Susan Andrews Rice (1865-1938)

Author, Poet, Teacher of Music & Voice
Born September 1865, New York State, possibly in Croghan
Died October 5, 1938, at home, Washington, D.C.

Susan Andrews Rice was born in September 1865, possibly in Croghan, New York. Some sources give her birth year as 1866, but the U.S. census of 1870 indicates 1865 as the actual year. Her parents were Yale Rice, a farmer, and Helen Marie (Curtis) Rice. She had three sisters and a brother. The family moved from New York State to Falls Church, Virginia, in the 1870s or '80s.

Susan A. Rice studied at the New England Conservatory of Music, where she was a pupil of Lyman Wheeler (1837-1900). She taught vocal culture in Washington, D.C., and wrote articles on music. She was also the author of poems and short stories. Her credits include:

• "Music in America," article in The National Tribune (Washington, D.C.) (June 9, 1892)
• "To Write or Not to Write," article in The Writer (1892)
• "How to Entertain," article (syndicated) (1893)
• "All Saints Day," poem in the Boston Evening Transcript (Jan. 2, 1896)
• "Patty Jasper's Idea," short story (syndicated, including in The Independent [New York, New York]) (Aug. 20, 1896) 
• "A Missionary Story," short story in the New Orleans Times-Democrat (ca. Nov. 1897)
• "The One Who Knows Me Not," poem in the Boston Evening Transcript (Feb. 13, 1901)
• "His Particular Detestation," short story in the New Orleans Times-Democrat (Nov. 3, 1901)
• "Delia Duty's Defection," short story in the New Orleans Times-Democrat (Oct. 22, 1911)
• "The Girl in the Wheeling-Chair," short story in Harper’s Bazaar (June 1913)
• Letter in All-Story Weekly (July 27, 1918)
• "The Ghost Farm," short story in Weird Tales (May 1925)
• "A Day in the Life of Aurelia Durant," short story (syndicated) (Oct. 1925)

Thanks to The FictionMags Index for some of these credits.

Her story for Weird Tales, entitled "The Ghost Farm," is short but good, I think, and memorable. I like the tone and the sentiment. It's an example of why weird fiction should come also from women and from writers outside the realms of fantasy, horror, and science fiction. It was reprinted in 100 Ghastly Little Ghost Stories (1993), even if it isn't ghastly at all. "The Ghost Farm" has as its background the many losses of the Great War. That was an unavoidable theme and subject of many stories and poems in Weird Tales during the 1920s.

Susan Andrews Rice died at home in Washington, D.C., on October 5, 1938, at age seventy-three. She was buried at Oakwood Cemetery in Falls Church, Virginia, where her family had lived for many years.

Copyright 2025 Terence E. Hanley