There are a lot of sad people here today. That's OK.
It’s OK to feel sad for ourselves, because Ruby was a huge
presence in our lives.
But she wouldn’t want
us to feel sad for her. As my mother reminded all of us many times, she
lived a wonderful life. A life as rich and as long as hers is something to
celebrate, not to mourn.
That’s why we are here – to celebrate her life, and to give
thanks she was part of ours.
So let’s start at the beginning of it, 102 years ago.
Woodrow Wilson had just been inaugurated for his first term. The radio was 10
years in the future and women didn’t yet have the right to vote when she was
born on April 3, 1913.
Her parents allowed her brother, Homer, and sisters, Margaret
and Lucille, to name her. They named her Ruby.
She started school in Mineola’s one-room schoolhouse the day
she turned six. In those days, students
were required to memorize long poems. More than 90 years later, Ruby could
still recite many of those poems verbatim.
She had a happy childhood. She rode her horse … swam in
Loutre Creek in summer … skated on it in the winter.
She went to Montgomery City High School, which she loved.
She had to move in with her grandmother and aunt – there were no school buses to
take her back and forth.
In 1931, the year she graduated, Ruby won
the Missouri State High School Extemporaneous Speaking Championship. She had
hoped to go to college but there was no money for it. The Great Depression was
on. Her father had lost the family house and the bank he worked for had closed.
Grandpa, grandma, Ruby and Betty Jo, her little sister, had to move into the
basement of the bank building.
That fall, mom went to visit a friend who lived in a nearby
town, High Hill, where they attended a baseball game. One of the players was
a young man named Bud Dryden. Bud asked if he could drive her back to Mineola. She said
yes.
Despite his driving – my father was a terrible driver – Ruby fell for Bud and he fell for her. Both were intelligent and ambitious.
Both had high hopes for the future. Both wanted to get out of their little
towns. Both were eager to get out of their family’s homes where they were stuck
because of events beyond their control. Both were early supporters of FDR, who
was promising to lead the country out of the Depression.
They were married on June 25, 1933. They honeymooned at
Bagnell Dam – there was no Lake Ozark yet.
That fall, Bud and Ruby moved to Davis, a tiny town of 30
people – mom was able to name every one of them 80 years later – where dad and
his brother, Jarrett, were to run a country store.
Now, Davis wasn’t exactly what the newlyweds had in mind
when they were planning their future. The day they moved to town, workers were
removing the train tracks – not a good sign. There was no electricity, no
running water, people in Davis ate squirrels and possum. It was like moving
back into the nineteenth century. But
the country was stuck in the middle of the Great Depression. Davis was the best
they could do … so they made do.
In July, 1935, Ruby and Bud were blessed – and I do mean blessed, mom told me the night before she went to the hospital what a blessing he had always been – with a baby boy, Jerry, who they and everyone in town doted on. He was the only child in Davis.
In October, 1941, they lost almost everything they owned in
a flood.
In May, 1942, mom and dad were blessed again … this time
with a girl, Judy. They couldn’t have imagined what a blessing Judy would turn
out to be.
In 1944, they moved to Auxvasse, where dad had purchased a
general store. Both became active in the community … and Dryden’s Store
prospered.
In 1951, mom was surprised to learn she was pregnant
again. In November, she gave birth to
me. For 63 years she persisted in introducing me as her “change-of-life”
baby. She was 38.
In 1957, the Dryden family grew when Jerry and Nancy got
married. It expanded again in 1958, when Ellen was born, making Ruby a
grandmother at 45 … in 1960 with Julie …and in 1963 with Marilyn.
In 1964, Bud became sick. He underwent surgery for cancer in
December, the same week Ruby’s mother died. Mom always said that, when her time
came, she wanted to go the way her mother did – she was only sick for one day
and didn’t suffer.
Dad died in February, 1966. Ruby was just 52.
She grieved, of course. And at first, she was overwhelmed.
But she didn’t sit around and cry, “Why me?” That wasn’t in her
nature.
It didn’t take long for her to realize that, for the first
time, she was in charge of her future. No longer was she someone’s daughter or
wife. She was an independent woman, with the ability and need to make her own
decisions. And that is when the Ruby most of the people in this room
knew and loved, came into her own.
The year after dad died, mom took Judy and me on a trip to
the other side of the world. We stopped in Hawaii to see Betty Jo and her
family, then continued on to Okinawa, where Jerry and Nancy had been
stationed. We toured Tokyo. Jerry arranged a trip to Taiwan. That was, when you
think about it, an incredibly gutsy move for a small town housewife who had
never traveled west of Kansas City.
In 1968, Jerry was sent to Vietnam. Mom bought the house
across the street for Nancy and the girls to live in. She loved having them
close by. And she decided the house was a good investment – she was teaching
herself about business. Dad had never trusted the stock market. Ruby saw that
times were changing, and sought out a stockbroker who taught her about the market,
which she continued to follow right up to the end. When I was in college, mom
had emergency gall bladder surgery. The last thing she told Judy and me as they
wheeled her into operating room was, “Call the broker and buy 100 shares of
Kroger.”
In 1970, mom's first grandson, John B., was born. A
year later she got another one – Jay. And in 1974, Jimmy.
During the 1970s, Jerry and Nancy lived in Germany. Mom made
two trips to see them, and took side trips to several other countries. She
loved being exposed to new cultures … new foods … new scenery. Several years
later she took a trip to England and Scotland.
In 1976, the year after Judy and I married, Ruby moved to
Columbia. She wanted to be near (her daughter) Judy and her family. And she saw it as a new challenge,
an opportunity to live in, what was for her, a big city – a city full of young
people. Mom always loved being around young people.
Her fourth granddaughter, Katie, came along in 1979.
One day in 1981, mom took Jay and Jim to the barber shop where
she ran into a high school classmate, Bill See, who had lost his wife. They
started courting – people born in 1913
called it courting, not dating – and in
January, 1982, they were married.
Mom and Bill enjoyed each other’s company. They went to restaurants and movies, played bridge, and traveled to Florida, California, Australia,
New Zealand, Alaska, New England and
Nova Scotia. Bill even took her on fishing trips with his family.
Ruby’s fourth grandson, Ben, was born in 1983. And her final
grandchild, Stuart, in 1986, a few weeks after Bill died.
At 72, Ruby was a widow again. But she wasn’t the kind of
person who wasted time feeling sorry for herself.
She had always been a big reader but from the time Bill died
to the day she died, she read constantly – two, sometimes three books a week.
She preferred non-fiction, especially biographies. Mom always felt bad because
she didn’t go to college. She shouldn’t have. There isn’t a history professor
in this town who knows more about America’s presidents than Ruby did. She read
biographies of every one of them – even Millard Fillmore.
She continued to play bridge. She said the secret is to
memorize every card that has been played. That was easy for Ruby. She had a
photographic memory.
In 1998, when she was 85, she had open heart surgery. At
first, when she learned she needed it, she didn’t want it; she said she had
already lived a long life. But Bill’s son Mike, a doctor like his father, who
always took wonderful care of Ruby, explained that if she did, she might have
many more good years and for that
advice, all of us will always be grateful to Mike because it gave us 17 more
years of Ruby.
Jerry made sure she did the rehabilitative exercises the
doctor had ordered … which she hated.
Ruby wasn’t big on physical exercise; her brain was the
muscle she was concerned about exercising. She played Scrabble. She worked her
Sudoko puzzles. And she became proficient on the computer which Jay and Joe
and Mary Lou taught her. Ruby wore out two Macs … and loved her iPad.
As she moved into her nineties, Mom did everything she
possibly could to continue living in her own house. She had the washer/dryer
moved so she wouldn’t have to climb stairs, and the bathroom remodeled so she’d
be less likely to fall.
She was proud of her independence, and we were, too. By the
time she was 98, she had been living alone for more than 40 years.
In November, 2011, mom was the victim of a violent home
invasion, and Judy walked in during the invasion and received the same
treatment. But Judy, who had always been there for mom, showed what she was
made of that day. She somehow escaped and called the police. I will always
believe she saved our mother’s life. If she hadn’t done what she did, we would
have been gathered together three and a half years ago under vastly different
circumstances and believe me – we couldn’t have possibly felt like calling it a
Celebration.
I think those of us who loved Ruby took the home invasion
harder than she did because it took away from her the thing we knew she valued
the most other than her family – her ability to live on her own.
In the wake of that, mom decided to move to Lenoir (an assisted living facility). It was a
decision we all hoped she’d never have to make.
But, typical of Ruby, she found there was a lot about it
she liked. She
enjoyed the dining room with the white tablecloths and salad bar … going to the
beauty shop on her own … going to movies … playing duplicate bridge, which she
almost always won … and to the library.
Mom had always had lots of company and that continued here.
People gravitated to Ruby because they wanted
to spend time with her. She was well informed and up to date. Her family and
visitors couldn’t believe her memory – it was sharper than any of her
children’s and, probably, her grandchildren’s. She told great stories. And she
was always willing to listen, and to offer advice. So many of those who came to
spend time with her – Joe and Mary Lou …Marybelle and Juanita …Rex and Lou
….Harrell ….Barbara and Phyllis…Carolyn – were the children of friends and relatives
she had outlived. Ruby was a link back to them. She loved you all.
Ruby lived life on her own terms right up to the end. She
was the one who decided to have the surgery. She knew there was a chance things
could go wrong but I don’t think any of her family members ever seriously
considered it. After 102 years, we thought Ruby was immortal. But … she wasn’t. We take comfort knowing she got her wish –
she left this world like her mother did -- sick for one day, and one day only.
She didn’t suffer or linger.
When I was a kid, I didn’t realize that my mother was
anything special.
It wasn’t until after dad died and, especially, after I
became an adult, that I began to appreciate how unique she was.
Ruby loved to learn and considered every day an opportunity
to improve herself. Most people, at some point, stop trying, because they’re
afraid they will fail. Not her. She took a daily online quiz and was disappointed in herself when she got a wrong answer. How many 102-year-olds do
you know who do that? She challenged herself to keep learning and, amazingly,
she retained everything—and I do mean everything. Her brain was like a computer
hard drive.
Ruby was practical. She didn’t overcomplicate things. And
she wasn’t extravagant. If there was a new book she wanted to read, she didn’t
run out and buy it. She called the library and got on the waiting list.
She had common sense and used it.
She had a wonderful sense of humor. She loved to laugh.
She could find joy in the simple things most of us take for
granted. In the changing of the leaves in the fall, in the birds outside her
window.
She overlooked faults in people. Ruby expected more from
herself than she expected from others.
If she had been born today, Ruby would have been a success
at any career she chose. She took up writing in her eighties, and became an
excellent writer – she could have been a journalist. She would have been a
great stock broker. Or real estate agent.
She was an optimist. Sure, there were times she felt down
but mom always – always – could find something to look forward to. My sister
says that mom always looked toward the sun, a beautiful way to express her
outlook on life.
She didn’t complain. I called her almost every day. I could tell, from the sound of her voice
when she picked up, how she was feeling. When I’d ask her, on days she wasn’t
feeling well, how she was, she would change the subject. She didn’t want me to
worry.
She was tenacious. She fought hard to live life on her own
terms, and she succeeded.
She made great pies and breads and the most incredible light
rolls you ever tasted.
She was refreshingly unconventional. She dressed like a
teenager. She wore Keds and jeans and pedal pushers. She ate Special K for
breakfast … and poured Half & Half on it.
She loved her 22 descendants unconditionally … was proud of
each and every one of us … and worried about all of us … from Jerry to Teddy.
She was our Queen Victoria, the matriarch of our family, the
glue that held us together.
A ruby is a gem that emits a beautiful light.
It is the color of love. It is durable.
It is rare. It is precious. The longer you have it, the more
it grows in value.
Her brother and sisters couldn’t have possibly known the day
they named her Ruby … that they had chosen a name that would come to suit her
perfectly.
Thank you for coming to honor her today.
