Sunday obituary: Ruth Deery, a mind full of joy
Sunday, March 16, 2008 9:41 AM PDT
By Leslie Slape
lslape@tdn.com
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E-mail this articleRuth Deery loved to teach - and learn.
In her 84 years, Deery's inquiring mind gave her endless joy absorbing new ideas and skills, all the way up to e-mail and iPods.
"She always had ideas to talk about, and she was studying Spanish to the end," said her daughter, Linda Deery Nelson of Portland. "She also got her Better Bones and Balance (exercise) class counting the repetitions in several languages -Thai, Japanese, Spanish - any she could learn."
"She was a happy person," said longtime friend Shirley Lutz. "She was happy doing what she did, happy being productive."
Deery, an environmental activist, author of several books and retired teacher in the Longview School District, died March 3 in Portland after a heart attack.
She was born April 23, 1923, in Chicago. She met her husband, Harold, during World War II, during which she decoded enemy messages and wrote commendations. They were married in 1945 in Oberlin, Ohio, and settled in Longview, where Harold was a project chemist for Weyerhaeuser Co.
The Deerys, who met at a square dance, started the Square and Circle Club in Longview. They also founded the local Unitarian Church and formed a madrigal group that lasted 35 years.
Nelson said her mother wanted to make sure their four children could go to college, so in the 1960s she became a schoolteacher. Science was her favorite subject.
"She timed it so that my older sister was just starting high school and my youngest brother was just in school, so no preschooler would be home alone or in day care," Nelson said. "Then she just blossomed. She loved the classroom. She loved preparing lessons."
Nelson said her mother was "a gentle soul" who would rather motivate her students than scold them. "She was incredibly fair and incredibly honorable," Nelson said. "If a clerk gave her a dime too much, she'd go back to the store to return it."
When Mount St. Helens erupted in 1980, she used newspaper stories to develop lessons. That led to the 1985 publication of "Earthquakes and Volcanoes," which was followed a few years later by "Tornadoes and Hurricanes."
In 1991 she wrote "Quake, Rattle and Roll" to teach elementary school children earthquake preparedness.
"They're wonderful books," said Lutz. "I passed them out to my grandchildren. She also has her name in a recent book that just came out, "Encyclopedia of Northwest Native Plants for Gardens and Landscapes."
She was environmentally aware since childhood, and grew more concerned about ecology during backpacking trips with Harold. In the 1970s, the Deerys and several other local couples formed the Willapa Hills Audubon Society. Ruth was the society's conservation chairwoman and wetlands specialist.
She became an activist for the environment after retiring from teaching in 1985. She stopped some developers from illegally filling wetlands and made others change their plans to protect wildlife habitat.
"I could always count on Ruth showing up at meetings being well-prepared," said Judi Strayer, district manager for the Longview diking district, on which where Deery served on the advisory committee since 2004. "She had notes ready to ask me questions and always kept me on my toes. She was an absolute joy. She will definitely be missed."
Strayer said when the diking district removed alder trees from a ditch, Deery "worked ardently" with the district to replace them.
In 2001, the Earth Day committee named her Cowlitz County's first "Environmental Citizen of the Year."
Nelson said her mother's upbeat attitude defined her.
"I remember her singing and whistling, 'Oh what a beautiful morning, oh what a beautiful day,' " Nelson said. Even when her joints ached with arthritis, she would just warm them up and start her day.
After her husband died in 2003, Deery began taking trips to Europe, which she hadn't visited since she was 13.
"She went on a Baltic cruise, a fjord cruise north of the Arctic Circle, Turkey and Greece and Crete, and most recently Florence, Italy," Nelson said. "She found out she loved museums -- she didn't know that until she started going to Europe."
She and Nelson also went with a small group of friends to Mexico.
"She loved looking at architecture, looking at pre-Aztec ruins," Nelson said. "And she loved chocolate, so it was great going to the Chocolate Museum. When she was really down, she said it was a two-chocolate-bar day."
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