 While in the Normal School, from which she was graduated, Helen R. Rathbun showed such decided talent that Frederick O. Sylvester, her instructor, urged her to devote her undivided time to this branch of art.A short course in the St. Louis Art School was of much value, but she then mainly trained under Edgar J. Bissell (1861-1928), and later married him.Helen R. Rathbun worked in water colors and oil and children were her favorite subjects, although interior scenes were also handled with superior skill, and outdoor studies, landscapes and street scenes showed an effort to realize the light and air which nature surrounded and spred over all of her works, a constant cry for light and always more light.