ALICE HEGAN RICE was an American author who was born January 11, 1870, and died February 10, 1942. Her birth name was Alice Caldwell Hegan. Four movies and a play were made from her 1901 book Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch. She was born in Shelbyville, Kentucky, on January 11, 1870. Her parents were Samuel Watson Hegan and Sallie P. Hegan. When she was a child, she would make up stories on the spot to keep her family entertained. As a student, it was clear that writing was her best subject. She was so good at writing that a piece she sent in when she was 15 years old was read by the newspaper. Rice grew up in a pretty good family, but when she went to a Sunday School mission in the "Cabbage Patch," a slum in Louisville, her views on life changed. A group of troublesome boys stopped the mission, but Rice was able to calm things down by telling them a story she had just read. She kept telling them crazy stories about pirates and gangsters for the rest of the mission. She learned about poor and people who don't have much through this experience.
