Bunny Baker (Block)

Although I really didn't know Ruby, I was so saddened to read about her passing.  It was the twinkle in her eyes and her joy of living that I shall always remember.   My condolences to her family and loved ones.

Anita L. Toto (Dall)

It is with deep sadness that I learned of Ruby's passing.We knew each other from PS 77. When you saw Ruby your immediate reaction was to smile. She brought out the good in everyone's day. I missed seeing her at the 50th reunion. May she rest in peace and bring joy to those in heaven.

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Angela Oxios (Mulcare, Concklin)

So sorry to hear of the passing of one of our own. I didn't know Ruby personally, but I do remember passing through the halls going to classes and greeting each other as people will do. She was always up beat and smiled generously. Condolences to her family. 

Fran Weissman (Doughty)

Ruby was a close friend in high school. What I remember most about our time together were adventures to Manhattan and walking and looking in the second hand/antique shops on Lexington and 3rd avenues. I think that must have been how I came to enjoy collecting. She had such an artistic view and I am also sure that came to enrich my view of things. When she didn't come to the 40th reunion I reached out to her via email and we had a newsy exchange. Regretfully I didn't follow up with a promised phone call. My loss and a reminder to us all to take the time to stay in touch with people we care about. My life is richer because of my friendship with Ruby. My deepest condolences to her family and friends. Fran Weissman Doughty

Michael Bookbinder

Although not close over the many years since graduation, Ruby was a follower on Facebook. Too young!  We extend our condolences to her family. 

Jean Eisenberg (Novitz)

I was very sad to hear of Ruby's passing.  When I remember the days going back to "The Enchanters," I remember Ruby as a happy , funny girl, who was always so much fun to be with.  My heart goes out to her family, and friends. I know this is a hard, and surreal time for them.

Carol Marcus (West)

I haven't been in touch with Ruby over the years but have fond memories of her from high school. She was a fun loving, good person & a friend during our years at Monroe. So very sorry to hear about her passing. Condolences to her family and all the loved ones in her life.

Elaine (Alana) Mascali

Although I didn't know Ruby personally, I am saddened to hear of her passing and the loss of another of our classmates.  My condolences to her family.

Toby Nudelman (Kaye)

I received this copy of  Ruby's wife's eulogy and she allowed me to pass it on to our classmates.

 

 

Thank you all for coming to share your love and support of our family and to celebrate the life of our sweet Ruby. She was quite a character, full of life, irreverent, funny,  generous and tender-hearted. She had a great laugh, she told it like it was, and though she appeared at times tough on the outside she was a complete softie on the inside. I fell for Ruby the first time I saw her during Women’s Weekend, in October of 1993. We kibitzed a bit during the course of our conversation, during which time she discovered that I was both single and Jewish, so after paying for my purchase and leaving the store, she took my phone number which was conveniently printed on my check. Ruby called me the next night. It was bashert, or meant to be, for so many reasons, with the first sign that the last four digits of our phone numbers were identical. Ruby came to meet me in Jamaica Plain for a cup of coffee, mid week, though she claimed when we first spoke that she never drove over the bridge for any woman! But there she was, my silver fox, standing on the corner waiting for me with her collar up looking very handsome and holding a stuffed lamb for the little girl whom she would eventually call her own.

 

Ruby was born and raised in the Bronx with her brother Philip, and she always said that you could take the girl out of New York but you couldn’t take New York out of the girl. Coincidently, my father also grew up in the Bronx. Sylvia, Ruby’s mom, played mahjong with her sisters and friends in the neighborhood, and they kept a piskie, or account, for their winnings. They would jointly save their money to go to Broadway shows, and if one of the women couldn’t attend, Ruby, the only daughter of the group, would go with them. Those shows started her life-long love of Broadway, and she saw Judy Garland at the Palace, Ethel Merman and all of the big Broadway stars for decades. She and her friend Ronnie stalked stars for autographs, and she even had the opportunity to sit and chat with Roz Russell, whom she adored. Ruby knew all the lyrics to so many shows, and sang with gusto, often with me or to me, though completely off key. She also loved the movies and became quite an aficionado for the rest of her life, and we would delight in seeing all the best movies in advance of the Oscars, though the ceremony itself often struck her as interminable.  

 

Ruby was a talented artist, and her love of painting and art began in childhood and continued to grow over the years. She was so happy during this past year working in the art studio we built in our home. Some years ago she had an art show in the gallery that Fran, her business partner Mary’s wife, owned over Ruby’s Fine Jewelry. Her paintings either sold out completely or were nearly gone within a few weeks. We loved to go to museums together and she was especially fond of Toulouse Lautrec and Hopper, particularly as we lived in Truro down the street from where he painted Highland Light.

 

Ruby worked for the airlines for a few years in her twenties, and eventually moved out to San Francisco after she had been with her first girlfriend, Sasha, for a few years. After they broke up, Ruby moved back to New York and started making crafts and liquid silver jewelry with her friend Sandy, which they sold in various craft shows. In 1976 Sandy found a store for rent in Provincetown, and after getting a loan from Sylvia and Sol, Ruby’s parents, Tumbleweed was born. Ruby was a partner in that business for about fifteen years, and towards the end of her time there met Mary. They became a couple and soon after Ruby left Tumbleweed the women started Ruby’s Fine Jewelry, which closed the summer before last after 25 years in business. A kiss does not begin with K in Provincetown, nor with a turquoise box. Love was celebrated with a red Ruby’s bag or box, and people knew that great things truly came in small packages. Customers in the store stated that Ruby “filled them with the power of acceptance and celebration.” They would have customers take the rings they were debating about out to the ring bench, where they could sit and process privately, without anyone hovering or pushing them,  and could see them sparkle in the sunlight. More often than not, the rings sold, and no one ever ran off with them! Ruby, Mary, and their staff would not only help customers pick out their beautiful items, beginning in the early 90’s they would also take photographs of them with their new jewelry if they bought commitment or wedding rings, and tape the photos up on the wall. At the end of the year, the wall would be covered with so many beautiful faces, and they would then put them all in a photo album for the year and start fresh next Spring. This past year Mary met with someone from the Harvard and Radcliffe Schlesinger Library  who are going to archive the records and photos from Ruby’s Fine Jewelry.

 

Provincetown was home to Ruby for forty years, certainly far longer than she lived in New York, and she loved it there. She adored walking the beach at Herring Cove and finding sea glass, going on whale watches where she would scream the loudest at a whale sighting, and being with dear friends like Carol and Joie who owned WomenCrafts, and later with Fran, who became Mary’s girlfriend and then wife. Other friends included  Tree, may she rest in peace, Ellen, Laura, Robin, Jackie, Valerie, Hans, Deborah and Devorah. Please forgive me if I left off your name - she had so many friends, in addition to so many wonderful, repeat customers. Life was good, although Ruby regretted that she never had a summer in Provincetown that felt like a vacation, as she was either working or thinking about what was going on in the store if she was away. For the last fifteen years we had our wonderful home in Truro, tucked in the woods, where we would watch the goldfinches at the feeder and hang out on the back porch reading and listening to the wind in the pine trees. Eating a two- three pound lobster at least once over the summer was another treat.

 

Family was deeply important to Ruby, and we were both sorry that our families were so very small. She adored her older brother Philip who was first a marine and then a New York City policeman for 42 years, and who helped guard the pope and the president as well as other VIP’s when they visited the city. He and the men and women who reported to him went for over a year to the 9/11 site, which is the reason the doctors hypothesized that he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and died two weeks later. She spent those weeks with Philip’s wife Ruth, an assistant district attorney in New York, and they were a great comfort to one another. Ruby loved Philip’s children, Steven and Margie. Margie became like a daughter to her, and she reveled in her visits, in Margie’s marriage to Ken, and in the birth of their daughters Emma and Phylicia.

 

Ruby was crazy about Rena, and used to tell people that she got a special deal when she became partnered with me as she got a stepdaughter as a bonus. She became very close with my uncle Bernie and aunt Lyla who live in the Bronx. She adored my ex-husband Joe LaRusso, and we partnered together beautifully to raise Rena. Ruby was excited every year to meet Rena’s teachers at The Park School, and grew to love the school and was thrilled when I began working there.

 

We were beyond excited when marriage became legal in Massachusetts for same-sex couples in 2004, and we were happily married in 2006 by Rabbi Stern after being a couple for thirteen years. It was an afternoon filled with such love and celebration with our family and friends, as well as good food and wine at Oleana. She was so happy when we bought our home five years ago in Quincy, where she could look out over Boston Harbor and also enjoy the wonderful neighbors we grew to love. She also was delighted when Nate and Rena became a couple, and loved him, as well as Rena’s dear friend who’s like a daughter to us, LeAire.

 

Other things Ruby loved included collecting things like seaglass, limoges boxes,  and ladies head vases. She collected angels before they became a thing. She loved the hunt, yet she really never enjoyed shopping. She loved cars. I mean really loved them. She once changed cars within the year. I told her it was okay as long as she kept me as a girlfriend longer than she kept her cars. Ruby particularly loved small convertibles, and said that riding with the top down on a beautiful summer evening was better than eating dessert, which she wasn’t allowed as a diabetic. She had an obsession with anything to do with either the Kennedy family or the Titanic, don’t ask me why. She relished her first sip of coffee in the morning. We loved traveling together and enjoyed London, Paris and many spots in the US, especially NYC where we would go to Broadway shows and museums. She was an avid reader who especially enjoyed mysteries and adored her kindle. Ruby loved animals and was a devoted supporter of animal rights. She had dogs earlier in her life and in her later years showered a succession of cats, including Muffin, Max and Lulu with love and affection. She sponsored a little girl in Central America for years and was generous with a variety of charities.  She loved her doctors although she hated going to see them. We certainly had our ups and downs over 23 years, and could scrap like cats and dogs, but it was a damn fine partnership. We knew how much we loved each other, and frequently told one another how lucky we were to have each other.  I was her “dolling” and I knew it. You can’t feel the kind of pain I feel now without being lucky enough to love someone as deeply and devotedly as I have loved Ruby. So hold your loved ones tight, relish their presence, and fill your days with kindness, as that is the legacy that  Ruby left, and the world was a better place for her presence.

 

 

 

Angela Oxios (Mulcare, Concklin)

How beautiful to be so loved and remembered by someone who was so special to Ruby. She was fortunate in life and fortunate in death for the beautiful story of her life and all the wonders in her life for all of us to know her better. It was long ago we were in high school. Thank you for sharing the life and love you shared. Condolences to you and those who loved Ruby. God Bless. And yes we all must remember to be happy and love our family and friends.