Helen Adolf was born in Vienna where she attented an art school from 1915 to 1918. She studied at the University of Vienna and graduated as Doctor of philology with highest honor in 1923. Adolf worked for Reclau publishing house in Leipzig, Germany, as compiler of anthologies and at the same time she studied privately and was engaged in writing. Adolf became a member of International Society for Psychology of Religion of which she served as secretary from 1923 to 1938.
In April 1939, following the annexation of Austria to Nazi Germany, she immigrated to the USA, where she received aid from relatives and from American Friends Service Committee.
Adolf attended the summer school at the University of Pennsylvania studing Spanish, from 1939 to 1940. She was head of Latin department at Foxcraft, Virginia, from 1940 to 1941, teacher of French at San Luis Ranch School, Colorado, from 1942 to 1943, a member of faculty at Pennsylvania State University, after 1943, and then an instructor of German, French and Spanish at Altoona, Pennsylvania undergraduate center, from 1943 to 1946. Helen Adolf became assistant professor in 1946-47, then associate professor, from 1947 to 1953, professor of German, from 1953 to 1963, and professor emeritus, after 1963. Concurrently, from 1963 to 1966, Helen Adolf was visiting professor of German at Muhlenberg College, Allentown, Pennsylvania; during the summer of 1966 teacher of graduates in course of German at the University of Pennsylvania.
Helen Adolf is known as specialist in linguistics and religious psychology, also noted for poetry, and historical and cultural studies. She was a member of M.C.A. (Mediaeval Academy of America); Linguistic Society of America; Arthurian Society, and P.E.N. (Aust.). She received Honorary Mention in Journal of Aesthetics (1951); Louis H. Bell Memorial Award from Pennsylvania University (1960); Ehrenkreutz 1st class, arts and letters, (Austria 1972).
Helen Adolf translated Jeanne Galzy’s Therese von Avila, des lebensroman einer Heiligen (Munich, 1929); she was the compiler of Dem neuen Reich entgegen, 1850-1871 (Leipzig, 1930); and of In neuen Reich, 1871-1914 (Leipzig, 1932); Wortgeschichtliche Studien zum Leib/Seele-Problem (Vienna, 1937) and others. She contributed more than 50 articles and 70 reviews to professional journals.