Ruth Brown

Eastport - Ruth set out on her final journey into a dawn cradled in mist, luminous with the early sun and filled with a chorus of peepers and the song of a white-throated sparrow. Born in Eastport, on December 20, 1910 to Charles E. and Alice (Thompson) Brown, Ruth grew up on the family homestead on Boyden Lake with her sister and brothers. Living in a log cabin the first year, the children walked half a mile to a one-room school house. Some of Ruth’s early loves were feeding the chickens, working in the gardens and gathering flowers. Her love of nature and the beauty found in the outdoors was boundless. After graduating from the Pembroke High School, Ruth worked in the Maine State Library for one year before moving to Manchester, New Hampshire, where she worked in the Manchester Public Library as a librarian for 49 years, before moving back to Eastport and our house by the sea. We called her the honorary harbormaster, for she loved to watch the freighters come down through Head Harbor Passage and go by the house. Her idea of heaven was to sit out on the deck in the sun with her sister, Alice, with the cats at their feet and a glass of sherry to sip. We would watch foxes and deer on the headland and the myriad sea birds and always the tide, drawing away and returning. Ruth was beloved to a host of friends. She was a member of the St. Croix Garden Club, and enjoyed working in the gardens at the lake and often she would be seen disappearing out the door with her rake in hand. She and Alice would often take walks in the afternoon, strolling around the pond with the dog out front and one or two cats following behind. They would often return with handfuls of leaves and flowers to press. The Commons Eastport came into being with Ruth as one of the partners. Ruth delighted to hear the tales of the day’s activities during the construction phase and she and Alice sold their pressed flower cards in The Shop. She was so thrilled to see the rebirth of Eastport, where her father had been a photographer and boat builder in the late 1800’s. A drive around town and a Rosie’s hotdog, eaten on the Breakwater was a glorious outing for her, and she never tired of picking over the buckets of lingonberries and blueberries that we brought down off Bucknam’s Head in the summer. Ruth left us early in the morning of May 18, 2006, at the age of 95. Her bright, gentle love and her enthusiasm for life touched everyone who knew her. Her brothers, Thomas P. Brown and Charles E. Brown jr. have broken trail for her. Carrying on in her spirit are her sister Alice M. Otis; her nieces, Ruth Moran, Nancy Asante, and Meg McGarvey; her beloved great nieces and nephew, Asiedua Asante, Larkin McGarvey and Joel McGarvey and great nieces and nephews, Dianna Darling, George Moran, Mark Moran, Melissa Stearns and Stephanie Perkins along with many cousins . In addition to her friends, Richard and Arla Cohen and Iris Carr, she leaves a special friend from her library days, Abbie Jameson and two other friends, Beryle Baker and Maria Graubart of Manchester, NH. To honor Ruth’s deep and abiding interest in books and learning, friends who wish to, may make donations in her memory, to the Peavey Memorial Library, 26 Water St., Eastport, ME 04631.


Memorials:
Peavey Memorial Library, 26 Water St., Eastport, ME 04631


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