Life and Death on the Home Front

Life goes on even when wars rage, or simmer, as the case may be. And an integral part of life is Death. Sadly, sometime late last night or early this morning, Death stopped in Sacramento and departed with Kathy's grandmother. She was three months and nine days short of her 100th birthday.

Almost 100 years. Think about it. When Ruth Frances Ish Schulz was born April 27, 1908, women couldn't vote. She was so excited that a woman might make it to the White House in her lifetime.

Ruth grew up in Goldfield, Nevada, a mining town where she attended a one-room school. A talented musician and artist, family legend has it that young Ruth was could be found singing at the Goldfield Hotel at the age of four. Social services today would probably frown on a four-year old singing in a hotel in a mining town. But regardless of this ignominious start, Ruth turned out ok. She went to college, worked throughout the Depression, got married, raised two kids, donated generously to worthy causes, and lived long enough to get to know five great grandchildren.

By 1920, the gold mines were played out and Ruth and her family had moved to the Bay Area. In 1924, when she was just 16, Rush graduated high school. After taking a year off, she entered Cal (Berkeley), starting a family tradition that would last three generations. After graduating, she worked in Oakland. Although the Depression was in full force, she apparently did ok as evidenced by the photos of trips that she and her girlfriends took to places like Hawai'i. During her teenage years and early twenties, she and her father and brother went on extended camping trips in the Sierra Nevada. It was the "good ol' days": camping equipment was so heavy that they took mules to carry it, and "thermarests" were piles of pine and/or fir bows cut fresh each night off the trees.

In 1936 or 37, she married Walter Schulz, a second-generation American who put himself through Cal working odd jobs along the way. Their first child was born in 1938 (I'm going to be in trouble if that's a year early -ks) and their second in June 1941. Six months later, following the attack on Pearl Harbor, Walt shipped out with the Navy, leaving Ruth with a toddler and infant to care for.

Knowing that she made it through the war years with only the occasional letter from her husband, no mid-tour leave visits, rationing, and two small children to care for, has been no small inspiration for Kathy getting through this Iraq war separation. We have almost daily email, occasional phone calls, a mid-tour rendez-vous in Paris, and only the cats to worry about. If Ruth could make it through four years, during which time her husband was in the Pacific, including we think on Iwo Jima, then Kathy can make it 12 months while Ed hangs out in Tikrit.

Ruth served as an inspiration in other ways as well. Kathy credits her with providing the outdoors - specifically hiking and camping - genes. She was certainly strong minded - in the 1960s when the surgeon general began making noises about the health risks of smoking, she quit. Cold turkey. And the other smokers in her family followed suit sooner after (they really didn't have a choice). Ruth remained politically active and engaged until, well, probably yesterday. Although she spent the first several decades of her life as a Republican, she changed party affiliation during the McCarthy hearings and never looked back. This is not called flip-flopping by the way, it is called assessing the situation and making a well-thought out decision.

She sought out and organized the Democrats at her retirement community and was always up for a discussion about politics. In fact, one of the first questions that crossed the minds of many members of her family today was, "did she send in her absentee ballot before she passed away?"
Sadly, she did not. In her memory, I would ask that anyone who is undecided in the upcoming primary election cast their vote for Hillary.

Ruth lived independently until just after her 98th birthday, when she went to assisted living and then skilled nursing. After breaking her hip last February, she was up and walking again by May. Just this past Tuesday she walked to the independent living section of her retirement community to attend a '90s party'. Her report the next day to her daughter - the party was ok, although the entertainment wasn't great. Just because the people at the party were old, didn't mean the musiciens couldn't play some non-slow songs. After all, even in her day, music had some pep.

As did she. And to the end she did not cease to challenge, amaze, impress and inspire the people who knew her.

We will miss her.