Notes:
Ruth Elizabeth (McCoy) Kloepfer...Los Angeles Times, Tuesday, June 6, 2006:
(Similar obits in New Orleans LA Times Picayune, Tuesday, June 6, 2006, and San Gabriel Valley CA Tribune, Wednesday, June 7, 2006)
KLOEPFER, Ruth (91)
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Died May 24, 2006. Born in PA; BA in 1933; married in 1936 to H. Warner Kloepfer. MA in Speech and English 1938 Ohio State University. Lived in New Orleans 1952-1983. Widowed in 1982; last 15 years in L.A. Exec sales mgr 12 years and Dir. of Rehab at Orleans Parish Prison for 10 years. She was an active Quaker; also active in ecumenical groups. Survived by seven younger siblings (James, Lowell, Presley and Wayne McCoy; Bess Flynn, Elverne Tipton, and Mary Esther Barnes), four children (Jean Watts, Karol Kloepfer, Ruth Peters, and John Kloepfer), twelve grandchildren, 18 great-grandchildren and many nieces/nephews. A memorial service will be held June 10, 2006, 1:30 p.m., at the Orange Grove Meetinghouse, 520 E. Orange Grove Blvd. Pasadena, CA. Ashes to be buried in OH, August 19, 2006, with a 2nd memorial service. Contributions (in lieu of flowers) to AFSC (1501 Cherry St., Phildelphia, PA 19102) or Orange Grove Mtg. (520 E. Orange Grove Blvd., Pasadena CA 91104). Entrusted with arrangement is Avalon Pasadena Funeral Home & Cremation (626) 449-2121.
[Obituary contributed by Greg Tucker]
[Memorial printed in the Quaker "Orange Grove Record", 2006 Eighth Month - Pasadena, CA]
MEMORIAL MINUTE for RUTH KLOEPF
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Ruth Kloepfer was born on August 15, 1914, in Coraopolis, Pennsylvania, to Daniel Crane McCoy, a Presbyterian seminary student, and Bessie George Watt McCoy, a school teacher. When Ruth was 9 months old, the family moved to Hanover, Pennsylvania, where Ruth?s father was called as pastor and ordained as a United Presbyterian minister. While in Hanover, three of Ruth's younger siblings were born, Daniel, Lowell, and Elverne.
In 1921 when Ruth was 7, the family moved to Fresno, California, where her sisters Bessie and Mary Esther and her brother Pressley were born.
When Ruth was 12 (in 1926), her family moved back east to Fairpoint, Ohio. Her youngest brother, Wayne, was born in Ohio when Ruth was 14.
Ruth entered Muskingum College in New Concord, Ohio, at the age of 17. She worked her way though school by cleaning houses, waiting on tables and working in the kitchen of the small college inn where she stayed.
When she was 18, Ruth met her husband, H. Warner Kloepfer, when he came to Muskingum College to interview Ruth?s roommate, Millie Pearson, to sell Bibles during the summer. Millie didn?t want to go to the interview alone, so she persuaded Ruth to go with her, and Warner ended up recruiting both of them. After that summer, Ruth continued selling Bibles, both as an additional source of income and to spend time with Warner, and taught high school English in a small town in Ohio. Warner gave Ruth an engagement ring during the McCoy family gift exchange on Christmas Eve, 1934 and they were married 17 months later on May 26, 1936.
Ruth and Warner lived in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, until they moved to Athens, Ohio, to attend Ohio University. In 1938, Ruth received a master?s degree in Speech and English and Warner got a master in mathematics. The next year they moved to Columbus, Ohio, where Warner attended Ohio State University and earned a PhD in mathematics and human genetics. Their oldest daughter Jean was born in Columbus in 1941; five years after Ruth and Warner were married.
After receiving his PhD, Warner took a teaching position at Dakota Wesleyan in Mitchell, South Dakota, where Ruth gave birth to her 2nd and 3rd daughters, Karol and Ruth Ann. After a short stay in Emporia, Kansas, in 1946, where Warner taught at Emporia State University for one year and their son, John, was born, the family moved to Clarksville, Arkansas, where Warner was Dean of Students at the College of the Ozarks. He was dismissed from his deanship after five years as he facilitated the racial integration of a meeting of college deans. Warner then accepted the first academic position in human genetics at Tulane University in New Orleans so the family moved to New Orleans in 1952 when Ruth was 39.
When they were still living in Clarksville, Arkansas, and as soon as Ruth's son John was considered old enough, Ruth started supplementing the family's meager income by selling silver for Prestige Silver Company. This involved direct sales using word-of-mouth leads. Soon Ruth was one of their top salespersons. In New Orleans, she started training others to sell silver, and eventually became a sales manager with Family Record Plan, a position she held for over 10 years. However, her sales team refused to continue working with her when they learned that Ruth's daughter, Ruanne, had started dating a Black man. Ruth used that opportunity to switch to a completely different line of work, becoming Director of Rehabilitation at the Orleans Parish Prison (equivalent to a county jail) where she served for almost 10 years.
Ruth and Warner were introduced to Quakers when they lived in Columbus, Ohio; they found it to be a religious faith they both could embrace, and soon they became members of the Columbus Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends. However, there were no Quaker Meetings in South Dakota, Kansas, or Arkansas, so while living in those states, they attended Presbyterian churches. New Orleans, however, had a small but active Quaker meeting to which they transferred their memberships and became active participants. The Quaker meeting in New Orleans also met in their home.
Later on, she lived briefly with her oldest daughter in New Orleans and her son in Pittsburg. In 1991, she moved to California, where she lived with her daughter Karol for the remaining 15 years of her life.
Permanently located in California, she promptly transferred her Quaker membership to the Orange Grove Monthly Meeting, where she loved serving in the caring ministry of the Meeting. On behalf of the Southern California Quarterly Meeting, she represented the Quaker point of view for both the Southern California Ecumenical Council and the Inter-Religious Council of Southern California. As a Quaker, her social concerns led her to be active in issues related to the criminal justice system and illegal immigration, as well as race and peace. For a number of years she was active on the Middle East Peace Education and Southern California Area Program committees of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC). Meanwhile, her religious interests led her to participate in numerous satsangs sponsored by the Blue Mountain Center of Meditation in Petaluma, California, founded by Eknath Easwaran. In the summer of 2000, she was invited by the Blue Mountain Center to participate in a special month-long session for seniors. In 2002, she joined an esoteric study group called Researchers of Truth, or Erevna, based in Cyprus. Before breaking her forearm on May 16, Ruth was reading Autobiography of a Yogi by Yogananda, and had recently joined his Self-Realization Fellowship. She had subscribed to the Science of Mind magazine for at least the last 20 years of her life.
Ruth had an outgoing personality and a vibrant soul, bringing her strong faith, deep love, and unceasing optimism wherever she went. On May 24, 2006, her life was brought to completion and she was called by God to leave the earthly phase of her spiritual journey.
Ruth is survived by her 7 younger siblings and her 4 children, 12 grandchildren, 20 great grandchildren, 1 great great grandson and many nieces and nephews. Somehow she managed to touch all of their lives, and they are each who they are in part because of who she was. She will be fondly remembered and deeply missed.