Helen Knothe Nearing

Helen Knothe was born into a theosophist family in New Jersey in 1904. She did not want a traditional American education, but went to Europe to study the violin. While there she had a relationship and traveled with the young Jiddu Krishnamurti.

Upon her return to the United States, still uncertain what she wanted to do with her life, she met Scott Nearing. Scott, 20 years older, was at the nadir of his life, having been asked to leave two universities for his radical economic and pacifist views, and tried for espionage for “obstructing the enlistment” of men into the Army in 1918. Scott was a prolific writer and speaker and Helen became his secretary and companion. They lived in New York until Scott bought property in 1934 in Vermont which he and Helen called “Forest Farm.”

Helen was a life-long vegetarian and Scott had become one. They wanted to live simply and self-reliantly, as much as possible. They began gardening and harvesting maple sugar which they sold as a cash crop. Each day was divided into three parts, one part for what they called “bread labor (gardening, chopping wood, building in stone),” one part for community work (writing and publishing) and one part for self improvement (educating themselves). In the winter, Scott continued to travel and speak and Helen wrote and published books, the first being The Maple Sugar Book, which described their sugaring techniques.

Helen’s biographer Ellen La Conte says she was an excellent salesman and publicist, with a considerable amount of “hustle.” In addition to writing books, they built nine stone buildings on the farm. Helen had never done physical work but she took to it, gardening, composting, working with wood. She loved building with stone, and became the person who did the pointing, laying in lime or cement mortar between stones.

When their home became part of a holiday ski area, the Nearings moved to Maine, to Cape Rosier, where their cash crop was raising blueberries. Living the Good Life was published in 1954 and it drew countless people to the farm to study the Nearings’ lifestyle. The Nearings were generous, feeding their visitors and getting them to help build roads, buildings and gardens. They lived a very public life, setting high standards for themselves and others, and publishing many more books. Their homesteads had no electricity, used composting outhouses and were heated with wood. Communication was by mail.

When Scott was in his 90’s and Helen in her 70’s, they built their last stone home, publishing Our Home Made of Stone in 1983. By this time Helen was making most of the decisions. She had help with carpentry, but she designed the place and did all the pointing. This last home, also called Forest Farm, has become the Good Life Center, an institute for education. Scott died in 1983 at 100 years of age, and Helen followed in 1995.

I love many things about the way the Nearings lived, and especially Our Home Made of Stone, which is mostly photographs. I have always hoped to one day build a stone house! Biographical materials on Helen are plentiful. She appears in many Youtube videos, including this one. Her own writing on “the good life” is straightforward and practical.