Meet Our January 2010
Feature Poet
Helen Steiner Rice
(1900 - 1981)
Helen Steiner Rice was an American writer of religious and inspirational poetry.
Helen Steiner was born in Lorain, Ohio on May 19, 1900. Her father, a
railroad worker, died in the influenza epidemic of 1918. She began work
for a public utility and progressed to the position of advertising
manager, which was rare for a woman at that time. She also became the
Ohio State Chairman of the Women's Public Information Committee of the
Electric Light Association, and campaigned for women's rights and
improved working conditions
In 1929 she married Franklin Rice, a bank vice-president in Dayton,
Ohio. After the stock market crash in October that year, Franklin lost
his job and his investments. He fell into a depression from which he
never recovered, and committed suicide in 1932. Rice became a
successful businesswoman and lecturer, but found her most satisfying
outlet in writing verse for a prominent greeting card company. Her
poems received wide exposure in the 1960s when several were read by
Aladdin on the poetry segment of the Lawrence Welk television show.
The demand for her poems became so great that her books are still
selling steadily after many printings, and she has been acclaimed as
"America's beloved inspirational poet laureate". Helen Steiner Rice’s
books of inspirational poetry have now sold nearly seven million copies
and have comforted and encouraged readers for over fifty years. The
strong faith she had in God and the ability she had to express deep
emotion give her poems timeless appeal. For millions of readers the
poetry of Helen Steiner Rice is a living testimony to the reality of
God’s action in human lives.
She died in 1981 and was buried in Elmwood Cemetery in Lorain, Ohio.
Read her official biography at Helen Steiner Rice.com
Read the collected work of Helen Steiner Rice on PoeticPortal
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