Ruth A Pettice

Ruth Ann Pettice was born on Oct. 23, 1935 to Erich August and Mary Etta Kuersten. She joined her older sister Helen and grew up in Chicago Heights, on Prairie, Garden, and Sunnyside avenues. Looking back over Ruth’s life, the street names seem fitting, emphasizing the world she delighted in showing her children and the sunshine that cast its light on everyone who was lucky enough to know her.

During her high school years, she was a clerk at Kline’s Department Store. Her expertise earned her another job as a secret shopper. After high school, she was an x-ray technician at Ingalls Memorial Hospital, where she met her future mother-in-law, a nurse. Her work colleagues conspired to introduce her to her future spouse, and the rest was history.

On August 20, 1955 Ruth married August Franklin “Frank” Pettice; they bought a small white house on Sauk Trail and vowed to fill their house and lives with children. The children came: Mary in 1960, Margaret in 1964, Adam in 1969, and Sarah in 1978. The houses they shared—that little one and later, their home on Cottage Grove Avenue—offered children, horses, dogs, and cats never-ending love and security.

In the sixties her daughters stood breathless as their mother dressed for a night out or a family event. Bright red lipstick, sensible low heels, a pretty dress or skirt—the perfect ensemble always came together—with pearls, of course. And yet when the seventies came around, Ruth’s style relaxed, and her days at the house at the edge of the forest found her and her family out in the yard in t-shirts and jeans, gardening, playing badminton, and gathering with friends and family on the back deck.

As her children grew, she embraced her life as a chauffeur, always carrying a novel or a crossword puzzle book with her to music lessons, horseback riding lessons, Girl Scout meetings, dance lessons, Saturday play practice, hockey practice, and every other activity her children pursued. She was their best cheerleader, and no matter what happened, when her children looked out into the audience, into the stands, there she was, and they hoped they’d made her proud.

It’s impossible to separate her life from her children’s lives. When the school needed a picture lady, she selected canvas reprints of famous paintings, researched them, and led discussions in a variety of elementary school classrooms. She was a room mother and a church youth group volunteer. School band uniforms required home-sewn white skirts with four box pleats in front, so out came the sewing machine. Back-to-school shopping called for careful study of the Sears catalogue and, weeks later, drives to the store’s parcel pick-up section. An endless parade of cherished pets demanded her attention. Some dogs and cats “belonged” to specific children, but their furry little hearts belonged completely to Mom.

Her circle of care encompassed every person she met; springtime found her driving throughout the region with Easter baskets that her children carried up to doors at houses that might not have been expecting anyone. No one she knew would miss a doctor’s appointment or a grocery run, not if she could help it. After her beloved husband died, she decided to deliver for Meals on Wheels and volunteer at a local outreach kitchen. She said she was just keeping busy, but her family and friends knew better. Her heart told her where she was needed, and she simply followed it.

Despite the above, a story about her sense of humor will dispel any conclusion that her life was solemn and staid. One day, a salesperson called the house, eager to sell her a funeral plot. Listening, her oldest daughter sat at the kitchen table, slowly realizing that her mother was at the end of her patience with the salesperson’s saccharine pitch. Mom was toying with him! The conversation continued and when he caught on to her frivolity, and accused her of not taking him seriously, she said, “Oh, no, sir, I realize this is a very grave situation.” Her daughter fell off her chair she was laughing so hard.

Ruth leaves behind her daughters, their husbands, and her grandchildren who will never forget her. She cared for many—family, friends, acquaintances, and strangers—throughout the years with great and small gestures of love. She left this world better than she found it.