Rosella Rice Program 7/28/2011

Rosella Rice Program
7/28/2011

 

NEWS RELEASE FROM THE BUTLER-CLEAR FORK VALLEY HISTORICAL SOCIETY. CONTACT: PEGGY MERSHON, 419-989-1679 OR [email protected]. PLEASE ACKNOWLEDGE RECEIPT.

 

 

Nineteenth century author Rosella Rice (1827-1888) of Perrysville will be the subject of the Thursday, July 28, program at the Butler-Clear Fork Valley Historical Society Museum, 43 W. Elm St., Butler

 

Rice wrote hundreds of article for national magazines over a 40-year career, although she is best known now as an early Johnny Appleseed biographer.  The daughter and granddaughter of pioneers, she knew him as child and is said to have corresponded with him after his move to Indiana.

 

Many of her stories revolved around the lives of the early settlers of the Perrysville area, then in Richland County. She also wrote more contemporary articles and published one novel in 1859. She used several pseudonyms for different subjects, allowing her to appear several times in one publication. Household hints went under the name Pipsy Potts, and school mistress Chatty Brooks wrote advice for girls.

 

“She was very popular in her time,” said museum curator Peggy Mershon, whose interest in the author was revived when a Rice descendant this year donated many family papers, including some original Rosella writings.  Then she learned that Rosella’s only daughter, Lily Rice Stahl, had lived only two doors down from her in Butler and that her grandchildren had graduated from Butler High School

 

The donor of the Rice papers as well as Rosella Rice descendants and Johnny Appleseed scholar Bill Jones of Cincinnati have been invited to join Mershon in the discussion of the writer’s life and work. A book will be available for sale which combines some of Rosella’s stories with a detailed Rice genealogy. This was compiled by the late Richland County historian Mary Jane Armstrong Henney and published by the Ashland County Chapter of the Ohio Genealogical Society.

 

Also, Mershon is putting together a website, www.rosellarice.com, which will emphasize the author’s historical articles. She hopes to have this up and running by the time of the meeting.

 

The program, free and open to the public, will begin at 7 p.m. in the lower level of the museum, accessible from the rear parking lot. Refreshments will be served.  Contact Mershon, [email protected] or 419-989-1679, for more information.