By Madge Richardson Walsh, 1991
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Ruth Catherine Richardson 1910 Northfield High School graduation portrait |
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A MEMORY BOOK
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| Ruth in the family parlor of the D.F Richardson home, Northfield, Minnesota |
In Volume I of these annals, Florence Richardson Street reminisced about her parents, D.F. and Clemmie Richardson, and her brothers and sisters. She looked back to the time they lived in Northfield, Minnesota before the turn of the century, up to 1908. By then, Florence had married Claude Street and had her only child, Paul. Ella, the oldest sister, married Claude's brother Bernard (it was a double wedding) and had Harold, the first of her five children.
In Volume II, we have a diary and a series of articles by Ruth Richardson Smith, third child and youngest sister (these are being shared courtesy of her children). In her Private Diary, Ruth gives us a contemporary account of the period 1907 - 1909, written during her teenage years at Northfield High School, and illustrated with her own charming drawings.
Some of the gaps in the Diary I have been able to bridge with clippings from the Northfield News. For these, I shall forever bless the unnamed souls who indexed the newspaper. I also owe thanks to local Northfield teenager Reenie Martin, who spent a good part of her 1983 summer vacation in the library, reading microfilm to find the articles on my want list and making copies of them.
As her sisters did, Ruth went to Carleton College (Class of 1914, though she did not graduate). She worked as a nurse at St. Luke's in St. Paul for a year until moving to Sutherlin, Oregon in September, 1913 with her parents. On April 29, 1916, at Sutherlin, she married Arthur Gerald Smith, rancher.
Their first child was not born until 1921, and her early years on the ranch were lonely and often demanding. During this time she wrote an account of her experiences; later, during the Depression when cash was hard to come by, she offered her writings to the editor of the Roseburg News-Review. The newspaper published her articles anonymously as Letters of an Oregon Bride. Though the incidents were true, the names were fictional (but she used quite a few family names and some individuals were composites).
The first series of 12 letters appeared daily from January 17 to 30, 1934 (six days a week - there was no paper on Sunday). These were so popular that she was "persuaded" to continue the series for an additional 15 letters. These ran from April 17 to May 3, 1934. The letters covered an apparent time period of two years. The newspaper was in the habit of running such serials - romances, mysteries, or adventure stories - by then-popular authors never heard of since (except for one, perhaps - Ben Ames Williams). But they were fictional, and the Letters were unusual in being true.
Ruth told no one that she was doing this, though Art must have known. Florence thought he might have considered it a reflection on him that she had so rugged a life. Her children say they watched for the articles eagerly, never suspecting their own mother had written them.
Many years later, she got permission from the newspaper to publish the Letters as a book. Early in 1963 she sent a big envelope of them in manuscript to her sister Florence, asking her to type them. "Hurry!" Florence was astounded at the hidden talent of her sister; "I've never appreciated Ruth before."
Florence did have the letters typed before she died in July, 1963; but nothing more was done, and Ruth herself died the following year.
The only "editing" of the Letters I found necessary was to correct the typist's obvious mistakes, and to add occasional clarifying remarks or illustrations.
The text of the remembrance read at her Memorial Service concludes this volume.
Ruth Richardson Smith has left us a true "Memory Book" to pour over, evoking times past in a style that is refreshingly ingenuous, often humorous, sometimes poignant: truly a gift of herself.
Madge Richardson Walsh
In Volume II, we have a diary and a series of articles by Ruth Richardson Smith, third child and youngest sister (these are being shared courtesy of her children). In her Private Diary, Ruth gives us a contemporary account of the period 1907 - 1909, written during her teenage years at Northfield High School, and illustrated with her own charming drawings.
Some of the gaps in the Diary I have been able to bridge with clippings from the Northfield News. For these, I shall forever bless the unnamed souls who indexed the newspaper. I also owe thanks to local Northfield teenager Reenie Martin, who spent a good part of her 1983 summer vacation in the library, reading microfilm to find the articles on my want list and making copies of them.
As her sisters did, Ruth went to Carleton College (Class of 1914, though she did not graduate). She worked as a nurse at St. Luke's in St. Paul for a year until moving to Sutherlin, Oregon in September, 1913 with her parents. On April 29, 1916, at Sutherlin, she married Arthur Gerald Smith, rancher.
Their first child was not born until 1921, and her early years on the ranch were lonely and often demanding. During this time she wrote an account of her experiences; later, during the Depression when cash was hard to come by, she offered her writings to the editor of the Roseburg News-Review. The newspaper published her articles anonymously as Letters of an Oregon Bride. Though the incidents were true, the names were fictional (but she used quite a few family names and some individuals were composites).
The first series of 12 letters appeared daily from January 17 to 30, 1934 (six days a week - there was no paper on Sunday). These were so popular that she was "persuaded" to continue the series for an additional 15 letters. These ran from April 17 to May 3, 1934. The letters covered an apparent time period of two years. The newspaper was in the habit of running such serials - romances, mysteries, or adventure stories - by then-popular authors never heard of since (except for one, perhaps - Ben Ames Williams). But they were fictional, and the Letters were unusual in being true.
Ruth told no one that she was doing this, though Art must have known. Florence thought he might have considered it a reflection on him that she had so rugged a life. Her children say they watched for the articles eagerly, never suspecting their own mother had written them.
Many years later, she got permission from the newspaper to publish the Letters as a book. Early in 1963 she sent a big envelope of them in manuscript to her sister Florence, asking her to type them. "Hurry!" Florence was astounded at the hidden talent of her sister; "I've never appreciated Ruth before."
Florence did have the letters typed before she died in July, 1963; but nothing more was done, and Ruth herself died the following year.
The only "editing" of the Letters I found necessary was to correct the typist's obvious mistakes, and to add occasional clarifying remarks or illustrations.
The text of the remembrance read at her Memorial Service concludes this volume.
Ruth Richardson Smith has left us a true "Memory Book" to pour over, evoking times past in a style that is refreshingly ingenuous, often humorous, sometimes poignant: truly a gift of herself.
Madge Richardson Walsh
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