Ruth Hawkins

Our Ruthie died October 10, fifteen days before her 100th birthday, after a long gentle twilight of vascular dementia, where her warm and affectionate nature stepped forward from the anxiety that plagued her middle years. As she once told us, "I was a lovebug when I was little, kissing everyone." We wish we'd had the lovebug and the strong, accomplished woman at the same time -- but are so glad to have known and loved both.

Always a musician, her life was a counterpoint of many voices: hiker, youth hostel leader, violinist and violist, activist, counselor, friend, spouse, and mother.

Born Ruth Ann Elsaesser in Paterson, NJ, October 23, 1923, to Charles and Elizabeth (Gimmel) Elsaesser, her German baker grandfathers were founding members of the cooperative Consumer Baking Company. During WWII, she was an music education major and German minor at New Jersey College for Women.

With both Protestant and Jewish German relatives, she felt deeply the horror and senselessness of war.

Ruth's commitment to lightening the struggles of the world led to lifelong outreach, organizing, and activism. In 1948 she traveled through post-WWII Germany with a Youth Hostel group, one of the first civilian groups admitted, knocking mortar off bricks from the rubble so that they could be used for rebuilding. Later she led Youth Hostel Groups herself, crossing the North American continent by train and bicycle, and later travelling from Morocco to Austria. She served on the board of American Youth Hostels, filling a slot vacated by Norman Rockefeller Jr, who said to her in the elevator, “It’s in your hands now, Ruth.”

She began her professional career teaching music to all 12 grades in Atlantic Highlands, NJ, and continued in the Paterson Girl Scout office, directing Camp Tiata in the summer. Wanting to advance her career, she became a graduate student at the New York University School of Social Work. At that time, she attended a Fellowship of Reconciliation conference at the Westbury NY Quaker meetinghouse and met Bruce Hawkins, then an instructor in physics at Yale.

Drawn to her by her depth and consequence, Bruce saw to it that they took the same train back to NYC; later that year he typed her Master’s thesis, and continued that kind of practical support throughout her professional and activist life.

Their first purchase as an engaged couple was a Kathe Kollwitz print, their second a Snipe, a 13 foot sailboat, and their third, a vacuum cleaner to clean it out; Ruth had owned a sailboat when she was Youth Program Director of the Stamford CT YWCA for four years and was sharing an apartment with “the first physicist I lived with”, Hildegard Hall, a lifelong friend, who had lived through WWII in Germany.

They married on June 6, 1957, in her childhood church in Paterson New Jersey, moving to Oberlin Ohio in 1957 where Bruce joined the physics department, and Ruth became a clinical social worker in Elyria. Their two daughters, Judith (Judy) and Patricia were born in Oberlin in 1959 and 1961. In 1959 they moved up to a sailboat big enough to take an infant out sailing. (An infant on board works fine, you just put the baby about -- move to the lee bunk -- when you put the boat about; but a one-year old not so well.) Many years later, their sailing interest was capped in 2010 by a cruise on a square-rigged ship in the Leeward Islands.

While in Ohio, Ruth was a volunteer recruiter for the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom.

Outdoor activity in various forms continued throughout her life, with Ruth taking each daughter on individual youth-hosteling trips to Cape Cod during spring break. Our family still celebrated anniversaries and birthdays on top of Mt. Tom until well into Mama's late 90s. Bedtime, holidays and hikng always involved singing: Girl Scout songs, rounds, folk songs, carols, with Mama accompanying on the piano during holidays,

Ruth and Bruce moved to Northampton in the fall of 1961, when Bruce's work moved to Smith College. There Ruth revived the local chapter of the Women's International League For Peace and Freedom, recruiting Frances Crowe to follow her as president. A collaboration between Ruth and Frances continued for some sixty years, including the founding of the now over thirty year old Northampton Peace Vigil, where Ruth would hand out leaflets on the otherwise neglected cold sunless side of the street.

Once both children were in preschool, Ruth became program Director of the Holyoke MA YWCA, and was active in the National Association of Social Workers, organizing a number of annual Peace and Social Justice High School Conferences at Elms College.

As a elementary school adjustment counsellor in Northampton, and later in Goshen, Westhampton, and Southampton, she introduced a Personal Safety Curriculum in the 1970’s or 80’s, teaching children to recognize and reject unwanted attention. She led Parent Education classes based on Alfred Adler’s ideas, finding those far more community and family oriented than other early psychological thought.

Patricia recalls Vietnam anti-war activist chats happening around the kitchen table, probably after school with Bruce still at work; participants included Lori Leininger, Arky Markham, probably George Markham and Eleanor Flexner, perhaps George Levenger, and others. Topics covered civil disobedience experiences; at least one story about a holding cell conversation after a civil disobedience arrest; the FBI infiltration of protests and the protest movement; and, likely after the COINTELPRO burglary, people's experiences requesting their FBI file from the government.

While Ruth and Patricia regularly attended anti-Vietnam war protests at the Westover Airforce base, it seemed too risky for Ruth, a school employee, to commit civil disobedience and be arrested. Patricia, eleven, asked why not? All our anti-war friends were getting arrested. So -- Ruth, other activist friends, Patricia and two other kids were detained for blocking the gates of Westover Airforce base. The adults were charged, the kids were not; we were told "your parents brought you." But we knew: we brought them.

In the mid 1980’s, Mt. Toby Quaker Meeting declared itself a Sanctuary Church and welcomed two undocumented refugees from Guatemala, eventually an extended family. The support committee for the refugees included members from many churches that did not take an official sanctuary position, and Ruth was one of the most active members. Twenty years later Ruth was the only member of the committee still working with the family when they finally got their last green card. We are deeply touched that Ramon and Angelica Oliva and their son Carlos joined us at Ruth's Mount Toby Meeting burial, with Ramon and Carlos joining the pallbearers: "Tell them she was the most generous, generous person."

In 1991 Ruth and Bruce participated in organizing a same-sex wedding for two women at Mount Toby Friends Meeting, one of several conducted by Mount Toby and its daughter Northampton Meeting, before such marriages were legally recognized. In retirement, she continued her activism with the Northampton vigil and by singing with the Raging Grannies.

On a notable occasion just before a vote on the Iraq war, the Raging Grannies sang in front of Congressman Neal’s home; he came out and talked with them, not saying how he would vote. Two days later, he voted against the war.

We deeply appreciate the many people who assisted our loving care for her in her final years, in particular home health aides Candy and Anja, the able and loving staff at the Atrium in Agawam, and many members of Northampton Friends Meeting.

Ruth is survived by her husband Bruce, her two daughters Judy and Patricia, of Florence and Easthampton, and three nieces, Linda Axamethy Floyd (Harold), and Susan and Jane Axamethy. Ruth was predeceased by her parents and by her sister, Betty (Elsaesser) Axamethy.

A memorial service will be held at Northampton Friends Meeting on Saturday November 4 at 2pm and by Zoom (request a link from Northampton@neym.org ). Donations in her memory may be made to

Standing Together, mobilizing Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel in pursuit of peace, https://www.standing-together.org/en
Neighbor to Neighbor https://n2nma.org/
or Corporate Accountability https://corporateaccountability.org/