Helen Steiner Rice

• Name — Helen Steiner Rice • Birth Name — Helen Steiner • Born — 19 May 1900 • Birthplace — Lorain, Ohio • Died — 23 April 1981 • Place of death — Lorain, Ohio • Occupation — Businesswoman, poet • Genre — Christian poetry

Helen Steiner was born in Lorain, Ohio on May 19, 1900. While still in high school Helen planned to attend college. However, after her father, a railroad worker, died in the influenza epidemic of 1918, the same year she graduated from Lorain High School, she had to change plans. After graduation, she began work for the Lorain Electric Light and Power Company and progressed to the position of advertising manager, which was rare for a woman at that time. She also became the Ohio State Chairwoman of the Women's Public Information Committee of the Electric Light Association, and campaigned for women's rights and improved working conditions. Eventually she opened her own speaking engagement business where she continued to promote her business advise as advocating for women in the workplace. In 1929, she married Franklin Dryden 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 re-entered the workforce in 1931 to support her husband and herself when she accepted a position at the Gibson Art Company in Cincinnati, Ohio. Rice's lifelong passion for writing poetry flourished, and she continued to work at Gibson's after her husband's death. Her poems received wide exposure in the 1960s when several were read by Aladdin on the poetry segment of the Lawrence Welk television show. She has been described the "poet laureate of the greeting‐card world". Steiner Rice's books of poetry have sold millions of copies. She died on the evening of April 23, 1981, at age 80, and was buried in Elmwood Cemetery in Lorain, Ohio. After her death, New York Times described her as, "...the largest-selling author of religious poetry, with sales of her books regularly surpassing 100,000 copies." Pope John Paul II, President Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn were admirers of her artistry.