Ruth was born in Baltimore, Maryland, as the only child of her mother and father, a Veterans Administration doctor. Among the places she has lived are Woodstock, Virginia; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Lebanon, New Hampshire and Augusta, Maine. Ruth’s father died when she was 12 years old and she and her mother moved to Washington, D.C., to live above her grandmother’s dress shop. Her mother remarried when Ruth was 19, and she gained a stepbrother. She attended Roosevelt High School in Washington, D.C., and was enrolled at Boston University for a year.
She returned home to work as a civilian U.S. Air Force employee at the Pentagon. Ruth was married to her first husband in 1951, and they had two children. In the 1960s and 70s, Ruth and her best friend started their own business, producing custom oil paintings for local designers and sold their artwork through a local department store. In the mid-70s, she became an administrative assistant for a government contractor who was putting together a computerized Chinese/English dictionary.
After divorcing in 1977, she married her high school sweetheart. Ruth’s second husband owned a local dry cleaning business, where she joined him in developing a state-of-the-art cleaning/preservation process for wedding gowns. Her husband passed away in 2005. Together they had six children, 12 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
Ruth enjoys reading biographies and history, attending the theater, and listening to Broadway musicals. She loved to write poems for her family and friends to mark special occasions and milestones, and was also the self-declared family photographer and historian, who took pictures at every event. She enjoys staying in touch with her friends and family, near and far, through cards, notes and phone calls.
Over the years she served as an Easter Seals volunteer, and participated in her children’s PTA, as well as her Synagogue Sisterhood. In 1978 she and her husband bought a home in Bethany Beach, Delaware, that they enjoyed year-round. Ruth also loved traveling to Aruba for three weeks every year to escape the Washington winters!