Helen A. Sargent was born in November 17, 1872 in Jasper, New York, the daughter of Jason Sumner and Anstis Maria Whiting Sargent. After she graduated from Jamaica High School (NY), she received her B.A. degree from Oberlin College in 1900. She taught German, English and Latin at York Collegiate Institute (PA) for two years, then in 1903, she accepted a position as Professor of Classics in Huguenot College in Wellington, South Africa. She continued graduate work in absentia and was granted a Master of Arts degree from Oberlin in 1905. She also received a Master of Arts degree from the University of the Cape of Good Hope in 1906. Except for furloughs spent in the United States, she continued to teach at the same post, and after retirement she remained in Wellington where she died on July 12, 1954 of cancer.

She was a member of the Executive Committee of the Students’ Christian Association of South Africa and President of the Teachers’ Christian Association. She was also on the Ladies’ Committee of the Wellington Board of the Sudan United Mission, and president of the Huguenot Missionary Society.