They started their new life together initially homesteading a land patent in Yellow Medicine County near Canby, Minnesota.

Due to the financial Panic of 1893 and her husband's accidents, the family could not pay the mortgage or taxes on their home and farmland.

Together with Clara, her 17-year-old daughter, Helga tried to save her family farm by walking 3,500 miles across country to New York City.

[7] On arrival in New York, the sponsor of the contest refused to pay or help them back home, saying the women had missed their deadline.

Her notes were destroyed, but her story was carried on through oral tradition, by her family and through newspaper clippings saved by her daughter-in-law.