While she and her husband were sympathetic to the revolutionaries in China, whom she compared favorably to the Nationalists under Chiang Kai-shek, she was never a card-carrying Communist.

She was born to John Moody Foster and Hannah Davis, who met working as teachers at Ricks Academy, a school affiliated with the LDS Church.

After Helen's birth in Cedar City, the Fosters moved to Chicago so John could attend law school.

She often worked alongside her mother to care for her three younger brothers and complete chores, especially when financial circumstances were difficult for the Fosters.

[2]: 16 Upon entering high school, Helen moved to Salt Lake City to live with her grandmother and aunt.

She frequently worked on editing the school's yearbook and was elected student vice president of her senior class.

Due to her father's influence, Helen wanted to attend college at Stanford, but the cost of tuition was prohibitive.

According to Helen, her parents believed that "girls were not considered a good investment in higher education as they would only get married, while boys were worth it".

[3] Helen was working as a foreign correspondent for the Seattle Star through the Scripps-Canfield League, a newspaper publishing company, and was to provide images "glorifying the glamorous Orient".

[2] At a time when many Chinese were impatient with the Nationalist government for not opposing the Japanese more actively, the couple moved to Beiping, as Beijing was then called, and took up residence in a small house near Yenching University, where Edgar taught journalism.

[8] In 1935, Helen played a large role in orchestrating the anti-Japanese December 9th Movement at Yenching after the attack on Manchuria.

[2]: 58 The couple helped translate Living China, a collection of stories that served as a modern left-wing literary work.

[9]: 166  Her trip was much longer than anticipated as the Japanese occupied Northern China beginning in July of that same year and bad weather conditions made it impossible to travel.

[3] Chinese Communist leaders had not shared the history of the party previously as they wanted to be seen as equals within the community rather than "heroes of the people".

[7] Mao provided Helen with a letter introducing her as a war correspondent, which would give her access to otherwise restricted areas.

[7] Mao also requested that Helen share the Chinese Communist Party's "Ten Guiding Principles to Resist against Japan and Save the Nation" on an international scale.

[5]: 14  Helen's work with Mao gave her the opportunity to interview other important Communist Party figures in Yan'an, which would become the basis for her book.

Kang informed Helen of several issues the army were facing, including lack of soldiers and weaponry.

[12] The purpose for the industrial cooperatives was to create jobs and income so the Chinese people could wield economic power against Japan.

[2]: 138  The Nationalist Chinese Government under Chiang Kai-shek was willing to provide funding for the cooperatives and that support would continue under Mao Zedong.

[6]: 305  Helen used her writing position with certain publications to create support and financial backing in America for the Chinese Cooperatives.

Helen continued to promote the Indusco model as she remained a member and vice chairman of the American Committee to Aid Chinese Industrial Cooperatives until 1951 when it split.

In December 1940, the Snows decided to move back to the United States as they feared the Japanese would make them prisoners of war.

Prior to their departure, the New York Herald Tribune offered Edgar a position as a war correspondent and Helen encouraged him to take it.

[6]: 323  Upon his return to the United States, the couple lived in California for a short time and then moved into a small mid-1700s house in Madison, Connecticut.

[1] Helen spent the rest of her life in Connecticut, where she developed an interest in family genealogy, drafted a novel, and wrote short pieces on her experiences in China.

[12] On January 11, 1997, Helen Foster Snow died at the age of 89 at the Fowler Nursing Center in Guilford, Connecticut.

[12] An official Chinese memorial service took place in the Great Hall of the People on Tiananmen Square in Beijing, an honor rarely bestowed upon foreigners.

[15] After her death, in 1997, Helen's family donated remaining manuscripts, documents, and photographs to the Brigham Young University library.

[17] In 2009, the US–China Cultural Exchange Committee placed a 7-foot (2.1 m) tall bronze statue of Helen Foster Snow, cast in China, in the Main Street Park of her hometown of Cedar City.