Helen Nearing

Helen Knothe Nearing (February 23, 1904 – September 17, 1995) was an American author and advocate of simple living.

Biography 
Helen Knothe was born on February 23, 1904 in Ridgewood, New Jersey as the daughter of Frank Knothe, who had a clothing business. She grew up in an economically comfortable family of Theosophists. She graduated from Ridgewood High School and studied the violin internationally. As a young woman, she had a romantic relationship with Jiddu Krishnamurti.

She and Scott Nearing started a relationship in 1928 and married nearly 20 years later, on December 12, 1947 when she was 43 and he was 64. In 1934, the couple left New York City for Winhall in rural Vermont, where they had purchased a rather large forest tract for $2200 and a moderate-sized farm for $2500. They aspired to live a more “purposeful” life and improve their health while disassociating from modern society. At the homestead, they lived a largely ascetic and self-reliant life, growing much of their own food and putting up nine stone buildings over the course of two decades. Cash was earned from producing maple syrup and maple sugar from the trees on their land and from Scott Nearing's occasional paid lectures. However, in her book Meanwhile, Next Door to the Good Life, Jean Hay Bright documents that the Nearings were both heavily subsidized by substantial inheritances which supported their forest farm. In 1934, around the time they purchased the Vermont property, Helen inherited between $30,000–$40,000 from former suitor J. J. van der Leeuw (). Scott received an inheritance from his father that was said to be "at least a million dollars" in 1940 according to Nearing's son Robert. Hay Bright's calculations make clear that while very hard working homesteaders, the Nearings never came close to supporting themselves on their "cash crops" as they state.

The Nearings left the Vermont homestead in 1952 after the area saw an increase in ski tourism, moving to a homestead in Brooksville, Maine, on Cape Rosier, where they continued growing much of their own food. They cultivated blueberries as a cash crop. In 1954, the couple published Living the Good Life which inspired many young, educated Americans to create simpler, rural lifestyles and the back-to-the-land movement of the 1960s and 70s.

In the summer of 1991, Helen and Scott were inducted into the Vegetarian Hall of Fame of the North American Vegetarian Society.

Death and legacy 
Helen Nearing died in 1995 as the result of a single-car accident in Harborside, Maine. The Maine estate was left for The Trust for Public Land which established the Good Life Center to continue the Nearing's legacy. The Thoreau Institute acquired the papers of the couple.

Published works
 The Good Life Picture Album (1974)
 Simple Food for the Good Life (1980)
 Wise Words for the Good Life (1980)
 Our Home Made of Stone (1983)
 Loving and Leaving the Good Life (1992)
 Light on Aging and Dying (1995)

Co-authored with Scott Nearing
 The Maple Sugar Book: being a plain practical account of the Art of Sugaring designed to promote an acquaintance with the Ancient as well as the Modern practise, together with remarks on Pioneering as a way of living in the twentieth century. New York: John Day Co., 1950.
 Living the Good Life (1954) 
 Socialists Around the World (1958)
 Building and Using Our Sun-Heated Greenhouse (1977)
 Continuing the Good Life (1979)
 The Good Life (1989)

References

External links

 
The Good Life Center

Category:1904 births
Category:1995 deaths
Category:American tax resisters
Category:Simple living advocates
Category:Writers from New Jersey
Category:Writers from Vermont
Category:20th-century American women writers
Category:20th-century American non-fiction writers
Category:People from Brooksville, Maine
Category:People from Ridgewood, New Jersey
Category:Ridgewood High School (New Jersey) alumni
Category:American women non-fiction writers