Helen Sherman Griffith

Helen Sherman Griffith (1873 – July 13, 1961) was an American author. An Iowan, she was the "prolific" author of the Letty Grey series of children's books, published by Penn Publishing Company of Philadelphia. She was the daughter of Hoyt Sherman and Sara Sherman, who was born and raised in Des Moines, Iowa at Hoyt Sherman Place. Helen's bedroom has been restored and is part of the Hoyt Sherman Place house museum.

Her father was as a bank president and paymaster for the U.S. Army during the Civil War. She met her husband, the son of a successful cotton broker in Philadelphia, on an around the world cruise.

In 1914 she paid a visit to Des Moines Women's Club which was located in Hoyt Sherman Place, her childhood home. An article in the Des Moines Register captured the occasion: "It was at the close of the program that Mrs. Cowles told the delightful news that the Women's Club... board... had voted to dedicate the auditorium on the second floor of the club house to Mrs. Helen Sherman Griffith. It was the same room the Mrs. Griffith, then known to her friends as Nellie Sherman, passed her girlhood days and dreamed her dreams and wove her fancies - dreams and fancies that have since taken more permanent form in delightful stories of children and young folks."

She wrote three plays in 1899: The Minister's Wife, The Burglar Alarm, and A Borrowed Luncheon. She had quips published in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine. Her novel for adults, The Lane, was a bestseller in the 1920s.