Victoria’s Read

The original Heloise was born an identical twin, Heloise and Louise Bowles, in Fort Worth, Texas on May 4, 1919.

She graduated from Felt and Tarrent Business College and Draughn’s Business College in 1939. In 1946 she met and married Marshal (Mike) Holman Cruse, a captain in the Army Air Forces. Cruse was then stationed in China and Heloise moved to Nanking in 1948. They left China and moved to Waco, Texas.
In 1951, daughter Poncé Kiah Marchelle Heloise, the current Heloise, was born and the family moved to Arlington, Virginia in 1953 and on to Hawaii in 1958.

Heloise has decided that she wanted to write a column in a newspaper for to help housewives, She marched to the office of the Honolulu Advertiser to see the editor to discuss her idea. She even offered to work for free for 30 days and the editor took a chance—The Readers’ Exchange column began in 1959. It was such a success by 1961 that Time magazine did an article on Heloise. Later in 1961, King Features Syndicate convinced Heloise to syndicate her column with a new title, Hints from Heloise. By 1962 it was running in 158 newspapers and in 1964 it was appearing 593 newspapers in America and abroad.

Col. Cruse and Heloise moved to San Antonio in 1966. Heloise’s daughter Poncé, who was majoring in math at Southwest Texas State University (now Texas State University), was helping her mother out with the column.

Heloise died December 28, 1977. Her tombstone read, “Heloise, Every Housewife’s Friend.” Her daughter took over the column and continues to write the Hints from Heloise column.

www.heloise.com