Describe her fathers tragic death in her words.

Helen remembers her father as being a very kind and loving man. He was a Civil War veteran, having served as a captain in the Confederate army, and later worked as a newspaper editor during Helen's childhood. Helen had very many happy memories of her father. She remembered him as a man who loved his big, beautiful garden, where he would lead Helen by the hand as she touched the trees and flowers. He was also an extremely gregarious, hospitable man, always inviting guests home for dinner. When Helen first acquired the skill of communicating by hand, her father would try and tell her his cleverest anecdotes, albeit rather clumsily.
Having built up a favorable picture of her father; it is not surprising that Helen expresses great sadness about his death in 1896, when she was still a young adult:

I was in the North, enjoying the last beautiful days of the summer of 1896, when I heard the news of my father's death. He had had a short illness, there had been a brief time of acute suffering, then all was over. This was my first great sorrow-my first personal experience with death.