Person:Ruth Parker (12)

!Ruth lost a year of school when she moved from Georgia to NC. She lost another year when she was 11 or 12 and she got typhoid fever. Up to that time, she had long blond corkscrew curls almost down to her waist. With the fever, all her hair fell out, and when it cme back it was black ever after. Ruth worked for Southern Bell in Charlotte before and during the early years of her marriage. She was Chief Operator and was sent to New Orleans for training. She married at age 26. Bill was renting a room from an aunt of Ruth's, who lived in the next block and that is how they met. After Shirley was born, Ruth stayed home and helped Bill in the store. She and Bill were members of St. Paul's United Methodist Church at Carolina Beach, NC. Her daughter, Billie, related, "...although we didn't have much money, we never lacked for anything and you couldn't have had any better parents, or more loving parents, than we had." Ruth is buried at Greenlawn Memorial Park.