Helen Maria Conklin was born around October 1836 in Massachusetts to Waldo and Fanny Conklin. Her father was a United States armorer who owned $400 of personal property by 1860. The family lived in Springfield, Massachusetts, and by 1860, she was working in a cartridge shop. She married Walter H. Wild in Texas on March 17, 1866, and they had at least two children: Ella, born around 1869; and Charles, born around 1876. She lived with her mother in Springfield, and she may have separated from her husband. The 1870, 1880, and 1900 censuses all list them living separately. She died of diabetes in Springfield on November 24, 1907.