Her family was ethnically Jewish, and she was baptized into the Christian religion as a result of widespread Anti Semitism [citation needed].

[3][5] On Good Friday of 1913, she travelled with Albert to Lambaréné, Gabon, beginning her medical missionary adventure.

In one of his letters, he notes "it is you who have won, happy to have found a task that will fill your life, and you’ve done it ahead of me", addressing her social work in Strasbourg's City Orphan Administration.

[6] Helene and Albert shared one main common goal: to help improve medicine and the greater good in Lambaréné, Gabon.

[citation needed] This journey to make medical improvements in Africa allowed Helene to develop herself.

Patti Marxsen writes that Helene's "capacity for hard work in a challenging environment can be read as proof that her independence earned in Strasbourg was now unshakeable.

For the now thirty-four-year-old Helene Bresslau Schweitzer...a life in Africa offered a chance to integrate multiple aspects of modern identity, perhaps even more so than would have been possible in Europe.

[3] In the first nine months, Helene and Albert had about 2,000 patients to examine, some travelling many days and hundreds of kilometers to reach the hospital.

When Albert decided to return to Africa in 1924, he took on an Oxford undergraduate, Noel Gillespie, as assistant, leaving Helene behind.

In 1919 after the birth of their daughter (Rhena Schweitzer Miller), Helene was no longer able to live in Lambaréné due to her health.

Despite her poor health, she still took care of her daughter, "engage[d] herself with the Hospital Aid Association," and "enroll[ed] in a three-week course in tropical medicine at the Medical Missionary Institute of Tübingen, Germany."

Shortly after arriving, however, she developed a bad fever and was forced to depart the hospital and her husband to return to Europe for treatment.

She turned her medical challenges into positives, explaining that through her suffering she developed a compassionate view of their work that only she could personally attest.

She was officially diagnosed in the spring of 1922 with laryngeal tuberculosis after exhibiting symptoms of "pain, fever, and coughing up blood."

Her aid in the poor relief system, "Armenpflegesystem," mirrored in modern social welfare, saw the illegitimate mortality rate fall.

Setting precedence as a female medical missionary in the early 20th century, she established lasting effects of nursing and education in Lambaréné.

She co-founded the Schweitzer Hospital, documented much of Albert's autobiography, and "supported the [mission] work with lectures and fund-raising" essential to its upkeep and vivacity.