent citizens. Following the publication in 1849 of A Place in Thy Memory, and until her 94th year, Mrs. De Kroyft spent much of her time traveling throughout the United States selling her books. Her book sales enabled her to support herself and her parents, and to educate eight younger sisters.

Mrs. De Kroyft's written works were published over a fifty-five year span from 1849 to 1904. Three of these works (A Place in Thy Memory, 1849; Mortara 1888; and The Foreshadowed Way, 1901) are autobiographical in nature, collections of letters to family members and friends, recounting her experiences and with the addition of a variety of religious, philosophical and aesthetic reflections. The Story of Little Jakey, 1875, is a work of juvenile literature, and The Soul of Eve, 1904, is an essay on the dignity of humankind and the superiority of woman. The Soul of Eve, in lecture form, was delivered before audiences in New York, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania during the years 1871 through 1876.

Mrs. De Kroyft's last years, 1912 to 1915, were spent in Dansville, New York where she had established her father in business many years before and where members of her family lived.