Helen is a widowed purse designer, who has lived in New London all her life. Her husband died in a car crash in 2001, and she got remarried four years later to Frank Beardsley, her high school sweet heart. She had 10 children before her marriage, four biological children and six adopted ones. Jimi, Naoko, Lau, Bina, and Marisa are adopted; one of the other children is also adopted and the other four are biological, but it is never revealed which.