Person:Ruth Frank (1)

Notes provided by Jackson Arnold Springston: When Ruth got married in Port Clinton, OH, Gray was in an Army post near by. She stayed in a small room off-post while he was on duty. Gray's unit was transferred to Montgomery, AL, and Ruth followed him down there. When his unit went overseas, Ruth went to West Virginia to live with Gray's mother, whom she had never met. It must have been very hard for this "foreign Yankee" to satisfy a "Southern" mother-in-law", who taught her how to cook, live and raise children "Southern style". Ruth's teaching career was interuptted by the Depression when the school board decided that only one teacher per family could be hired.

The County Extension Service employed her to setup canning centers in Roane and adjoining counties. From this she progressed to setting up hot lunch programs in all the rural schools. When Gray retired from the Post Office, they moved to the log cabin they had built at Rison, MD. Ruth was too young to retire, so she gave up her position with the State Department and took a position as Cost Accountant at the Naval Ordnance Plant in Indian Head, MD.

Ruth was a tireless worker, with many trials and disappointments. They lost everything in a house fire in 1928 and again in 1939. She lived only three weeks after Gray died in 1972--her work was done.

1.   Springston, Jackson A., Rootsweb chart of Jackson A. Springston: Ancestors of Jack Marie Adams Springston wc.r.