by Susan Couso
Curiosity may have caused a decline in the world’s feline population, but it has driven the human race to wonder and create and to excel and fail, all to make new achievements in every aspect of our lives.
Those who are blessed with this magical trait are often great achievers, and one of those amazing people was Helen Sybil Carkin.
Helen was born in Washington state in 1917. Her father, Harry, worked as a traveling auditor for the railroad, so the family moved at the discretion of his employer. When Helen was 6 years old, mom Elizabeth provided a baby sister, named Anita Montana.
At this point, they all lived in Billings, Montana. Shortly after, the family migrated to St. Paul, Minnesota, where Helen attended local schools.
As a young girl, Helen stood out. By the time she was in high school in St. Paul, she was a noted speed skater. But Helen had the idea that she should learn as much as she could, about as many things as she could, whenever she could. This was just the beginning.
After graduating Central High, she attended the University of Minnesota where she received a bachelor’s degree in botany, with a ‘minor’ in art. Always, she excelled in art. This led her into an early career as a scientific illustrator, as one of her instructors, Dr. Earnest Abbe noticed her fine laboratory drawings.
Helen continued to work as a scientific illustrator for several years. This was her first career, and her first love.
After graduation from the University of Minnesota, Helen worked for the university doing scientific research and medical research. Her work in the study of the structure of wool fiber has been greatly studied and admired.
She also worked as a lab and X-ray technician. Her illustrations were in great demand, and she did freelance work for medical books and doctor’s research.
When WWII broke out, Helen gave her art career a back seat to the war effort. She secured a position as a civilian employee at Ford Ord in Monterey, California.
Because she was an excellent markswoman and could expertly repair and maintain firearms, and because she had a college degree, Helen was hired as a gunsmith to oversee 30 employees who worked for the government to refurbish small arms to be returned to combat use. Here, Helen invented a machine which could clean one hundred guns per hour, a great boon to the attempt to efficiently get the weapons back into service.
With the war over, Helen turned again to her art, and to teaching. While at university in Minnesota, in 1940, Helen married Richard P. (Esswein) Wagner. But things didn’t work out for the Wagners, and they went their ‘separate ways’. With the marriage to Wagner and the war behind her, Helen settled in California, where she married Arthur A. Ebert.
Helen had always considered her more significant work to be that of artist and teacher, so, in California, she returned to those efforts. While Arthur worked as a machinist and welder, Helen taught art in Monterey, Pacific Grove and Carmel before moving to Reno, Nevada.
In Reno, she completed her master’s degree at the University of Nevada. While there, she worked to create a film highlighting the importance of teaching art to children with mental disabilities. For this work, she was awarded several honorary doctorate degrees.
Helen Ebert continued teaching elementary through college level courses, creating her art, and working for Carson-Tahoe and Washoe Medical Center as a lab and X-ray technician for several years. She was also an expert watchmaker and repairer, something she had done since childhood.
Unfortunately, her marriage to Arthur Ebert fared no better than her marriage to Richard Wagner. On the heels of her divorce, Helen decided to move to Susanville in about 1955.
She taught at Lassen High School and at Lassen College, and she taught night classes for the community. She could also often be found at the college’s gunsmithing department, where she would blue and repair her own guns. She was an expert shot, but due to her love of animals, she aimed her missiles at paper targets only.
But her other careers tugged at her too. She worked as a lab and X-ray technician at Susanville’s Riverside hospital on weekends, and then drove to Reno, where she continued working for Washoe Medical Center, and taught night classes in art at the university. She was one busy woman.
Back in 1942 Richard and Helen Wagner had a son. At the time, they were living at Camp Lewis, Washington. Here, the tale gets a bit confusing. Helen’s son was called Philip Ebert while they lived in Reno and Susanville, but in 1962, he changed it to Richard Philip Wagner. One can only guess the reasoning, but he remained Richard Wagner for the rest of his life.
In 1958, Lassen County lost its busiest woman when Helen and Philip, a high school junior, moved to Chico. At Chico, Helen began her final career, as an artist and educator, teaching at Chico State University.
Helen’s final attempt at marital bliss occurred in 1969, when she married Robert Edwin Freeman, but alas, by 1973, they divorced.
But Helen Carkin emerged from the marriage fully embracing art. She became a prolific author, penning such works as; The Battle of Fort Ord, a memoir of her years there, and several books on the Javanese method of batik, something at which she became an expert.
She also created many films and videos on art instruction. Art was her passion. She finally retired from Chico State University in 1988, but she continued to promote life and beauty through her enthusiasm for art.
Helen Carkin died in 2002, after many years of showing the world just what might be achieved with curiosity propelling us onward.
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