Helen in the Editor's Chair

When her father's health gives out from running the Rolfe Herald, sixteen-year-old Helen Blair makes a choice that will change her life: she won't let the newspaper die. With her brother Tom at her side and her father gone to the Southwest for a rest cure, Helen discovers that keeping a small-town paper alive during the Depression requires more than ink and determination. She must earn respect in a world that assumes a young woman can't possibly run a press. Wheeler writes with affection for her characters and clear-eyed compassion for the real struggles of small-town America, creating a story that feels both historical and urgently relevant. This is a novel about what ordinary people do when circumstances demand the extraordinary from them, and what they discover about themselves in the process.