Ruth I. Bigelow Stewart

Ruth I. Bigelow Stew­art, 90, of Marysville and for­merly of the Watkins area, died Sun­day evening (Sept. 30, 2012) at The Inn at Hal­cyon Village.

She was very active in com­mu­nity activ­i­ties; vice pres­i­dent and trea­surer of the Watkins PTA, advi­sor for eight years for the Nutri­tion and Sewing 4-H Club and sec­re­tary for the Union County 4-H Coun­cil. She received the Dec­o­ra­tion of Chivalry, Odd Fel­low­ships high­est award for mer­i­to­ri­ous ser­vice. She was a mem­ber of the Mar­ion Aux­il­iary 41 of Ladies Aux­il­iary Patriarch’s Mil­i­tant Ruth. She earned her honor for being a mem­ber in good stand­ing of a Rebekah Lodge and Aux­il­iary, by per­form­ing out­stand­ing ser­vice to the Order and by activ­i­ties ben­e­fit­ing the com­mu­nity. Ruth was cited for her ser­vice to Rebekah’s which she joined in 1953 and where she was Noble Grand five terms, Past Mar­shall of the Ohio Rebekah Assem­bly, Pres­i­dent of Dis­trict 31 for two terms as well as past trea­surer, pres­i­dent for two terms of Ladies Aux­il­iary of Patri­archs Mil­i­tant and past Guard and color Guard of the Depart­ment Asso­ci­a­tion of Ohio. She is also Past Chief Matri­arch of Junia Ladies Aux­il­iary Association.

Ruth also enjoyed vis­it­ing var­i­ous libraries to do research on geneal­ogy and was past pres­i­dent of the Union County Chap­ter of the Ohio Genealog­i­cal Soci­ety. Ruth’s hob­bies were many includ­ing sewing, cro­chet­ing, plas­tic can­vas, quilt­ing, knit­ting and col­lect­ing “Hens on the Nest” glass­ware which included a col­lec­tion of more than 200. She was a 1940 grad­u­ate of Union Rural High School in Mil­ford Center.

She was born June 18, 1922 in her grandmother’s house on West 5th Street in Marysville to the late Merle E. and Bertha Robin­son Bigelow and grew up on the Bigelow Farm on Ohio 161 between Chuck­ery and Irwin. She mar­ried Del­bert “Shorty” Stew­art on Nov. 17, 1946. He pre­ceded her in death July 15, 1987. She was also pre­ceded in death by a brother, Don­ald Bigelow, and a sis­ter, Helen Bigelow Phipps.

Ruth is sur­vived by a son, Melvin Stew­art of Marysville; a daugh­ter and son-in-law, Nancy and Jim Katzen­bach of Ray­mond; two grand­chil­dren, Angela (Richard) Beaver and great-grandson, Noah Beaver of Rich­wood and Todd Katzen­bach and his fiancé’ Kelly Smith and her chil­dren Pay­ton, Bray­den, Macie and Mol­lie from Zanes­field; and sev­eral nieces and nephews.

Call­ing hours will be from 5 to 8 p.m. Wednes­day at the Ingram Funeral Home, Marysville, where funeral ser­vices will be held at 1:30 p.m. Thurs­day with the Rev. James Tay­lor offi­ci­at­ing. Bur­ial will fol­low at Watkins Cemetery.

Memo­r­ial con­tri­bu­tions may be made to the Har­bor Light Hos­pice or the Union County Chap­ter of the Ohio Geneal­ogy Soci­ety in care of the funeral home.

Con­do­lences may be sent to ingramfuneral.com.

Posted by Staff Reports Obits on Oct 1 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.