Ruth Crone
Ruth Crone was an accomplished American educator, journalist, and author, born in Lincoln, Nebraska, in 1919. She earned her undergraduate degree in 1942 and subsequently received a master's degree in 1945, followed by a doctorate in 1960. Crone's career began in public service with the U.S. Department of Commerce and later the U.S. State Department, during which she spent time in Shanghai and Seoul. Transitioning to journalism, she worked for prominent publications such as The New York Times and the Daily Sun, earning multiple awards from the Nebraska Press Women for her contributions. In her later career, Crone became a college English teacher, impacting students at institutions like Gustavus Adolphus College. She coauthored several nonfiction works with fellow Nebraskan Marion Marsh Brown, including a biography of Helen Keller and two notable books on Willa Cather, a celebrated author. Crone passed away in 2003 at the age of eighty-four, leaving a legacy in both education and literature.
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Ruth Crone
Writer
- Born: June 24, 1919
- Birthplace: Lincoln, Nebraska
- Died: December 23, 2003
Biography
Ruth Crone was born in Lincoln, Nebraska, in 1919. She earned an undergraduate degree from Nebraska State College in 1942 and received a master’s degree from George Washington University in 1945. She ultimately earned a doctorate from New York University in 1960.
Crone spent numerous years in public service, beginning with her job in the U.S. Department of Commerce in 1940. She later worked for the U.S. State Department, and while in this job she spent 1949 and 1950 in Shanghai, China, and Seoul, Korea. She left government work to become a journalist, working for The New York Times between 1952 and 1954 and the Daily Sun in Beatrice, Nebraska, between 1954 and 1958. During her years as a journalist, Crone won numerous awards from the Nebraska Press Women. She eventually became an English teacher at several college campuses, beginning with Gustavus Adolphus College in Minnesota in 1958 and later at Wisconsin State College in Superior, Wisconsin.
Crone coauthored three nonfiction books with fellow Nebraskan Marion Marsh Brown, including the biography The Silent Storm (1963) about Helen Keller and her teacher, Annie Sullivan. The Silent Storm was a Junior Literary Guild selection. Crone and Brown also wrote two books about Nebraskan Willa Cather, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author. The first, Willa Cather: The Woman and Her Works, was published in 1970 and was considered a broad but not particularly deep introduction to Cather’s writing. In addition, Crone and Brown provided an overview of Cather’s summer retreats to New Brunswick in Only One Point of the Compass: Willa Cather in the Northeast, published in 1980. Crone died in 2003 at the age of eighty-four.