DEDICATION CONTENTS

RUTH

EULOGY  BY  SHARON  STREDWICK

Everyone here today has been touched in someway or another by Ruth. Whether you were a member of her family, a friend or simply an acquaintance, you will have your own personal memories of times spent with her.

And if you were asked the question, “What two words would you use to describe Ruth?” what would you say? A tough question. How can we describe a person in a word or two?

Ruth’s brothers and sisters said that “she had a sense of humour, she was loyal, and she was kind”.

Ruth was actually a transplanted Saskatchewanite, although she was so young when she and her family came to Alberta, that she ignored that part and referred only to have grown up on the family farm at Chauvin. There were five children in the family, Ruth being the eldest, and then within eight years, her siblings Anne, Rob, Kathy, and Brian. They formed a strong bond from an early age and brothers, and the sisters and their families, even though they are now scattered from coast to coast, have always remained close.

The first bit of memorable family folklore from those growing-up days has to do with Ruth and Anne and little brother Rob. At the time Rob was just a baby and so it is perhaps safe to assume that his older sisters had been given the task of entertaining him while Mom got on with her household tasks. The girls proceeded to dress him up, and to use Anne’s words, “We stuffed him into a doll carriage” and pushed him down the big hill near the house. No doubt it was quite a ride! And doesn’t seem to have been repeated at any other time by family members.

One of the words used by many to describe Ruth was “kind”. This story too involves Anne, who was driving across Canada from her home in the east to visit Don and Ruth in Vermilion. She wanted to drive non-stop and having been on the road for many hours was beginning to get tired. Some company, perhaps someone who could help with the driving seemed the answer, but who? As luck would have it a number of hitchhikers appeared on the side of the road and Anne took a chance with the last one in the line. Would you believe it? No driver’s license, but she kept him anyway and told him just to keep talking. When they arrived in Vermilion, she panicked. How was she going to tell Ruth that she had not only picked a stranger, but that he was still in the car? Time when on and eventually she worked up enough courage to tell Ruth her tale. What did Ruth do? She went straight out to the car, dragged the hitchhiker into the house, plied him with coffee and before the night was through had learned his whole life history!

When Don, Kim, Lori and Shaun were asked, “what words would you use to describe Ruth?”, they responded without a moment’s hesitation. “Loving, thoughtful, easy-going, and positive.” Her mother-in-law Eleanor said, “Just perfect” – and we all know it takes a very special person for a mother-in-law to say “just perfect!”

Ruth and Don met in Edmonton. Both farm kids working in the city, they just happened to live in apartment buildings that were separated by a parking lot. This was when apartments were not air-conditioned. And so it was that the guys spent a fair bit of time hanging out on the porch of their apartment because, not only was the porch cool, it just happened to give a great view of the girls in the opposite apartment, who just happened to be hanging out on the porch of their apartment building. Friendly waves led to cheerful greetings and, as the story goes, pretty soon it was an invitation for coffee.

Don spent a lot of time telling everyone about this great new girl he’d met. The first time he brought her home to meet his folks he told them quite confidently, “I’m going to marry her.” And he did…on June 20th, 1970, just 6 months after they first met. Ruth became a member of Don’s family immediately, not just because she was his wife, but because she was herself – loving, thoughtful, easy-going and positive. “She was our sister,” said Don’s sister, Melody. “It was just the birth certificate that said anything different.”

The happy couple moved back to the family farm southeast of Manville where Ruth became an integral part of the operation. “She knew every cow on the place and which calf belonged to which cow,” her father-in-law says. A few years later, when Don took up welding, they moved to Vermilion and in November 1972 their first child, Kim, was born. A few months later, Ruth agreed to take on her first babysitting job – a little girl who was two days younger than Kim. It was like looking after twins, juggling babies and bottles and diapers! Perhaps it was a practice run, for in February 1976, Don and Ruth did indeed have twins – Shaun and Lori.

By this time the family was living in BC where Don was working for Finning Tractor and where Ruth was a very, very busy full-time Mom. In 1976, the family decided to move back to Vermilion. Before buying their own house in Stewart Crescent, they lived with Don’s parents for 3 months – “the happiest months of our lives,” says Eleanor, who has stories of the escaping small children that you may be able to get her to tell, but which Shaun and Lori would probably just as soon not have told at this particular time to this many people!

As the children grew, Ruth shared with them her love of music as she was always singing or humming while she went about her business. In fact, Lori says, “Mom sang along with me when I practiced my piano lessons. She knew all the words.” She disciplined fairly and told them (on the rare occasion that they got to scrapping), “Go outside and fight your own battles.” She loved to read and gave them an appreciation of books that has them reading to this day.

And as everyone who visited at the Bauer home knew, Ruth loved to bake. “There was always the smell of fresh baking when we came home,” her kids say. And there was always room at the table for any extras who just happened to show up close enough to mealtime to enjoy one of her meals. You may have been one of those lucky people.

Marvin, Kim’s husband, and Russ, Lori’s fiancé, both found a real ally in Ruth. Other than Shaun and Don, she thought they were just about the best guys ever and made no bones about it. When Kim or Lori got to giving their guys a hard time for some infraction, Ruth would tell her girls, “Relax a little; they’re just boys!”

And then along came Trentyn and Chelsey, our “grand babies” as Ruth called them, who put the sparkle in her eyes. She and Don saw them every chance they got and in fact Ruth couldn’t wait to get out of the hospital this summer so she could make Don put the pedal to the metal and get to Edmonton so they could see Chelsey as soon as she was born.

Just as Ruth was a wonderful wife and mother, she was a wonderful friend and she had a wide circle of friendships. What words do these people use to describe her? “Easy-going, happy, just being with her made us feel good.” Although her friends knew she hated to make phone calls, they also knew she loved to get them. And if the caller said, “I’m coming over” the coffeepot was always on. It was not uncommon, when Don and Ruth lived in Cloverview Acres, to find their yard filled with cars at all hours of the day and night. Now the night time cars caused some of their neighbours concern at first because they were frequently police cars…ones that left the scene with sirens on. Criminal investigations? No. Just a great place for the members to stop for a cup of good coffee on a slow shift.

Ruth loved going places and doing things with her friends. Many a trip to the city (with perhaps nothing to show for the day other than sore feet) has been had. And a get together for a day of baking… ”It was like living next to a Hutterite colony!” Don says. Ruth and Doreen have been known to produce 50 or 60 pies at a go and then there was the 2 day pyrogy marathon that filled everybody’s freezers to the max. Don would often drop Ruth off at Betty’s house on his way to work and the two would spend the day making butter tarts – dozens of butter tarts…a few of which usually made their way home to an appreciative Don.

Ruth loved children, and as her own went off to school she opened her heart and home to the little ones that she babysat. How would the parents of those children describe Ruth? “Wonderful, loving, caring.” If you happened to drop in for coffee while one of these children were with her, you may have found her reading them a story or giving them a hug.

Ruth described herself as “laid back”. “I don’t get too uptight about anything. It’s just the Beatty name” she’d say in her positive , matter of fact way. In the last months, while Ruth was battling her cancer she kept that positive, don’t worry attitude. She said more than once, “I have my family, friends and my faith. I can feel the strength you’re giving me to get through this.” She didn’t ask for miracles, but she didn’t give up.

In those last months Ruth taught us all a great deal – about living, about giving and about receiving love and about strength.

Thank you Ruth. We love you, we miss you and many of us have heard once again what truth comes from the mouths of babes. One little girls you babysat until you became ill said, “You know what? Ruthie’s gone to heaven.”