Helen Marion Palmer Geisel (September 16, 1898 – October 23, 1967)

"Whatever Helen did, she did it out of absolute love for Ted." -niece of Dr. Seuss, Peggy

"her last and greatest gift to him." -Secretary Julie Olfe

These words were spoken of a woman who had committed suicide. The “gift,” these two woman were referring to was her death. Yes, you read this correctly. Her death was a “gift,” to her husband, according to the two women above.

The so-called husband’s name is a household staple for children’s literature: Dr. Seuss. More importantly, her name was Helen Marion Palmer Geisel. Out of all the books that Dr. Seuss published, created and written, how many people knew the woman behind the success?

I find that women in history often get overlooked, erased and forgotten with a careless disregard, amoral cruelty and ignorance. Like in WWII, the secret French spy Joséphine Baker who gathered crucial intelligence on high ranking axis forces. This earned her the Croix de Guerre and Rosette de la Résistance from General de Gaulle for her service. In science, mathematics and war, women often become subjects of interest only whenever directors want to make a big biopic.

I find it very difficult to understand how people can use people for someone else’s success, emotionally draining their life and their personal ambitions, and somehow chalk it up to it being nothing more than a trifle. When you get married, you trust the other person to be more than your roommate or cooking/cleaning service. You trust them with your dreams, your fears, your sorrows, in sickness and in health. You trust that they’ll support you, love you in the hardest times and be there when you most need them.

It is devastating when you come to find out the one person you trusted most is the one who holds the dagger. When it comes to Helen, the concept of love lasting forever only goes one way. Helen had been suspecting that her husband, Theodor Seuss Geisel, was having an affair. This on top of her crippling depression and mental health issues, was the toppling weight that caused her severe decline. She committed suicide after finding the loss of her relationship with her husband to be too devastating to live with. Eight months later, the so-called children’s writer, Theodor Seuss Geisel, married Audrey Dimond. This was woman who he cheated on his wife with.

Here is an excerpt of her suicide note to her husband. She also wrote an addendum to protect her husband’s status and image:

Dear Ted, What has happened to us? I don't know. I feel myself in a spiral, going down down down, into a black hole from which there is no escape, no brightness. And loud in my ears from every side I hear, "failure, failure, failure..." I love you so much ... I am too old and enmeshed in everything you do and are, that I cannot conceive of life without you ... My going will leave quite a rumor but you can say I was overworked and overwrought. Your reputation with your friends and fans will not be harmed ... Sometimes, think of the fun we had all thru the years …

In my opinion, this whole entire series of events was a horrific, tragic and preventable event. Helen should have had more support. She needed someone to have her back. This could have been prevented if someone would’ve cared. It’s sickening to me that two women of all people, act as though Helen needed to die in order for Dr. Seuss to be happy, live with his mistress and be “free.”

Dehumanizing Helen as less than nothing, making her death somehow finally give her worth, it’s a disgusting and cruel way to talk about a real human being. I understand that people make mistakes and people cheat. I don’t personally feel like cheaters are great people, but I don’t think they are evil. Unfortunately in this situation, I will say Dr. Seuss’s crocodile tears and bland words of sympathy are worth less than a dime store smut novel. This was his response to his wife’s death:

"I didn't know whether to kill myself, burn the house down, or just go away and get lost." -Dr. Seuss.

I’d say you should’ve done the last suggestion: get lost.

I’m sorry to be crass but this particular scene that was set up to make a woman that loved, dreamed, had passions and wishes, perhaps wanted to show the world her beauty and love too, into nothing more than a small shadow of worthlessness in the huge media shadow of Dr. Seuss’s…. It’s a shame, a damn shame.

As a writer myself, I find that the dehumanization of women has been all too prevalent in our society. Erasure and oppression has been our normal. We have become so brainwashed by this nonsensical, abusive and hateful narrative, that some women actually talk in favor of it. Such as the two women I quoted in the beginning of my article.

I don’t know these women personally but when you trivialize an entire human being’s life into a death that “benefits” someone else, you’re a disgrace and a bad person, in my opinion.

According to Wikipedia, this is the body of Helen’s work as a writer and artist, (this is a direct quote from her Wikipedia page):

Helen Palmer's best-known book is Do You Know What I'm Going To Do Next Saturday?, published in 1963. This book combined Palmer's stories with photographs by Lynn Fayman, as did two other books: I Was Kissed by a Seal at the Zoo (1962) and Why I Built the Boogle House (1964). The photographs in I Was Kissed by a Seal at the Zoo were taken at the San Diego Zoo in Balboa Park, San Diego, California, and featured children from the Francis Parker School in San Diego interacting with the zoo's animals and staff.

She also expanded the Dr. Seuss short story "Gustav the Goldfish," originally published in Redbook, into the book A Fish Out of Water (1961), which was illustrated by P. D. Eastman.[12] In 2012, A Fish Out of Water was included in the Beginner Books anthology The Big Purple Book of Beginner Books.[13]

Helen was steadfastly committed and dedicated to her husband’s career. She added artistically and professionally to his legacy and yet no one acknowledges it. I looked up "Gustav the Goldfish," and it looks as though currently it is out of print. It looks like you can only download the pdf version. My main question was if Helen was in the acknowledgment section of this particular book. I only saw, By Dr. Seuss. I understand that it’s an expansion to his short story. It would still be important to list her as well as she continues the story in another book.

I have also researched deeper into this and she was also the editor for all his books and helped him with the themes for his stories. Helen was the one who wrote the pivotal lines from the climatic ending for Horton Hatches the Egg.

It hurts that artists like Helen are forgotten and treated like less than second class citizens in our history. I believe she should be given more credit and recognition for her contributions to children’s literature and cultural heritage. Her uncredited work and contributions to Dr. Seuss’s books are a travesty and an erasure of a talented and influential writer.

I hope history teaches us that erasure of any kind never helps us understand how to fix things. We need more transparency and more accountability for ourselves in the most important fields: Science, Stem, Art, History, Math, Chemistry and Medicine.

Rest in Peace, Helen Marion Palmer Geisel. You are loved, worthy and beloved. Your life was a gift. Your death was a loss to our world.