Ruth's Nine Kids

Maybe this title is rather crude. If it’s still there, it means that neither Ruth, nor any of her family objects to it.

The fact is, Jean’s sister Ruth, now at age 92, has NINE living children. If you would want something to brag about, how about birthing nine “kids” that are STILL alive - after over 50 years!

I don’t suppose she is the only one who has experienced this, but I’d wager you wouldn’t find any family members MORE devoted to their mother, than “Ruth’s Nine Kids”!

I have two events that demonstrate that.

When Ruth turned 90 in 2007, ALL of her “kids” got together - from all over, as we say - to help her celebrate. I’m going by memory here, but I THINK I can name the locations of them:

Phyllis, in Urbana OH
Gene in Myrtle Beach SC
Bill in Fairborn OH
Sandy in Bainbridge OH
Dick in Marco Island FL
Joyce in Urbana OH
Bob in Huntingtown MD
Tom in Waller TX
Ed in Urbana OH

(I DID get some help on the towns)

I’d better not tell you the age range (if I could come up with it myself), but Ruth hasn’t been of “child bearing age” for over 50 years.

At any rate, here’s a picture of all of them in 1954.



I can’t tell you who initiated this “Age 90 party”, but it appears that several got together to start it.

The ones I’ve talked to seem to point to Sandy, and Dick’s wife, Joyce as the “organizers”. Talking to some of them, it appears that some one of them called another one; he/she called another; and, unbeknownst to Ruth, one by one, they said they could come. And "e-mails" helped a great deal.

Sandy said, “I don’t know, we just got to talking about Mom’s birthday, and wondered if Tom and Colleen could come, and others. I always come up here on Mom’s birthday, and it just seems like we contacted others, and one by one, they were all available.”

Ruth: “Dick and Joyce were here, and they were going to take me out to eat. She was going off to see a girl friend or something, and Dick was keeping me upstairs. (She lived on the third floor then.) We had to wait on Joyce to go out to eat, and she was actually downstairs with the rest of the family.”

Sandy: “Yeah…we were down there decorating the party room.”

Ruth: “Joyce called on her cell phone and said we should meet her downstairs, so she wouldn’t come up. When we got down there, I had to stop and get a drink at the fountain, and I wondered why that dining room door was shut. I just kinda ’moseyed’ over that way, and there was all the family!”

SURPRISE! SURPRISE!

Sandy: “Every time I come up, I try to see if anyone else can come at the same time. Some of the family members have e-mail addresses, and they contacted each one that way.”

Ruth: “I remember that Joyce got a lot of Kentucky Fried Chicken for all of us.”

Sandy: “Sure. We couldn’t actually ‘fix food’, especially those traveling, and coming in.”

They all brought something - probably purchased here.

Some of the family stayed with friends in Urbana; some in a Motel in Urbana; some more in a Motel in Columbus; and of course, three of them live in Urbana.

I thought maybe they had 24 or 25 people were there.

Sandy: “Oh, there were a lot more than that. There were all the children and grandchildren.”

My memory of the conversation we had is that Sandy thought there were maybe 80 0r 90 people here.

Then, this year, the “whole gang” got together again - by accident.

Tom and Colleen, from Waller TX, called to say that they were coming to visit their mother. They wondered if anyone else could come.

Nobody remembers who called whom, but one by one, they ALL arranged to come. The e-mails were “flying”. They arrived at different times, with Tom and Colleen staying for a week. Others came through the week, and some even only on the week-end.

One by one, they decided that, “Sure. We could be there.” And they came.

On Saturday, they were ALL here, and here’s a picture of the same “kids” who came again this year, along with Ruth right down in front.



Something else I learned while talking with Ruth, Sandy and their Aunt Doris, is that the third week-end in October each year, several of the “kids” gather at Sandy’s house at Bainbridge for the week-end. There’s an annual fall “festival” of some sort there, and they see some of that, but mostly stay at Sandy’s to “gab”. Sandy said they’ve been doing that for maybe 20 years.

She said to me: “Uncle Myron, why don’t you come down this year?”

“Well, I’ll put it on my BlackBerry calendar, and see what develops.”

What a family!!