Ruth Ward Weir

A Memorial Service for Ruth Weir, a 58 year resident of Lawrence, will be at the Lawrence Unitarian Fellowship, 1263 North 1100 Road, at 11:00 A.M. on November 26, 2011.  Burial is at Pioneer Cemetery. Ruth died peacefully on October 12, 2011, at her home in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where she moved in 2008.

Ruth was born on December 9, 1920, in Huntingdon, Tennessee, to Ethel Curtis Ward (originally from Chariton, Iowa) and Everett Edmund Ward.   Ethel Ward died in 1937.

Ruth attended Bethel College in McKenzie, Tennessee, for one year, worked for the War Rationing Board for a period, and then moved to Des Moines, Iowa, where she met Blaine Corbin of Nevada, Iowa, whom she married in  November 1944.  Blaine Corbin was a waist gunner on a B-17 bomber and was killed in the last weeks of World War II.

Ruth then attended Iowa State University, where she met and married John Arnold “Jack” Weir (July 13, 1946).  After two years in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Ruth and Jack moved to Lawrence in 1952, where Jack Weir joined the KU faculty.   Ruth received her BA from KU in 1965.

Ruth was active in the University Women’s Club, League of Women Voters, Zodiac Club, the Lawrence Unitarian Fellowship and many other organizations.  She volunteered her time for a number of organizations including Meals on Wheels, Habitat for Humanity and the Lawrence Public Library.  She worked for Douglas County Extension Service and for KU, retiring in 1985.  Ruth loved to travel, visiting scores of countries and most states, and she was an avid student of politics.

Ruth Weir was preceded in death by her husband of 50 years, Jack Weir, in 1997, by her parents and step mother, Ann Ward, and by her sister, Lucille Ward Hatton, in 2005.  She is survived by her children – Ann Ricketts (Jim) of St. Paul, Minnesota, and Arnold Weir, of Alma, Kansas – her grandchildren Joseph Ricketts and Allison Weir; two great grandchildren, her brother, Edmund Burton Ward of Wichita, Kansas, and nieces and nephews.

Memorial contributions may be made in her name to KU Endowment or Douglas County Community Foundation and may be sent in care of Warren-McElwain Mortuary.