The author Wilhelmina Stitch was a pen name for Ruth Collie. Ruth Collie, née Ruth Jacobs, (November 1888 – March 6, 1936) was an English born poet who started her writing career in Winnipeg, Manitoba.Ruth Jacobs was born in Cambridge, England. She was the oldest of three children born to her parents who worked as a bookseller and an accountant. Her grandfather was Marcus Hast, a Hebrew composer who spent 40 years as rabbi at the Great Synagogue of London. In 1908, her soon-to-be husband Elisha Arakie Cohen, travelled to England where he met and married Jacobs. They returned to Winnipeg, Manitoba where her husband worked as a lawyer for the firm Daly, Crichton and McClure. In 1910 a son named Ralph was born.In 1923 she moved back to England in order to further her son's education. He would later become a noted Professor of Economics. In 1924, she married Frank Collie, a physician from Scotland. She resumed her writing career submitted poetry to the London Daily Graphic. Her daily poetry earned her the nickname, "the poem a day lady." Her poetry made her name well known and she was regularly called on to speak for community groups. In 1930, she went on a two-month speaking tour of North America where she spoke every day for 50 days.
