You are on the right track here, but consider what the contained object is:
std::list <person*> people;
You're right that the instantiated list entry (what the article calls "helper") will directly include a value, but the value here is a pointer to a person, not a person.
I had overlooked that he was using a pointer to the struct, and so I was interpreting things to be that C++ was actually doing under the hood allocations. I'm glad I asked though, cause I was really worried about C++ for a second there :)
So it seems like if the author had wanted he could have used C++ like a safer version of C macros, which if I ever need to use C++ will likely be my approach too.
