Helen Enid Hammerman was born March 23, 1930, in Chicago, Illinois, to a Jewish family, from Germany, Austria, Galicia, and Russia.
Her mother, Cecilia Kagan, was a member of the Jewish-American Sarnatzky family and fled pogroms in Czarist Russia.
Growing up in Glencoe, Illinois, Helen Enid graduated from New Trier High School in 1948 and attended Sarah Lawrence College in New York State.
[1] Hammerman's experience abroad in the early 1960s with her second husband drove her towards a life of international service and political involvement.
Passionate about the school's ability to train people for careers in the arts and media, she became a trustee there in 1979 and served on the board until her death.