Ruby Dee Aaron was born on Wednesday, January 7, 1925, in the tiny east-central Oklahoma hamlet of Vivian, in McIntosh County. She passed away on Thursday, June 23, 2022, in Provo, Utah, after 97 years, six month, two weeks, and two days.

Number eight in a family of 11—five brothers and five sisters—Ruby spent her early years in Oklahoma, where the Great Depression came crashing down particularly hard. The whole southern Great Plains were blowing away in dust storms, making it necessary for many to flee west. But one very important event occurred during all of this: Ruby's baptism. In 1933, she was baptized in a tiny town that was part of the Central States Mission: Struggleville. Who could forget that?

Ruby and her family joined the exodus, looking just like the Joads in The Grapes of Wrath: Well used Model A Ford stuffed with kids, mattresses strapped to the roof, and a trailer with what they could take towed behind. Destination: The Golden Gate and California.

Scoring top marks and earning the honor roll throughout her years in the San Francisco schools, she graduated in 1942 from Lowell High School there. World War II was in full bloom by then; she got a job with the federal government working as a clerk in the War Relocation Authority.

A little later, she met Chris, who was about to finish dental school, and late in 1943, they were married, and he graduated. She was a sort of war bride, given that Chris was immediately commissioned a first lieutenant in the Army Air Force. Ruby often followed him from posting to posting as he engaged in serious combat with the poor oral health of endless draftees.

In fall 1944, Ruby had the first of their seven children (the last wasn't born until almost exactly 17 years later, in fall 1961). A year later, the war ended, and in due course Ruby and her now civilian dentist husband settled in a little town near Sonoma in Northern California. In 1953, they decided to relocate south to Ventura County, near Los Angeles, remaining first in Oxnard and then Camarillo for over 30 years.

In 1961, Ruby decided she wanted to earn a college degree and began taking classes at night, when Chris could look after the children, at a local community college. It took ten years, but at last she graduated from California State University at Northridge with a B.A. in English and library sciences.

By now, everyone of course was in school, so she began teaching high school English. Anyone who wanted to learn English properly and thoroughly was in exactly the right place; anyone who wanted to fool around or cause trouble needed to get out fast. She enjoyed being a teacher and was very good at it, finally retiring not long before Chris retired from dentistry.

All along the way, beginning when she was a young adult, she accepted and served in all sorts of church callings, her favorites being Relief Society instructor and temple worker. She had some distinctive talents that allowed her to serve and delight those around her in other ways, too, including singing in church and elsewhere as a soloist and in choruses and choirs. Writing, especially poetry and poignant short-short stories, were another way she gladdened hearts and uplifted spirits.

Retirement found Ruby and Chris living in a number of different places, including far Northern California, where they were called on a full-time proselyting mission. She much enjoyed a calling that had them working together all the time at it.

The final retirement-era stop was Orem. They had been there for quite a number of years when Chris passed on in March 2009 at age 89. Ruby persisted as an enduring-to-the- end widow, spending the last few years in an assisted living residence. As for those who survive her, two of her sons remain, along with grand children, great-grandchildren, and bunches of nieces and nephews. She was the last of her siblings.

Here is a little jewel Ruby once wrote, a fitting coda for this brief recollection:

Silvery drops slowly slide

Down my window pane

While the sharp-sweet scent

Of dampened earth

Push me to wander in soft rain.

Graveside services will be held Thursday, June 30 at 11 AM in the Orem City Cemetery located at 1520 N. 800 E., Orem.