When Ruth Evelyn [Thompson] Rathbone was born on or about Sept 6, 1909, probably in or near Minneapolis, Minnesota, her (adoptive) father William was 48 and her (adoptive) mother Emma was 36, with three teenage children. Left as a new baby at a private Minneapolis daycare by a woman who gave the infant's name as Ruth Evelyn Thomson (or Thompson) and never returned for her, she was taken in by the Rathbone family of Robbinsdale, MN shortly thereafter. (The husband of the woman who operated the daycare in their home was a house painter; while painting the Rathbone's house he happened to tell Emma about the poor abandoned infant, and that was that!) Ruth's birthdate was legally established to be "about Sept 6, 1909" and her adoption by the Rathbones - and her name of Ruth Evelyn Rathbone - was made official in August 1915. She had a post-adoption birth certificate, and because of a clerical error during the adoption process, well into adulthood she thought she'd been born in 1910 and was not too happy to learn decades later that she was a year older than she'd thought! She didn't learn she was adopted till she was about 12 (a slip-up by someone - maybe a cousin) but she never let on to her parents. After their mother's funeral in 1936, Ruth asked her two sisters if it was true and they told her the story. As far as I know, she never attempted to learn the identity of her birth parents or the circumstances of her birth; she loved her Rathbone family with all her heart and as she considered them her "only" or "real" family, she didn't want them to think she felt they were anything less than that. (I, on the other hand, have always been curious about my biological maternal grandparents and am trying to learn what I can).
She married Severino "Sam" Possenti in Hudson, Wisconsin on March 25, 1934. They lived in Havre, Montana and had one daughter in Nov 1935. Except for a decade during the late 1970's-1980's when they lived in Cape Elizabeth, Maine to be closer to their daughter and her family, their entire marriage (they divorced in 1991) and the years that followed until her death were spent in Havre.
Diagnosed with cancer in January 1955, Ruth was successfully treated with radium and cobalt at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. She was a longtime doll collector (having to sell many of them to pay for her cancer treatment), an avid reader and bird watcher, shared her life with many beloved dogs over the years, and loved walks in the Bears Paw Mountains and her flower gardens (she especially loved hollyhocks, gladiolus, marigolds, & lilacs, but violets were her all-time favorite flower since she was very little and pronounced them "by-lits"). She made the world's best huckleberry pies, and was exceedingly generous, sweet-natured, unfailingly optimistic, and very funny. She never finished high school but served for decades as the Hill County (MT) auditor, and obtained her GED at the age of 85, the oldest person in Montana at the time to do so.
She was determined to live long enough to ring in the new millennium and so she did, and then some. With her daughter (who'd been her caretaker for years) by her side, she died of old age, pneumonia, and dementia on Oct 1, 2004 at her home in Havre, Montana at age 95, and is deeply missed.
She married Severino "Sam" Possenti in Hudson, Wisconsin on March 25, 1934. They lived in Havre, Montana and had one daughter in Nov 1935. Except for a decade during the late 1970's-1980's when they lived in Cape Elizabeth, Maine to be closer to their daughter and her family, their entire marriage (they divorced in 1991) and the years that followed until her death were spent in Havre.
Diagnosed with cancer in January 1955, Ruth was successfully treated with radium and cobalt at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. She was a longtime doll collector (having to sell many of them to pay for her cancer treatment), an avid reader and bird watcher, shared her life with many beloved dogs over the years, and loved walks in the Bears Paw Mountains and her flower gardens (she especially loved hollyhocks, gladiolus, marigolds, & lilacs, but violets were her all-time favorite flower since she was very little and pronounced them "by-lits"). She made the world's best huckleberry pies, and was exceedingly generous, sweet-natured, unfailingly optimistic, and very funny. She never finished high school but served for decades as the Hill County (MT) auditor, and obtained her GED at the age of 85, the oldest person in Montana at the time to do so.
She was determined to live long enough to ring in the new millennium and so she did, and then some. With her daughter (who'd been her caretaker for years) by her side, she died of old age, pneumonia, and dementia on Oct 1, 2004 at her home in Havre, Montana at age 95, and is deeply missed.
When Ruth Evelyn [Thompson] Rathbone was born on or about Sept 6, 1909, probably in or near Minneapolis, Minnesota, her (adoptive) father William was 48 and her (adoptive) mother Emma was 36, with three teenage children. Left as a new baby at a private Minneapolis daycare by a woman who gave the infant's name as Ruth Evelyn Thomson (or Thompson) and never returned for her, she was taken in by the Rathbone family of Robbinsdale, MN shortly thereafter. (The husband of the woman who operated the daycare in their home was a house painter; while painting the Rathbone's house he happened to tell Emma about the poor abandoned infant, and that was that!) Ruth's birthdate was legally established to be "about Sept 6, 1909" and her adoption by the Rathbones - and her name of Ruth Evelyn Rathbone - was made official in August 1915. She had a post-adoption birth certificate, and because of a clerical error during the adoption process, well into adulthood she thought she'd been born in 1910 and was not too happy to learn decades later that she was a year older than she'd thought! She didn't learn she was adopted till she was about 12 (a slip-up by someone - maybe a cousin) but she never let on to her parents. After their mother's funeral in 1936, Ruth asked her two sisters if it was true and they told her the story. As far as I know, she never attempted to learn the identity of her birth parents or the circumstances of her birth; she loved her Rathbone family with all her heart and as she considered them her "only" or "real" family, she didn't want them to think she felt they were anything less than that. (I, on the other hand, have always been curious about my biological maternal grandparents and am trying to learn what I can).
She married Severino "Sam" Possenti in Hudson, Wisconsin on March 25, 1934. They lived in Havre, Montana and had one daughter in Nov 1935. Except for a decade during the late 1970's-1980's when they lived in Cape Elizabeth, Maine to be closer to their daughter and her family, their entire marriage (they divorced in 1991) and the years that followed until her death were spent in Havre.
Diagnosed with cancer in January 1955, Ruth was successfully treated with radium and cobalt at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. She was a longtime doll collector (having to sell many of them to pay for her cancer treatment), an avid reader and bird watcher, shared her life with many beloved dogs over the years, and loved walks in the Bears Paw Mountains and her flower gardens (she especially loved hollyhocks, gladiolus, marigolds, & lilacs, but violets were her all-time favorite flower since she was very little and pronounced them "by-lits"). She made the world's best huckleberry pies, and was exceedingly generous, sweet-natured, unfailingly optimistic, and very funny. She never finished high school but served for decades as the Hill County (MT) auditor, and obtained her GED at the age of 85, the oldest person in Montana at the time to do so.
She was determined to live long enough to ring in the new millennium and so she did, and then some. With her daughter (who'd been her caretaker for years) by her side, she died of old age, pneumonia, and dementia on Oct 1, 2004 at her home in Havre, Montana at age 95, and is deeply missed.
She married Severino "Sam" Possenti in Hudson, Wisconsin on March 25, 1934. They lived in Havre, Montana and had one daughter in Nov 1935. Except for a decade during the late 1970's-1980's when they lived in Cape Elizabeth, Maine to be closer to their daughter and her family, their entire marriage (they divorced in 1991) and the years that followed until her death were spent in Havre.
Diagnosed with cancer in January 1955, Ruth was successfully treated with radium and cobalt at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. She was a longtime doll collector (having to sell many of them to pay for her cancer treatment), an avid reader and bird watcher, shared her life with many beloved dogs over the years, and loved walks in the Bears Paw Mountains and her flower gardens (she especially loved hollyhocks, gladiolus, marigolds, & lilacs, but violets were her all-time favorite flower since she was very little and pronounced them "by-lits"). She made the world's best huckleberry pies, and was exceedingly generous, sweet-natured, unfailingly optimistic, and very funny. She never finished high school but served for decades as the Hill County (MT) auditor, and obtained her GED at the age of 85, the oldest person in Montana at the time to do so.
She was determined to live long enough to ring in the new millennium and so she did, and then some. With her daughter (who'd been her caretaker for years) by her side, she died of old age, pneumonia, and dementia on Oct 1, 2004 at her home in Havre, Montana at age 95, and is deeply missed.
