Staff Column
It’s been a year now since my wife’s mom passed away. She was 97 years old.
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. She often would talk about those years.
As she grew older Ruth would often remind my wife Pat and me that she had lived through the “Dust Bowl,” World World War II and the Korean War.
Ruth may have been one of the most independent women I’ve ever known.
Even though it’s been a year now since we lost her, Pat and I talk about her frequently.
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.
Our daughter Meghan has a bunch of her recipes. She has used some of them for many of the occasions that she and Terry have had us over for dinner.
If she were alive today, Ruth would already be talking about plans for Thanksgiving and Christmas. “The more the merrier,” she would say.
She was an amazing woman. While watching over her youngest daughter 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 Meghan from school until she could drive herself.
She was affectionately known and called “Granny” by many. Meghan was extremely close to her Granny from the time she was young until Ruth passed.
Ruth loved cooking Sunday dinner for us and at times other family members.
I always looked forward to those meals. 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.
The biscuits hit the ceiling in the kitchen, and Ruth let it be known never again.
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.
Ruth would tell us she enjoyed doing it.
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 is still remembered and will always be missed by many.