Early last week, my wife’s mom passed away. She was 97 years old.
We had a graveside service just as she had requested and family and friends gathered at our house, some for several hours, following the service, which also was to accommodate her wishes.
As she would have told you, “I’ve had a good life.”
Eleanor Ruth Davis was a retired Registered Nurse and a homemaker. After graduating from Shawnee High School in 1944, she went on to St. Anthony’s Nursing School where she graduated in 1948.
She was really proud of being a nurse and attended their reunions for many years afterwards. She was a nurse at St. Anthony’s Hospital and worked for several doctors as well.
As she grew older Ruth would often remind my wife Pat and me that she had lived through the “Dust Bowl,” World War II and the Korean War.
Ruth may have been one of the most independent women I’ve ever known.
I’ve told many people who either knew Ruth personally or at least knew who she was that whether she would acknowledge it or not she was “large and in charge” of her family’s life.
Family meant everything to Ruth. She loved to cook and bake, especially for family gatherings.
She looked forward to planning holidays.
Normally by this time, she would already be planning for Thanksgiving and Christmas.
“The more the merrier,” she would say.
Her youngest daughter Jamie Lou, Pat’s baby sister, died in February of 2017. Her husband James died 31 years ago this month.
She was an amazing woman. While watching over Jamie Lou, Ruth was also a caretaker for her mother who died just short of being 95 herself, helped James with his business until he passed away and picked up our daughter Meghan from school until she could drive herself.
She was affectionately known and called “Granny” by many.
Ruth loved cooking Sunday dinner for us and at times other family members. I always looked forward to those meals. It was always a delight to have Ruth cook for us. You knew it was going not only to be good, but delicious.
For supper she might fix a ham, green beans and carrots together, potatoes, a jello salad with pineapple, cold slaw and we had ice tea to drink.
She would bake her own bread, unless we had biscuits instead which would be homemade. Pat said she tried to use a can of biscuits bought at the store one time and that was it.
Ruth would always have some kind of dessert, whether it be a cake, pie, pan of raisin bars or cookies that she baked and we had coffee with those.
The suppers were scrumptious I tell you for sure. Ruth would tell us she enjoyed doing it.
One day a little over four years as I was bringing her back from a hair appointment, she told me, “I’m giving up driving Mike. I don’t want to hurt somebody.”
She handed over her car keys to Pat when she was 93 after a medical issue concerned her enough not to drive anymore. She also sold her car, telling us, “It won’t be a temptation if it’s not sitting in the driveway.”
Words that probably best describe her would be compassionate, independent and INCREDIBLE.
She will always be remembered by many.