Ruth Darlene Bloom Owings was born on July 7, 1924 in a sod house on a prairie in eastern Colorado. Her mother, Mildred King Bloom, died of rheumatic heart disease when Ruth was eight years old, leaving her to be the mother of her three younger brothers, Ira, Fern, and Ovid, but they preceded her in death. Her family is a farm and they went through the Dust Bowl and the Depression together. In her college sociology class, she discovered that she had grown up in poverty. She never felt poor, she said, because “we had what everyone else had.” She attended elementary school in a one-room schoolhouse. To prepare for her high school education, Ruth’s several families worked together to buy a car, and Ruth drove herself and other area high school students to attend her district’s high school in Akron, Colorado. used. Her father, John Bloom (deceased), took a job with the Colorado Highway Department and the family moved to Fairplay in the Rocky Mountains. World War II began, and she and some of her friends took a bus to Oakland, California, where she worked as a “Rosie Riveter” in a shipyard. After that, she joined the Coast Guard SPAR, in the medical unit she served for two years. She said her team primarily treated sexually transmitted diseases in young, healthy men. When the war ended, she was discharged from the military, and as a veteran, she qualified for the GI Bill, which she used to attend the University of Denver. She graduated with her bachelor’s degree, and she married William Adolph “Dolph” Owings (her deceased). Dolph was commissioned into the U.S. Air Force, serving in Strategic Air Command, and his family lived on or near air bases in Germany, the Midwest, the West, and the South. She gave birth to five children: Richard (married Vinnie Owings), Stephen (Tammy Gattis Owings), Karen Owings (James Swindoll), and Ann Owings Wilson, all of whom survive. are doing. Her fifth child, Brian Owings, died. She got divorced and her children grew up and left home. She returned to the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and earned her teaching degree. She worked as the education director for the Methodist Children’s Home in Little Rock, where she retired after working for 20 years. She was traveling and having fun with close associates of Craig Bowden (now her deceased). She was an accomplished potter and a member of the Master Gardeners. She took part in a life quest. She lived in a log house between Stagecoach Road and Street in Little Rock for 40 years, starting in 1969. She lived on Fouche Creek, then at a lake house in Spring Valley for 12 years, and her last three years in Presbyterian Village. The family would like to thank the staff of Presbyterian Village and Hospice Home for her care. Until she was 93 years old, she swam across Spring Valley Lake every day, weather permitting, without a life jacket (despite the protests of her children), but she tied a rope around a tree to pull herself out. I had to put it on, but when she got older, I went to the bank. She is survived by her grandchildren Richard Owings and Alexander Owings, Rachel Owings Milner (her mother Debra Berreth Owings is deceased), Scott Wilson and Fabian Wilson, Adrianne Owings, and Stephanie Owings. Harris and Diane Swindoll Kennedy are survived. Michael Owings and Ben Swindoll, as well as Christopher Owings, have passed away. She is survived by her great-grandchildren Charlie, Maggie and Lizzie Milner, Peter, Henry and Jack Kennedy, Sebastian Savvy, Jeffrey, Jade and Xander Wilson; Her other special friends were her cousins ​​Betty Bearg (deceased) and Cleo Huff (deceased), and her niece Sheila Steinberg. She will be buried by her family on April 17, 2024. A memorial reception (including lunch) will be held from 12:00 PM to 2:00 PM on April 20, 2024 at the home of Richard and Vinnie Owings, 46 Norfolk Drive, Maumelle, AR. Invite family, friends, and well-wishers. Arrangements are under the direction of her RuebelFuneralHome.com.

Published April 14, 2024