MISSOULA – Our dear mother, Ruby Elizabeth Watson, died Thursday, November. 19, 2009, at the Village Health Care of natural causes at the age of 97. She was the fourth of 13 children born to Daniel and Gertrude (Kinney) Rummell on the family farm in Bartlett, Neb., on Feb. 21, 1912.
 
In the spring of 1917, the Rummells decided to leave Nebraska and traveled by train to Lewistown, where her father worked on a wheat farm. In August 1923, the family again loaded their belongings, this time into a covered wagon, and headed west to the milder climate of Oregon. After weeks of travel,the family stopped in Missoula to rest, camping near the present-day Madison Street bridge.
 
Jobs were plentiful in the 1920s in Missoula and the Rummell family never went on to Oregon. They bought a five-acre farm behind Cold Springs School, now known as Orchard Court, where they lived off of the land and income earned by her father and his mules. He and his mules dug the basement for the original Cold Springs School, which is still standing.
 
On a hot day in the summer of 1933, Ruby and her brothers and sisters headed to the Bitterroot River to cool off. On the way, she came across a young man with a cast on his broken leg sitting under an apple tree. She married that man, James Watson, on January. 2, 1934. Soon after they married, they moved to Philadelphia to be near Jim’s family. Ruby gave birth to her first child, Mary, there.
 
Ruby longed for her family, so when Mary was six months old they moved back to Montana and in the years that followed had four more children,twins Robertine and Robert, William and Patricia. At the age of 45, Jim died unexpectedly of a massive heart attack and left Ruby a young widow with five children. She then worked as a waitress until her retirement. She served fried chicken for many years at the Shack Restaurant when it was on Front Street. All of Ruby’s life, she talked about the man with the beautiful red hair that she met on her way to the river; she never remarried.
 
Ruby was a shy and quiet person but she was also an adventurer. One of her goals was to travel to all 50 states and she accomplished that. She also traveled to Europe with her brother Robert in 1981, and at 93 years old she made her last road trip to the Oregon coast to visit family.
 
Her one “sin” was her love of gambling. She would tell people in a low quiet voice, “I do like to put a few nickels in the machines, he-he.”Into her 90s, she could gamble until the early morning hours and come home with giggling stories, whether she won or lost.
 
Ruby is survived by her two sons, Robert “Spud” and William“Boog” (Nancy) of Reno, Nev.; her two daughters, Mary “Toots” Loewen and Patricia Jones (Norman); her brother, Donald Rummell (Marie) of Astoria, Ore.;and her sister, Clara White of Creswell, Ore.; plus numerous grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren. We are blessed with many five-generation family photos.
 
She was preceded in death by her husband, James Watson; daughter Robbie “Sis” Smith; brothers Leo, Frank, John, Ray, Robert and Jim; and sisters Olive Kirk, Ruth Baier, Mary (Sister Agatha Marie), and Anita Getz.
 
Ruby’s family would like to send special thanks to the CNAs and nurses at The Village Health Care for their excellent care and compassion that they provided during her final years. She was particularly vain and proud of her long fingernails and they saw to it that they were always manicured. She died with a beautiful full head of hair and long red fingernails.
A memorial celebration of Ruby’s long life will be held at 2 p.m. Wednesday, December. 2, at Garden City Funeral Home, 1705 Broadway,Missoula.