Name Ruth Furniss Died 1957 | Role Writer | |
Ruth Pine Furniss (1893 – 1957), was an American writer who published several short stories and novels.
Biography
Ruth Kellogg Pine Furniss was born on March 2, 1893, to Charles LeRoy and Grace Eddy Kellogg Pine in Lansingburg, New York. She attended the Emma Willard School (Troy, New York) and Miss Porter’s School (Farmington, Connecticut). She studied short story writing with Blanche Colton Williams at Columbia University and went on to publish a number of short stories and novels. In 1937, with the poet Weldon Kees, Furniss adapted her short story "Obsession" into a one-act play with the same title.
It is believed Furniss suffered from bipolar disorder, which was treated with periods of institutionalization, shock-therapy, a topectomy, and ultimately, a lobotomy. Furniss’s writings drew on her struggle with illness and her exposure to various medical treatments, as can be seen in her novels Gay (1928), Snow: A Love Story (1929), and The Dreamland Tree (an unpublished novel completed in 1952 after Furniss received a topectomy and shock therapy). Furniss published The Layman Looks at Doctors (1929) under the pseudonyms S.W. and J.T. Pierce, who were a fictional couple.
In 1912 Furniss married Dr. Henry Dawson Furniss (d. 1942), with whom she had five children, three of whom survived childhood (Henry Dawson, James P., and W. Todd). The Furniss family lived in Pelham, New York, and in New York City. During World War II Furniss served as a Gray Lady with the Red Cross. Furniss was hospitalized at several points during her life, including periods at Pilgrim Psychiatric Center and Central Islip Psychiatric Center (Long Island). Furniss died of a heart attack in December 1957, at the age of 64.