Heloise Bowles Cruse (May 4, 1919 – December 28, 1977 was the original author of the popular syndicated newspaper column "Hints from Heloise."
/ref>Life Stories: Profiles from the New Yorker
David Remnick, editor. Modern Library. 2001. Born in

Fort Worth, Texas Fort Worth is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the county seat of Tarrant County, Texas, Tarrant County, covering nearly into Denton County, Texas, Denton, Johnson County, Texas, Johnson, Parker County, Texas, Parker, and Wise County, Te ...

, Bowles married Marshal (Mike) Holman Cruse, a United States Air Force captain (later colonel) in 1946. Their daughter Ponce Kiah Marchelle Heloise Cruse, born in 1951, is the current "Heloise". Bowles Cruse had been exchanging hints with neighboring stay-at-home-wives. While at a party she mentioned her wish to start a newspaper column where housewives could share hints. A colonel with two degrees in journalism laughed and bet her $10 she couldn’t get a newspaper job, for she was "nothing but a housewife." The next day she went to the offices of the ''

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'' and convinced the editor to try her column on a 30-day, no-pay basis. The original column was first published as "Readers' Exchange" in 1959. In 1961,

King Features King Features Syndicate, Inc. is an American content distribution and animation studio, consumer product licensing and print syndication company owned by Hearst Communications that distributes about 150 comic strips, newspaper columns, editoria ...

syndicated it as "Hints from Heloise"; nearly 600 newspapers carried the column, and, at the time of her death, it was one of three most popular (in terms of syndication) in the United States. Her book ''Heloise's Housekeeping Hints'', published by Prentice-Hall, Inc., was, at half a million copies total, one of the top 10 selling hardcover books in 1963. The book later became the fastest selling paperback in the history of its publisher

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Books

* ''Heloise's Housekeeping Hints'' (1962) * ''Heloise's Kitchen Hints'' (1963) * ''Heloise All Around the House'' (1965) * ''Hints For Working Women'' (1966) * ''Heloise's Work and Money Savers'' (1967)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cruse, Heloise Bowles 1919 births 1977 deaths American columnists American women columnists Journalists from Fort Worth, Texas 20th-century American non-fiction writers 20th-century American women journalists 20th-century American journalists 20th-century American women writers