Stella Eugenie Asling-Riis (October 4, 1869 — 1957) was a Canadian writer and a clubwoman in New York City.

Early life

Histella Eugenia Asling was born at

Simcoe, Ontario Simcoe is an unincorporated community#Canada, unincorporated community and former town in Southwestern Ontario, Canada near Lake Erie. It is the county seat and largest community of Norfolk County, Ontario, Norfolk County. Simcoe is at the junct ...

, the daughter of Charles Wesley Asling and Mary Isabella Morrow Asling. She attended

Parkdale Collegiate Institute Founded in 1888, Parkdale Collegiate Institute is a public high school located on Jameson Avenue in Parkdale, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is located in the heart of what is considered ' Little Tibet', which is the home of the largest concentratio ...

in Toronto."Personalities in Clubdom: Mrs. Andrew J. Riis"
''Brooklyn Daily Eagle'' (February 26, 1933): 22. via

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Career

An early example of short fiction by Stella Asling, "To History Unknown," appeared in ''The Canadian Magazine'' in 1893. Asling-Riis wrote a serialized epistolary tale, "The Adventures of Elisa" (1912), for ''The American Scandinavian Magazine''. Historical novels by Stella Asling-Riis included ''Crowned at Elim'' (1903), ''The Great Fresh Sea'' (1931) and ''Star Over Flushing'' (1939). She also wrote non-fiction articles for magazines. Asling-Riis was also a regular writer of letters to the editor of ''The New York Times'' in the 1920s, on topics as varied as King Tut's Tomb,

Americanization Americanization or Americanisation (see American and British English spelling differences#-ise, -ize (-isation, -ization), spelling differences) is the influence of American culture and business on other countries outside the America, United ...

, and the Norse in early North America. She organized a chapter of Daughters of the British Empire, and was active in the Writers Club of Brooklyn, the Twentieth Century Club, and the

Women's Christian Temperance Union The Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) is an international temperance organization, originating among women in the United States Prohibition movement. It was among the first organizations of women devoted to social reform with a program th ...

. She attended national and state temperance meetings even after the end of Prohibition. Asling-Riis gave talks to women's groups about the

Huron people The Wyandot people, or Wyandotte and Waⁿdát, are Indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands. The Wyandot are Iroquoian Indigenous peoples of North America who emerged as a confederacy of tribes around the north shore of Lake Ontario wi ...

of Canada, wearing costumes to evoke their culture; she told of being adopted into the tribe and receiving a tribal name.

Personal life

Stella Asling married Andreas Jensen "Andrew" Riis (1869-1936), a Danish-born builder and widower with two young sons, in 1906. They lived in Richmond Hill, New York and were active in the American Scandinavian Foundation. Stella was also a member of the Danish American Women's Association. She was widowed when Andrew Riis died by suicide in 1936; she moved back to Ontario, where she died in 1957.''Canada's Early Women Writers''
SFU Digitized Collections, Simon Fraser University.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Asling-Riis, Stella 1869 births 1957 deaths Canadian women novelists People from Norfolk County, Ontario Writers from Queens, New York People from Richmond Hill, Queens Clubwomen 20th-century Canadian novelists 20th-century Canadian women writers Canadian emigrants to the United States