Mary H. (Mary Helen) Fee

Born in October 1864 in Quincy, Illinois, Mary Helen Fee was an American teacher and writer. She taught English and history at the Normal School in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, later earned a teaching credential from the University of Chicago in 1901, and soon after went to the Philippines as part of the American colonial school system.

That experience shaped her best-known work, A Woman's Impression of the Philippines, a firsthand account that helped introduce many American readers to the islands and to daily life there in the early twentieth century. She also wrote The Locusts' Years, a novel set in the Philippines, and was one of the contributors to The First Year Book.

Fee's life reached beyond the classroom and the page. During World War I, she served as a canteen worker in France, adding another chapter of public service to a career already marked by travel, observation, and a strong sense of engagement with the wider world.