Ruth's World in 1990

Sept. 8, 1990  
A SURPRISE GIFT (the diary from Amparo)

"So - I start using it NOW - the date of receiving.  Amparo here to keep me company now & then.  She decides & comes for a few days at a time - it's up to her.  As I don't have a car anymore, it's a nice interval when Amparo comes & we go out to eat a meal 'here and there'."

Amparo is Ruth's daughter-in-law Nellie's mother, 7 years younger than Ruth.  Nellie would figure out when Amparo would go to spend time with Ruth as a companion and paid her for doing this part-time job about half of each week. It was a way to keep Ruth in her apartment a little longer.  That would change soon.

There's also a note inside the diary that says, "Dear Ruth,  Happy Birthday   Love, Amparo"

Ruth's birthday was July 5.  Perhaps Ruth set the diary aside when Amparo gave it to her and began to use it in September.  She only wrote about 15 times, starting on Sept. 8 and ending Nov. 5.  These were small pages with a writing area of 3 1/4 by 3 3/4 inches.

Ruth's gradual withdrawal into dementia started years before in the late 1970s or early 1980s.  John passed away in January, 1987 at the age of 87.  By the fall of 1990 when she was 84, Ruth was still living in Horizon House on the Causeway between Clearwater and Clearwater Beach, FL.  She and John had moved there in 1966 when it was a new building.  They had 2 bedrooms, 3 baths and a den with a couch that could be a bed.  So there was room for visitors like the Pellettieres.

The photo is earlier, from 1979.  You can see that Ruth (73) and John (80) had been playing tennis with Dan (age 43).  The missing player, Diane, took the picture.  I'm sure that our 3 girls, Lynn, Cindy and Kate, were at the pool or beach nearby, but not in the picture!  Neither the diary entry nor picture is in Pieces of a Life.

The Kelloggs Travel to Ann Arbor and Buffalo in 1940

 The pictures show John, Diane (4) and Ken (9) standing by the Lincoln Zephyr in Lancaster NY and Ruth standing in front of the car, probably on the bridge between the US and Canada near Niagara Falls.

On Friday, Aug. 16, Ruth, Ken and Diane took the "streamlined Mercury train" to Ann Arbor to visit John's mother, Esther, and his step-father, G.A. (Guy Ashford Wood Sr.).  John joined them by car on Wed., Aug. 21, bringing gifts.  One was a GE Iron for half-sister Sara Jane, who had just surprised the family by marrying Ellis Tobey when her parents were out of town.  The others were an automatic toaster for G.A. and a juicer for his mother.  Maybe anniversary gifts?

On Aug. 23, the Kelloggs took off for Niagara Falls and Burlington Beach, Ontario.  They drove to Grand Island, where Esther Webb Kellogg Wood had grown up on a farm and where John spent part of every summer as a boy.  Esther was the granddaughter of Potato Famine Irish.  Many of her relatives lived on Grand Island.

Saturday, August 24, 1940 - Went on
The Kelloggs also saw the Falls from the American side and went into Buffalo to stay over night at the Graystone Hotel.  John had grown up in Lancaster and Buffalo. Before leaving, they drove by the home owned by John's much-older half-brother, George Kellogg. They didn't stop, I'm sure, nor make any attempt to see George and his family.

Blood isn't always thicker than water.   John felt early in his life that his Scottish-English Kellogg relatives looked down upon Charles Kellogg's young second wife, Esther, because she was Irish.  Perhaps John thought that he and sister Dorothy were regarded as a step below the other Kelloggs.