Ruth Estelle celebrates 100 years

PALMER — Although R.W. and Elizabeth DeArmond’s first son Bob was born in Sitka in 1911, by 1912 when their daughter Ruth was due, the town had no doctor.

So Elizabeth traveled to Tacoma, Wash., where her family was and stayed with them for about five months after Ruth’s birth on Sept. 13, 1912.

Back in Sitka, Ruth enjoyed a stable life in a modest home with her mother, father, older brother and, later, her younger sister.

Her father had a small farm and was the federal magistrate, a business owner and local community leader. Her mother was a schoolteacher, local postmaster and a leader in civic affairs.

After finishing two years of high school offered in Sitka, Ruth attended Stadium High School in Tacoma, graduating in 1928. She then attended Oregon State College in Corvallis, Ore., majoring in home economics and graduated as a member of Phi Kappa Phi, the scholastic honorary society. Following graduation, she took a year of graduate study in dietetics at the University of Michigan.

Soon she learned that the Matanuska Colony Project needed a Home Demonstration Agent to work with the newly relocated colonists. She applied for the position and was hired. In 1936, she moved to the tent city of Palmer, happy to be back in her home territory.

Her duties included traveling to the nine outlying colony camps to instruct and assist women and children in ways to improve their domestic lives. She helped organize the women in the camps into self-help groups and instructed them in ways to preserve wild and homegrown foods, demonstrated sewing and cooking methods and provided guidance to children’s 4-H Clubs.

At some point, she got a Chevy coup, which she then had to learn to drive.

She was very active in many social activities of the young community. She helped form the new United Protestant Church and served it faithfully for all the years she was able. Among her many activities, she served as the first secretary of the Matanuska Valley Agricultural and Industrial Fair Association Inc., and throughout the years she served as an official judge for many of the entered fair exhibits.

In 1937, Ruth met Howard Estelle, newly appointed Extension Agent associated with the colony project. They were married in 1938 and three years later moved to take up a farming enterprise in Spenard.

In 1947, now with three children, they returned to the Valley to farm on Fairview Loop near Wasilla. In 1948, they moved again, purchasing a farm made up of lands from portions of two original colony allotments on the northern outskirts of Palmer. There they raised vegetables for many years and later operated a grade-A dairy. They also raised five sons and two daughters.

Over the years, Ruth served as a Cub Scout den mother, 4-H leader, Sunday School teacher and continued to be active in the Homemaker’s Club and the Ladies Aid Society. In 1964, she purchased the local flower shop, which she operated successfully until 1981.

Following the sale of the shop and retirement from active farming, Ruth remained involved in gardening, cross-stitching, reading and in volunteer work associated with her church, various civic clubs and at the Alaska Veterans and Pioneers Home in Palmer.

Ruth’s husband of 36 years, Howard, died in 1974, and in 1979 she suffered another heartbreaking loss when son Jim was killed in South America. In 1994, another personal sorrow came with the sudden death of her sister, Harriett.

The Pioneers of Alaska honored Ruth in 1980 by crowing her Queen of Pioneer Igloo No. 31 and Auxiliary No. 11, and the state of Alaska also honored her for volunteer work by bestowing upon her the Governor’s Award for Friends of Families in 1984. In 1996, she was recognized by the Matanuska Valley Fair Board for her years of active contributions to the fair.

In recent years Ruth has enjoyed her expanding family of sons-in-law and daughters-in-law, as well as 12 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. For the past several years she has resided comfortably in the Palmer Pioneers Home, where for many years she had provided flowers and her time to help those who had resided there before.

Richard Estelle is the son of Ruth and Howard Estelle. He is president of the Palmer Historical Society.