Smith, Mary Ruth (1920-2012)
SMITH, MURRAY, FLYNN, SHAW, GOODMAN, OWENS, STEFFENSON, SKARSKI, UPPENA, JOHNSON, ZIELINSKI, REICHERT, ZIELINSKI, FULSTONE, KENNEDY
Posted By: Paul Nagy (email)
Date: 6/14/2012 at 22:15:15
Mary Ruth Smith
(May 23, 1920 - June 9, 2012)Mary Ruth Smith, age 92 of Buffalo Center, Iowa, passed away at home in Buffalo Center on Saturday, June 9, 2012. During her ninety-two remarkable years, Ruth touched the lives of people from coast to coast and beyond. She chatted with Presidents, Senators, elected officials, and global leaders, but her most important conversations were with her many lifelong friends, her family, and her "little lambs."
"And in the end, it is not the years in the life, it is the life in the years," A. Lincoln.
Mary Ruth Smith was born May 23, 1920, at the home of her parents, Frank and Mary Josephine "Josie" Flynn Murray, on the family farm east of Buffalo Center, Iowa. She was baptized May 25, 1920, at St. Patrick's Church where she also received her First Communion, was confirmed, and married.
Ruth attended the Buffalo Center Consolidated School and graduated with the Class of 1937. She graduated from the University of Iowa in 1941 with a degree in Commerce/Business. From 1941 to 1949, she was first employed in various administrative/executive capacities in Knoxville, Tennessee, and Sheffield, Alabama, and then with the Tennessee Valley Authority and the Best Fertilizer Company in El Dorado, Arkansas, Oakland, California, and Lindsay, California, where she oversaw the construction and opening of a new fertilizer plant.
In 1949, Ruth returned to Iowa with intentions of furthering her education at the University of Iowa. Her life's course changed, however, when she fell in love with a former high school classmate, Raymond A. Smith, Sr., whom she married on June 1, 1950. They began farming on his parents' farm southeast of town. In 1952, they moved to a farm in Grant Township where they lived until 1965 when they moved to the farm where Ruth was born east of Buffalo Center. She continued to live there after Raymond's death on April 30, 1975, until 2003 when she moved from her farm home to her town residence in Buffalo Center. From 1965 to 1975, Ruth was employed as a children's welfare worker by the Winnebago County Department of Social Services.
Diligent in her commitment to her church, community, and political beliefs, Ruth supported them all in various capacities as evidenced by her long standing memberships throughout her life. She served several terms as president of St. Patrick's Altar Society, the Mason City Deanery of the Archdiocesan Council of Catholic Women, and the Ladies Literary Circle. A charter member of the Catholic Daughters of America Court at Lindsay, California, she helped organize the group. Active in the American Legion Auxiliary, the American Association of University Women, and the Sierra Club, she also served as president of the Winnebago County Federated Women's Clubs. A member of the University of Iowa Alumni Association and the Old Capitol Club since her graduation in 1941, she avidly cheered on Hawkeye teams for more than seventy-five years. Ruth also actively volunteered as a member of the Winnebago County Domestic Violence Commission. Having served on the steering committee for the Buffalo Center Centennial in 1992, she also participated on the Winnebago County Sesquicentennial Commission and the Buffalo Center Heritage Community Center Committee. She was a longtime volunteer reader at the Timely Mission Nursing Home. She was one of the first women in Iowa to serve on a County Farmers Home Administration Advisory Committee. An active Democrat, Ruth twice ran as the party's candidate for state representative in the 1950s. Comfortable in any social situation, she was a guest of President Clinton in the Oval Office at the White House. The New York Times even quoted her as telling Hillary Clinton that she was born the year women attained the right of suffrage and hoped to live long enough to vote for a woman for president.
Ray and Ruth were the parents of six sons, all of whom with their spouses survive her: Frank (lawyer) and Becky, of Pleasant Hill, Iowa, and their children, Melany Shaw, Heidi Goodman, Mary Owens, Benjamin Smith, Tyler Smith, and Jessman Smith; Ray, Jr., (farmer) and Jody, of Buffalo Center, Iowa, and their children, Zachary Smith, Peter Smith, Amanda Smith, Kelly Smith, and Connor Smith; Charles (salesman) and Marcia, of Albert Lea, Minnesota, and their children Emily Steffenson, Todd Smith, Sarah Skarski, and Melissa Uppena; James (grocer) and Mary, of Bolingbrook, Illinois, and their children, James Smith, Nicholas Smith, Thomas Smith, and Douglas Smith; Pat (businessman and the family's token Republican) and Julie, of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and their children, Lauren Smith, Erin Smith, Shannon Smith, Colleen Smith, and Abigail Smith; and Dan (lawyer and consultant) and Lorraine, of Chevy Chase, Maryland, and their children Ruby Smith and Angus Smith. In addition to her thirteen granddaughters and her thirteen grandsons, Ruth is also survived by twenty-nine great-grandchildren; her brothers-in-law, Stan Johnson, of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and Karl Reichert, of Wewahitchka, Florida, and her brother- and sister-in-law, Bob and Jean Zielinski, of Kerrville, Texas; as well as numerous nieces and nephews. Ruth was preceded in death by her husband, Raymond; her parents; her sisters, Alta Fulstone, Marian Kennedy, and Jeanne Johnson and seven of her beloved Smith sisters-in-law and spouses.
A lifelong letter writer, Ruth produced a weekly family letter for more than twenty-five years, but less frequently in her last years, authoring more than 1,000 letters in total. The one page, single spaced letter routinely contained family updates, a literary, historical, political or philosophical quote, some local Buffalo Center news, a topical comment on the political events of the day, an uplifting reference to a life event or news article and a subtle bit of advice and wisdom "between the lines" directed toward deserving recipients. A front page feature story in the Des Moines Sunday Register in 1998 described her "Letters from Home" as "slyly humorous, refreshingly candid, occasionally acerbic and nearly always upbeat." At the request of the University of Iowa Women's Archives Project, the letters, a family thread that ran so true and knitted all together, have been collected and along with her many other writings are being donated to this project. The family is compiling further information for the archival donation and asks that anyone who has an interest consider contacting Tyler Smith (tylermurraysmith@gmail.com ) for more information.
On the occasion of her 90th birthday, the family letter recipients all wrote letters to Ruth, which were collected in a bound volume and presented to her. One letter writer summarized Ruth's influence on her family: "As your letters have so often wisely reminded, whatever roads [are] taken in life, the rules of the road are always the same:
Be true to yourself.
Help others - many hands make light work.
Make friendship a fine art.
Build a shelter against the rain.
Everyone has something of sorrow.
Give thanks for your blessings.
You can catch more flies with sugar than with vinegar.
Don't believe in the word "can't" - persevere relentlessly.
Don't count your chickens before they are hatched.
If you have a lemon, make lemonade.
Kindness is the essence of good manners.
P.S. And those with whom you have irreconcilable differences will just have to put an egg in their shoe and beat it."Ruth lived her life at a "2 forty hen trot" with an occasional nap when that "deliciously sleepy feeling" overtook her. A gracious and elegant lady and an engaging and superb conversationalist, she always placed the well-being of others first and foremost.
A visitation and celebration of Ruth's amazing life will be held at the Buffalo Center Heritage Town Center where the family will gather with friends and relatives from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. on Thursday, June 14, 2012, and at the church on Friday one hour before the funeral Mass.
A Mass of Christian Burial will be offered at 10:30 AM on Friday, June 15, 2012, at St. Patricks Catholic Church in Buffalo Center with Father Dennis Miller officiating. A rite of Christian burial at the family plot in Graceland Cemetery will follow. Her sons will serve as her pall bearers.
Memorials may be made in Ruth's memory to the Heritage Town Center, PO Box 430, Buffalo Center, IA 50424.
Copyright © 2012, Winter Funeral Home and Cremation Service
Winnebago Obituaries maintained by Cheryl Siebrass.
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