Our mother, christened Ruthie Lucille Flake at birth but known to everyone as Ruth, was the daughter of James Franklin Flake and Jesse July Wilson.  She was born 16 July 1918 in a small frame house on the east side of the Clarksburg-Westport Road, about halfway between the home of her grandparents, Lewis Alexander and Rosa Lee Wilson and what came to the home of her aunt and uncle, Lora and Vester Ringold, half a mile to the north.  Frank and Jesse lived at various locations, including McEwen, where Ruth graduated from high school in 1938, one of a class of 20 seniors.  A number of artifacts from her high school days are displayed on her Mementos page.  After graduation, she enrolled in the Nashville General Hospital School of Nursing, where she studied to become a Registered Nurse.  She graduated on 1 June 1942 with her RN license, one of a class of 31 graduates.

Soon after her graduation, she took a job as nurse at the construction site of Dale Hollow Dam near Celina Tennessee, then under construction by the Army Corps of Engineers, northeast of Nashville and near the Kentucky border.  A few photos of the dam site are displayed on the Early Years page.  During this time, she met Will Marcom Masters, one of ten siblings raised by Walter Gray and Gypsy Ann Masters of Celina.  Their white frame farm house, situated on Livingston Road south of Celina, can barely be made out in some of the photos on Will’s page.  Will, a Staff Sergeant in the Army Air Corps at the time, had attended David Lipscomb College in Nashville and the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.  They were married in Houlton, Maine in March of 1943.  Their first son, Michael was born in April 1944 in Huntingdon Tennessee.

Will served in the military during World War II, and was then discharged.  He returned to Celina and ran unsuccessfully for sheriff.  He subsequently re-entered military service, this time in the US Air Force, rising to the rank of Technical Sergeant. Ruth and Michael followed his postings to Eglin Air Force Base in the western Florida Panhandle and then to Malstrom Air Force Base, Great Falls, Montana, where Michael entered first grade.  They were subsequently posted to Florence, South Carolina, where Ronald Edward was born.  Will was then sent to Millington, near Memphis, during which time Ruth, Michael and Ronald lived with Jesse in Huntingdon.  Will was then posted to Jackson, Tennessee where he was assigned as a USAF recruiting specialist.  Soon thereafter, Robert Andrew was born.  Will was dispatched to Alaska for a year during this period, but for Ruth, Michael, Ronald, and Andrew there would be no more moves.  This was the last house Ruth would ever live in, and she would put down roots so deep that only her departure from the living could break them.

The relationship with Will would eventually become untenable, and Ruth at length became a single mother.  While life was a hardship financially, she persevered, carried forward with an inner resolve that never wavered no matter how bleak the outlook or how bare the cupboard.  No pioneer was ever made of sterner stuff.  She supported her family as a hospital nurse, working difficult hours for pay that barely made ends meet.  Much later she found a quieter life as an industrial nurse.  When at last she retired at age 65, the worries and cares of a lifetime seemed finally to gradually fade away, and she began to enjoy life in a way that she never could before.  With her three sons raised and each with children of their own -- grandchildren for her to enjoy! -- with her house paid for and in good repair inside and out --thanks to the efforts of son Ron -- and with her yard landscaped with flowers and shrubs, she devoted her time to some truly marvelous needlework, some pieces running to hundreds of thousands of stiches.  She began to delve into family genealogy, and her efforts captured the interest of Michael, leading directly to the genealogy section of this web site.  She was frequently visited by a wide circle of friends and church members, all of whom remarked on her flowers and her needlework.

One characteristic that never left her, even as she mellowed out on other fronts, was her firmness when it came to opinions about how the world should be run.  She knew every local, state, and national official, or their staffs, in her chain of electoral command, up to and including her US senators.  Every time someone took a position on an issue that violated her sense of what was right – or failed to stand up for same – she was on the phone right away, “to give them a piece of my mind."

Toward the end she had several strokes -- emergencies often responded to by sons Andrew or Ron -- but after each one she dug in and did physical therapy, determined to return to her home, unwilling to be dependent on anyone.  When the final debilitating event came and a nursing home became unavoidable she still tried her best to recover.  She took inspiration from the birth of her first great grandchild and spend hours looking at his photos.  News of the impending arrival of a second was equally bouying.  However, despite her fighting spirit nature could only be denied so long, and she passed in January, 2011.  At her funeral service at Lawrence-Sorensen Funeral Home the chapel was filled to overflowing with many, many friends and relatives who had known her and who came to pay their final respects.  The service was simple, overseen by Robert Andrew, who has experience as a lay minister.  Each son, along with Robert Andrew's and Carolyn’s son Jonathan, memorialized Ruth from their experiences and perspectives.   Burial services took place at the family's traditional site, Blair Cemetery, on the Clarksburg-Westport Road east of Clarksburg.  Arrangements there were overseen by cousin Billy Ringold.

Ruth was laid to rest on a cold, gray winter day, and afterward the families went to Billy and Ruth Carol’s home for warmth and family companionship.  We had been joined by Jim and Carey Flake, come all the way from California for the funeral.  Soon it was time to depart, each to a different state.  But somehow it seemed fitting that, after a long life, the final 27 years of which had at last brought tranquility and fulfillment, Ruth had been laid to rest amongst her family and her ancestors, hardly more than a stone’s throw from where she had been born, where her grandparents had lived, and where she had played as a girl; where her uncle and aunt had lived, and where she had taken her own sons for many a happy Sunday outing in days gone by.  The circle of life was complete, and on that cold, gray day we set off with our memories to ensure that new circles she had set in motion would continue.