Mrs. Clarence (Stella Haverland) Rouse, a native of Santa Barbara and a graduate of University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) with advanced work in the Library School of Los Angeles, spent ten years at the Santa Barbara Public Library prior to her marriage. She also did graduate work in California history at Santa Barbara College, predecessor to University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB). Her interest in California history led her to part-time work at the News-Press doing the daily column, "In Old Santa Barbara" and a Sunday historical feature story.

Mrs. Rouse wrote the "In Old Santa Barbara"" column, a distillation of local news from 25, 50, and 75-years ago, for the Santa Barbara News-Press. She wrote it from 1953 up until she began writing a weekly history column for the same paper in 1962.

Mrs. Rouse was editor of Noticias, the quarterly history journal of the Santa Barbara Historical Society, from Fall 1977 until Spring 1987. She also authored many articles for Noticias during this period.

Mrs. Rouse retired from the News-Press and her column on February 17, 1991.