The Connecticut Dances Compendium provided me with Westport information about Helen "Nell" Alexander, who arrived from Hawaii around 1920 and purchased a large property along the Saugatuck River and fashioned it into an arts colony. As a writer about Hawaii, my primary interest is Miss Alexander's previous restaurant and little theater complex in downtown Honolulu but her connection with Ted Shawn and Ruth St. Denis, outlined in a chapter by Norton Owen, provides a fascinating side story that I knew little about. "The Helen Alexander Cook Book" (later "The Helen Alexander Hawaiian Cook Book") was originally published in 1926 in New York. Miss Alexander returned to Honolulu in 1937 and passed away in 1942. -- Ronn Ronck
