Helen was born in Kaikohe, Bay of Islands, and was educated at Kawakawa Primary School and Bay of Islands College in Kawakawa. She attended Ardmore Teachers’ Training College where she graduated with a Diploma of Teaching (Primary). She continued her studies at Auckland University and graduated with a B.A. in Education and Anthropology in 1967 and an M.A. in Education in 1971. She has Certificates of Proficiency from Auckland University for Art History I and II, and English II and III. She has worked as a secondary school teacher at Selwyn College in Auckland and is now retired. Helen is a home executive, writes non-fiction articles and short stories, is preparing a non-fiction book, and records oral history.
Biographical sources
- Correspondence and phone conversation with Helen Mountain Harte, 5 Feb. and 29 July 1998, and 6 May 2004.
Non-fiction
- "Māori Childbirth in the 1930s." New Countries and Old Medicines. Ed. Dere Dow. Auckland, N.Z.: Pyramid, Auckland U Medical School, 1990.
- Harte writes that this article is a comparison between pre-European child-birth practices and child birth techniques of the 1930s as recorded by women in their eighties living in the Bay of Islands.
- "‘The Whanau Came In And Helped’: Māori Childbirth Practises in The 1930s." Standing in the Sunshine: A History of New Zealand Women Since They Won the Vote. Principal author and principal researcher - text and illustrations Sandra Coney. Editorial advisers - Charlotte Macdonald, Anne Else, Dame Joan Metge, Tania Rei, Ngahuia Te Awekotuku, Angela Ballara, Merimeri Penfold, Rosemarie Smith. Auckland, N.Z.: Viking, Penguin, 1993. 58-59.
- Harte writes of Māori childbirth practices after interviewing women who gave birth to children in the 1930s and notes the violations of tapu and disempowerment of mothers who gave birth in hospitals.
- "A Māori Health Nurse: The Health Work of Emere Makere Waiwaha Kaa Mountain." Standing in the Sunshine: A History of New Zealand Women Since They Won the Vote. Principal author and principal researcher - text and illustrations Sandra Coney. Editorial advisers - Charlotte Macdonald, Anne Else, Dame Joan Metge, Tania Rei, Ngahuia Te Awekotuku, Angela Ballara, Merimeri Penfold, Rosemarie Smith. Auckland, N.Z.: Viking, Penguin, 1993. 102-103.
- Co-authors Elizabeth Mountain Ellis and Helen Mountain Harte.
The authors provide a biographical account of the nursing career of Ngāti Porou kuia Emere Makere Waiwaha Kaa Mountain.
- "Home Births to Hospital Births: Interviews with Māori Women Who had Their Babies in the 1930s." Health and History Journal 3.1 (2001): 87-108.