Between 1906 and 1909, the Hawks family started to live in Pasadena, California because of the cold Wisconsin winters. This helped Helen Hawks's ill health. Little by little they started to live in Wisconsin only in the summers. They then moved to Pasadena for good in 1910. The family lived in a house down the street from Throop Polytechnic Institute (later known as the California Institute of Technology). The Hawks children started going to the school's Polytechnic Elementary School in 1907.