Dates

• Existence: 1878 - 1964

Biography

Icey Lenora Teel, a well-known reader, entertainer, lecturer, teacher, author, and playwright, was born on February 27, 1878 in Nevada, Missouri. She moved to Iowa with her mother and sister at the age of three when her father died. She was educated at the Ann Morgan School of Speech and Acting in Chicago, the Northwestern School of Speech and Dramatics in Evanston, Illinois, the Sargent School of Acting in New York, and the Eagan School of Acting in Los Angeles.

Teel traveled extensively throughout the entire country for her lecture tours. She also entertained soldiers during World War I when her regular lecture circuit was cut short. From 1918 to 1934 Teel ran and taught speech, dramatic arts, and speech correction in her own facility, the Teel School of Expression, in Davenport, Iowa.

Teel was married in 1934 and subsequently stopped teaching in her school to help her husband, George Harling, run his newspaper in Durant, Iowa. Icey Harling remained at the Durant News for eighteen years as a writer and editor.

Icey Harling died as a result of a fall on August 31, 1964 at the age of eighty-six.

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