On May 6, 2005, Ida Ruth Elzey Rawlings rejoined Jesus Christ and her beloved husband William Eber Rawlings, her parents Ira William and Maude Roberts Elzey, her sisters Lucille Rawlings and Esther Cleaves, and daughter Ruth Rawlings Grimstad in Heaven.

Ruth was born April 27, 1910 in Hartford City, Indiana. She received her BA degree in History from Western College for Women, Oxford, Ohio in 1931 and her MA degree in Education from Columbia University in NYC in 1942. She taught history at Hartford City Senior High School for 11 years until she joined the Women’s Army Corps during WWII in December 1943. She graduated from Command and General Staff War School at Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas and served as Assistant WAC Staff Director for the 7th Service Command.

At the close of the war, Ruth was promoted to Captain, and was the first woman in the Department of Education of Military Government Occupied Germany in Gross Hessen. She led the re-establishment of the German high schools under democratic student government that Hitler had destroyed in 1933 by establishing the autocratic Hitler youth organizations.

After the war, Ruth was crowned Queen for a Day by requesting books for the German schools. She then taught and served as Assistant Dean of Women at Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois. On August 23, 1949 in Moran, Wyoming, she married Bill Rawlings of Billings, Montana and resided there until they moved to Ephrata, WA in 1960, where Bill was the Project Manager of Grand Coulee Dam and the vast Columbia Basin Irrigation Project until his retirement in 1970. He died in 1973. She moved to Richland, Washington in 1999 to be near her daughter and son-in-law, Jane and Steve Kirkendall.

Ruth was a life member of the Methodist Church and Eastern Star, and active member of the Grant County and Blackford County Historical Societies, Daughters of the American Revolution and the Colonial Dames of the 17th Century. She actively served on the Board of Directors for Camp Fire and YWCA in Billings, MT. She was a Charter Member of the Women in Military Service Memorial Foundation.

Ruth traveled extensively around the world and after 1973. She did historical research at over 35 Elderhostels in England and the US, continuing her life-long love of learning. Her deep and abiding interest was the historical research of her many Great Grandparents and writing of their historic lives.

Ruth is survived by her daughter Jane Rawlings Steven Kirkendall, Ann Rawlings Don Cole, William Ira MaryLou Rawlings, James Pat Rawlings, and their children and grandchildren including those of Ruth Rawlings John Grimstad, now deceased. A memorial will be held at Einan’s Funeral Home, Richland on Saturday, May 14, 2005 at 1:00 PM, and also in Billings, Montana where she will be buried in the family plot in the Billings Cemetery.

In lieu of flowers, the family suggests that memorials be made to Hospice, the Military Memorial in Columbia Park or the charity of your choice. Ruth, we love you and will miss your vivacious love of life. But death is only a horizon, the limit of our earthly sight; for life is eternal and love is immortal.