Within the framework of Feynman path-integral variational theory, we calculate the ground-state energy of a polaron in parabolic quantum wires in the presence of a Coulomb potential. It is shown that the polaronic correction to the ground-state energy is more sensitive to the electron-phonon coupling constant than the Coulomb binding parameter,and it increases monotonically with decreasing effective wire radius. Moreover, compared to the results obtained by Feynman Haken variational path-integral theory, we obtain better results within the Feynman path-integral variational approach (FV approach). Applying our calculation to several polar semiconductor quantum wires, we find that the polaronic correction can be considerably large.