I remember being twenty and worried that life ends at 30, maybe 40 latest. Fortunately, I found a role model who broke all the old age stereotypes -someone uproariously funny, uncannily chic, and boundlessly energetic in her mid-fifties when I met her, and well into her nineties when she died. That was Ruth Ellen Mclaughlin Aitken.
I walked into my first job as an early childhood teacher at Pearsontown Elementary School in Durham, NC, and caught a glimpse of a glamorous woman wearing spiked heels and generating laughter (and adoration) up and down the halls from her pupils and colleagues. In her classroom, she changed from high heels to big pink fluffy slippers, and became master of ceremony for a circus of fun activities in an open classroom style kindergarten. Her students (and their parents) worshipped her. A placement in her class was the golden ticket.
During those years, Ruth was recognized as a teacher-mentor for child centered education, demonstrating how to teach so that every child achieves their greatest potential in life. Ruth carried that philosophy as a parent, grandparent and friend.
After school, she raced out to the gym for her aerobics classes. At home she followed Jane Fonda workout tapes, all to maintain her bikini figure for weekends at Kerr Lake where she and her husband, Wes, had a holiday house. She had a full head of honey colored curls, the perfect halo, and all natural.
I knew her for forty years and she aged slowly, her hair remained thick without any grey. Her physical beauty was generated outward from her beautiful spirit. In her nineties, her only wrinkles were laughter lines.
There was no greater validation than being chosen as her friend. If you were her adversary, watch out, she would charm you over to her world view. But to be her friend, meant that you had someone asking you all the right questions, the ones that mattered, and giving rapt attention when you talked.
She had this marvelous balance between frivolity and dead seriousness. She was flamboyant and self-enamored but never self-possessed. She inspired her friends to be strong and gracious, to have fun in life. She filled a room with her laughter.
Ruth baked hearty loaves of bread; an apt metaphor for how she cared for her home and nurtured those in her fold. She was sassy and witty; a vocal humanitarian; a dazzling conversationalist; and still gorgeous as she entered her nineties.
Ruth taught me the value of liking many and loving a few.
Over the years she held fast to ten girlfriends in two groups. There were the beach gals and I have no privy to the fun they had. I was in a second group of three women that included Jane, Mary and me. We met twice per year for three days, and spent the entire time catching up on the in-between. These two guidepost events helped me to look back, reflect, learn from my buddies, and begin anew. She was always there for me, and I felt like she loved me best. The others did as well.
Often, our spring visit took place in Beaufort at my house. Ruth loved jewelry and a visit to Handscapes Gallery was always on the agenda. In her enthusiasm, she once knocked over an entire stand of beads and in spite of the debacle, the store owner and manager still enjoyed her annual visit. She made people feel it was a privilege to serve her. Queens are like that.
Our fall girlfriend gathering usually occurred at Ruth's lake house. We crafted bead necklaces at the breakfast table while we chatted and looked out through the autumn leaves and down to the water.
The necklaces we made together remain a lasting reminder of these shared good times. They offer encouragement to recreate my own circle of confidantes, not just good friends, but ones who know each other's whole life story and can pick-up in mid-sentence from where we last were. Ruth did it for us, which made it easy, but she also taught us, through her example, of how to carry the torch.
When Ruth retired from teaching we were shocked that someone so young and so good at what she did would retire early. I was at the stage of development where my career as a star teacher was more than a job, it was my identity. Erik Erikson, developmental psychologist, described this perspective as, "I am what I make work." Ruth, on the other hand, was at the stage of generativity, "I am what I give back."
She laughed and reminded us that while she looked young and gorgeous, she was retirement age and had a whole lot of other things she wanted to do. Nothing at all was also quite ok.
After retirement she volunteered at the Nearly New Shoppe whose profits provide scholarships for Duke Medical students. Her volunteer work provided opportunities to stay active, make new friends, and buy a bargain for a good cause. Her first words when she met up with Jane, Mary and me was this. "Can you believe this whole outfit came from the Nearly New?" She also kept her eye out for old beads we could use in the necklaces we made together.
The most important thing she did for me was introducing me to my husband, Charles. Coincidentally, she had also been an essential figure in my husband's life during his teen years. Ruth and Wes had two sons and their house was the place to hang out, the cool parents. Their cottage was just across the lake from the weekend retreat of Charles's parents. While Charles liked Ruth and Wes's sons, he thought of Ruth and Wes as his actual friends.
Wes, a chaplain at Duke University Medical Center was also a colleague with Charles's father who was a psychiatrist at Duke. The two families socialized as Charles was growing up. When the tragic death of Charles's brother, George, occurred, Wes led them through the dark passage of mourning. The two families shared a lot of history.
In my third year of teaching, Ruth mentioned that she knew a guy my age, Charles, who was home after working in Ecuador and Bolivia. He had been a Peace Corps volunteer in Ecuador and helped build a community health program in a small village in Bolivia. As a hobby and bit of a side business, he studied and collected pre-Columbian textile fragments. These small cloth fragments had no real value on the art market but were great study pieces for weavers. Ruth thought I should meet Charles since I had interest in pre-Columbian art and was taking a course on the subject. She gave me his phone number and the rest is history.
The Monday after I met Charles, Ruth asked if I purchased any of the fragments or old beads. She was surprised when I told her "no" but laughed when I followed up with this, "I decided I wanted all of them." Sounded like something Ruth would say. I was learning from her how to aim high in life. The cover photo of Ruth was taken at our wedding. She introduced us and her husband, Wes, married us at Duke Chapel.
Oddly enough Charles and I met five years prior to Ruth's re-introduction. But the first date didn't take like the one on which Ruth swirled her magic wand. In fact, it took a while before Charles and I even remembered the first date. Fate and Ruth gave us a second chance.
Ruth was born on August 6, 1928 in South Charleston, West Virginia, and passed away on January 31, 2020. As she lay dying, she made a request to her son, Dan. She wanted no formal memorial service. Instead, she asked him to gather her family and closest friends to share anecdotes and memories of good times together, to lift a toast, and feel her presence and the enduring bond among "her" people.
The Covid epidemic delayed our gathering to remember Ruth.
On September 25, 2021, her son Dan and the grand-kids invited her closest friends to the family's Kerr Lake cottage to feast on a bounty of delicious food while sharing plenty of delightful memories.
On that beautiful autumn afternoon, we spread her ashes from the dock, and watched her swirling patterns in the water, each in
our own thoughts.
And then, Jane Misch offered the final flourish, bringing us back to shared laughter, the place where Ruth would want us to be.
Jane said, "Ruth was an only child and always expected to be the center of attention. She would be so pleased to be the center of our attention today."
Yes, indeed, Ruth was adored by her family and a magnet for friends. Ruth was full of life, and bigger than life, and demanding and forgiving of life. At this celebration of Ruth's life, it was clear that she lives on in the hearts of those she loved and enchanted.
Credits and Notes:
Cover photo and wedding photos by Scott Taylor
Dan Aitken's sons are Blair, shown with fiancé Laura Jane, and son Wesley with Dan & Sandi.
Hillary and Cameron Aitken are the children of Ruth's son, Tim, who is deceased.
Adopted family members included in the celebration of life were Mike, Betsy and Julia O'Connor; and daughters-in-law Janet Aitken and Sandi Honnold.
Beach gals included Sylvia Lacey, Nancy Childress, Becky Crawford, Gail Rasberry, Jane Misch, Sandra Meyer, Betty House, Betsy Mangum, and Ruth.
My group of "Ruth Chums" included Ruth, Mary Moran, Jane Misch, and me.
Craft wizard, Nancy Childers, created the seed packets so that we each can sow a garden for Ruth next spring.
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