BINGAMAN, Ruth R. (1914-2006)

BINGAMAN, BOALS, MCGREW, SCHROEDER, COGHILL, MCKENZIE, EDWARDS, EVERHART, KEATING

Posted By: Elaine Harrington (email)
Date: 1/14/2007 at 01:03:43

The Opinion-Tribune
published Wed.,January 3, 2007

Ruth Rebeckha Bingaman, age 92, of Hastings, died Dec. 25, 2006, at Tabor Manor. Funeral services were held Dec. 30 at Mansfield Hertz Funeral Home in Malvern. Pastor J.H. Schroeder officiated. Burial was in the Malvern Cemetery.

Mrs. Bingaman was born Aug. 11, 1914, to Lloyd Moses and Sadie Boals McGrew in Seward, Neb. She was the eldest of four children. They instilled a love of music to all of their children and her father taught her to dance at a young age. Her mother gave her the option of doing dishes or practicing piano lessons. She graduated from Seward High School in 1932.

The McGrew family later moved to the Climax area of the Sandhills. She met and was courted by "Pete" Laurence Schroeder. They were married June 17, 1933, at the Methodist Episcopal Church in Broken Bow, Neb.

She and her husband first lived in a sod house in the Climax community; followed by other areas of the Sandhills. They started with one cow, a very old mare, and a half-broke stallion.

The couple had five children: Joan Ruth; Betty Rae; John Robert; Merrill Mac; and Carrie Jean. They learned of lush gardens producing wonderful sweet corn and tomatoes in the southwest corner of Iowa, so in the spring of 1946, they moved near Dutch Hollow in Thurman. In 1948, they moved to the current home south of Hastings where they purchased the original 94 acres from his parents, John and Alta Schroeder. They added another 97 acres to their farm in the mid-50s. In the 60s, she had begun to enter contests; writing short stories and jingles. She won many prizes along the way. In 1965 she won a beautiful wooden lapstrake boat on the "Price is Right." Mr. Schroeder died in the fall of 1970. They had been married 37 years. The winter of that year, she took several music courses at Iowa Western Community College. She also managed the greenhouse for the Glenwood State School for a year.

On May 3, 1972, she and Lee Bingaman were married at the First Baptist Church in Malvern. They added another 169 acres to her farm near Hastings. Although they lived in Omaha; they would spend most of their summer days out at their farm clearing and developing a small park and fishing pond. They took great pride and enjoyment in maintaining the park and also grew a large vegetable garden. They liked preserving old time music. They formed a traveling act with her playing honky tonk and ragtime piano; and he as her MC and story teller. She won the championship Story Teller award in 1981 for her original rendition and writing of "Hay Mow Make Believe." She traveled with Bob Everhart to several festivals through out the southwest states and California where they became "Ragtime Rosie and the Colonel."

Mr. Bingaman died in 1994, just before their 22nd wedding anniversary. She maintained active management of her land in Mills County and sold the Omaha home, replacing the "little one-bedroom Brown house" on the farm with a new home. She rewrote and published her novel at age 88. In the novel "Shared Legacy" she perpetuated her love of the land and her love of music.

She was preceded in death by her parents; brother Bill; sister Gretchen; and brother John; first husband Laurence; and second husband Lee; daughter Betty Rae Coghill; son John Robert; and daughter Joan Ruth McKenzie on Dec. 20, 2006. She is survived by son Merrill Mac Schroeder and wife Gail, of Omaha, Neb.; daughter Carrie Jean Edwards of Hastings; sons-in-law, Bruce McKenzie of Morrison, Colo.; and Marlin Coghill of Omaha; daughters-in-law, JoEllen Keating of Waterford, Va.; and Beth Schroeder of Leesburg, Va.; 16 grandchildren; and 32 great-grandchildren; numerous nieces and nephews as well as great and great-great nieces and nephews; and other relatives and friends.

A memorial fund has been established