Rosella Rice

Rosella Rice (11 August 1827 – 6 June 1888) was an American author, poet, and lecturer born in Perrysville, Ohio. She was known for her direct and energetic comedy writing, her nature poems, and her vivid descriptions of folklore figure John "Johnny Appleseed" Chapman.

Rice published hundreds of magazine articles over a 40-year career. Her writings appeared in Cleveland and Columbus newspapers, Godey's Lady's Book, Indiana Farmer, Arthur's Home Magazine, Interior, Watchman, Journal and Messenger, Presbyterian Banner, Household, Housekeeper, Little Corporal, The Children's Hour, Toledo Blade, Western Rural and Woman's Journal.

Rice wrote under her own name as well as multiple pseudonyms that reflected different characters. These included Pipsissiway Potts, who provided tutorials and recipes; Aunt Chatty Brooks, who ran a boarding house for young women; and Mrs. Sam Starkey, an elderly gossip with a sense of humor. She wrote columns from these points of view for Arthur's, "creating fictional characters who inhabited her magazine's stories, and became 'real' to hundreds of readers".

Rice is perhaps best known for writing prose and poetry about her encounters with John "Johnny Appleseed" Chapman, who often visited Perrysville in his later years. Rice later corresponded with Chapman after he moved to Indiana, until his death in 1845. Her accounts of Appleseed were widely published and quoted in nonfiction books and newspapers. Possibly due to Rice's depictions, Appleseed became a hero of American folklore.

Rice also wrote extensively to mythologize the nostalgia of American pioneer life and was also a public lecturer.

Anna B. Quillin, Rice's editor at Arthur's, described Rice as "witty, humorous, quick to see the ludicrous, pathetic, sympathetic, helpful and at times sarcastic".

Rice was born on August 11, 1827, in Green Township, Richland County (now Ashland) to Sarah "Sallie" Johnson and Alexander Rice, second-generation colonists of Perrysville, Ohio. By way of her paternal ancestry, she was a descendant of Edmund Rice, an early immigrant to Massachusetts Bay Colony. She lived her entire life in her homestead birthplace. Three of her siblings survived to adulthood; Rosina, Reuben, and Isaac Johnson.

In 1841, Rice's mother Sarah Johnson died and in 1842, her father married Mary Van Scoyoc. Her paternal first cousin Americus V. Rice, also from Perryville, was a brigadier general in the Union Army during the American Civil War and served as a U.S. congressman.