Heloise Bowles Reese

Background

Heloise Bowles Cruse was born on May 4, 1919 in Fort Worth, Texas, one of twin daughters of Charles Louis Bowles and Amelia Harrison.

Education

Educated in Forth Worth public schools, Heloise attended the Texas School of Fine Arts in 1938 and earned diplomas from both Felt and Tarrent Business College and Draughn's Business College in 1939.

Career

In 1948 she and her second husband were stationed in China, where she wrote much of the material for her later book, Heloise in China (1972); the couple returned to Texas in early 1950.

Captain Cruse's Air Force assignments took the family from Waco, Texas, to Arlington Va. , in 1953 and then Hawaii in 1958. There Heloise amassed a record 12, 000 hours of volunteer nurse's-aide service. But the woman who once claimed to have been the only girl to take shop class at her high school needed another outlet for her incredible energy and curiosity about how things work. From a chance remark at a navy officers' cocktail party, Heloise approached the editor of the Honolulu Advertiser and offered to write a column free for six weeks to prove that she could do it.

The column, begun in 1959 as "Readers' Exchange, " encouraged people to write in both questions and responses to other readers' questions about common household problems. It proved to be so popular that the paper's circulation rose 40 percent in less than three years. By the time it was syndicated by King Features in 1961, the column had been retitled "Hints from Heloise, " and she was receiving thousands of letters weekly, including one avalanche of more than 200, 000 requests for a small booklet she wrote on laundry tips and offered free to readers. It was the largest delivery of mail to an individual in the postal history of Hawaii.

Concentrating on easily available materials, Heloise's hints featured often bizarre uses for such things as peanut butter, mayonnaise, vegetable dyes, and nylon netting - which was advocated for everything from scrubbing to haute couture. For example, she advised using rubber fruit jar rings to prevent ice trays from sticking to the bottom of the freezer compartment, sprinkling baking soda to deodorize carpets before vacuuming, and using mayonnaise to remove furniture scratches.

The zeal with which Heloise offered time and money-saving suggestions to help the overworked housewife perhaps explains the fervor of her readers, who sent their favorite tips to Heloise.

She then tested them, often improved them, and passed them on in both the daily columns and the six books she compiled: Heloise's Housekeeping Hints (1962); Heloise's Kitchen Hints (1963); Heloise All Around the House (1965); Heloise's Work and Money Savers (1967); Heloise's Hints for the Working Woman (1970); and the book written nearly two decades before, Heloise in China (1972).

In her lifetime, Heloise battled a number of health problems, which included not only the seven miscarriages, but a stomach tumor, trigeminal neuralgia, arteriosclerosis and heart disease (aggravated by constant smoking), and a cracked vertebra suffered in an accident with a drunk driver.

In fact, her health was so precarious that she had her own funeral planned for several years before her death and her tombstone carved and installed by 1975, with the epitaph, "Heloise, Every Housewife's Friend. "

In 1966 the Cruses moved to San Antonio, Texas, a popular military retirement post chosen for its similarity to her beloved Hawaii climate with its tropical foliage, availability of good military hospitals, low cost of living, and most important for Heloise's work, speedy mail service.

Heloise died of pneumonia in San Antonio while hospitalized for a heart attack. Mourners at her funeral were given red carnations and heard her one copyrighted song, "There Are No Phones in Heaven. " Considered by Heloise to be her philosophy of life, the song calls for people to share their feelings of love and appreciation before it is too late. The columns remained in syndication to more than 600 American and foreign papers even after her death, as daughter Poncé Cruse continued the household hints, first as "Heloise II, " and then as simply "Heloise. "

Achievements

• Active in the American Red Cross, Heloise was the recipient of the Silver Lady Banshee Award for outstanding columnist from the Actors and Writers Professional Organization (1964); the Writer's Award from the Headliners clubs in Austin, Texas (1964), and in San Antonio (1968); the Howe Press award for work with the blind (1971); the International Trophy from the Perkins School for the Blind, Boston, Massachussets (1972); and the International Ecology Award, Paris, France (1973). She was also named Woman of Achievement by Theta Sigma Phi (now Women in Communications) (1962) and Ecology Woman of the Year (1972 - 1973).

Works

More photos

• book

  • Heloise's Work and Money Savers

    (helpful hints on money and budget)

  • Heloise all around the house

    (Classic Heloise.)

Personality

Frequent radio and television appearances gave her fans the opportunity to see and identify their champion, and Heloise always gave them something to remember. One of her favorite devices was to spray paint her hair - purple, green, blue, or red - to match the outfit she was wearing. Around her home office, she often wore her own designs of Hawaiian muumuus, fashioned from anything from curtains to bedsheets. Her concern for being her own unique fashion statement extended even to her choice of burial attire - a red silk Japanese wedding robe she habitually wore on New Year's Eve.

Connections

She married Army Air Forces pilot Adolph Risky on January 5, 1941. After two miscarriages, they adopted one child. Risky was shot down and killed in 1943 and he was buried in Cambridge, England. In 1946, Heloise married another Army Air Forces captain, Marshall ("Mike") Cruse, after a three-week courtship. Still plagued by miscarriages (five more in five years), Heloise finally gave birth to a girl on April 15, 1951.

In 1970, Heloise married and divorced Houston businessman A. L. Reese, taking back her maiden name.

Father:

Charles Louis Bowles

Mother:

Amelia Harrison

Spouse:

A. L. Reese

Spouse:

Marshall ("Mike") Cruse

Spouse:

Adolph Risky