Obituary of Ruth M. Stahlecker
Ruth M. Stahlecker passed away on August 5, 2020, at the age of 90. She was predeceased by her husband, Gerald in 2010, her son, Gary in 1969, and her sisters, Doris Gee, Jean Labigan, Frances Watkins, Carol Hildebrand, and Dora Mae Bauer. She is survived by her son, Eric (Donna) Stahlecker; her grandchildren, Benjamin Stahlecker & Amanda (Stahlecker) Ballreich; her great grandchildren, Cadence Stahlecker & Everett Ballreich; her brothers, Donald (Carol) Buck & Harold (Sherry) Buck; and many nieces, nephews, & friends.
Ruth started working outside the home in the Rush-Henrietta school system as a lunch cook. Later she would work as a cafeteria manager at Wheatland-Chili and then as a manager/cook for the Monroe Development Center.
She was a past President of the Genesee Valley Fire Department Ladies Auxiliary in West Henrietta. When she moved out to the Brockport area, she became involved with knitting and quilting groups at the Sweden Senior Center. In her leisure she enjoyed reading, crocheting, quilting and crafting.
There will be a virtual Memorial Service at a later date. Please visit our website for future updates.
In lieu of flowers, please make a donation to Food Link, 1999 Mt Read Blvd, Rochester, NY, 14615, in memory of Ruth.
Ruth McComb Stahlecker, born Ruth Virginia McComb, lead a storied life as many of us do. She was born in Chambers, New York which is in the southern tier of New York State. She was one of five sisters born to Charles and Louise McComb. They lived on a farm located outside of Wellsboro, Pennsylvania. She would tell stories about milking a cow and driving an Army mule. She told me stories about her dad walking into town for supplies and then he would then catch a ride back out to the farm with his purchases.
I don't know the specifics around Grandma Eloise moving to Rochester and marrying Charles Buck. What is notable is that it was done during the Great Depression of the 1930's. Charlie Buck took care of Ruth and her sisters as if they were his own. Gramps, as he wanted to be called, and Grandma would add 3 more siblings to their family making the total family size of 8 children. They would move to Rochester and live in a house on Columbia Avenue for a large number of years. This chapter of her life would create more stories and develop some skills that she became known for in later chapters of her life. Ruth would fall off a roof and break her shoulder which would impair her arm movement for the rest of her life. She became an accomplished seamstress. She told stories about how the new Christmas dress was a dress pattern and a bolt of cloth. She became an excellent cook which she later turned into a job in a school cafeteria in the Rush-Henrietta school district.
Ruth didn't talk about how she met Gerald Stahlecker after he came home from WWII, so that part of her history remains shrouded in mystery. Dad did come to dinner and one time (Only once? Nah, it was the only one she talked about) and mom was cutting her meat. She accidentally pushed her green peas all over the table. Where upon her date, Dad, meticulously picked up each one, counted it, and then put it back on her plate.
She and Dad got married August 7, 1948. She went to the marriage alter pregnant with my brother as I imagine many brides did at that time. They lived with Gramps and Grandma for a short while along with her sisters, her brother-in laws, and their children. The house on Columbia Avenue was certainly crowded and noisy and yes she told stories about that time too. It might also account for her attachment to my older cousins. She and Dad would move out into temporary veterans housing and then later moved into Hanover Housing where I was born. She told stories about how acoustically thin the walls were. One specific one involved Mom and Dad entertaining and serving coffee. Mom went into the kitchen looking for sugar and saying out loud, but not so that the guests would hear, that she was out of sugar. A minute or so later there was a knock on the door and her next door neighbor hands her a cup of sugar.
Mom and Dad moved from Hanover House to a rental on Denver Street that belonged to Lawrence (Larry, Bus, Buster) Brown's family. It turns out that Bus Brown dated Mom in high school and Bus would talk about that. My family and his family would have a long association. Bus helped Mom and Dad get a builder's loan to build our home on Bailey Road (It was Maple Street to start with and got changed, but that's another story). Mom and Dad built their home from a Bennett Homes kit on Bailey Road and lived there for for over 30 years. Stories about the construction were never really told, only hinted at. Things like the installing the oak hard wood floors, the staining and sealing of the molding, the plastering of the living room ceiling by Charlie Buck, how precarious the finances were on Dad's salary for the loan for the building and mortgage. Eventually it all got done and we all moved in. There are stories about living in the Bailey Road neighborhood (it spanned about 1 mile along the road from East River Road going east.) are too numerous to tell here.
When I was about 5 years old, Harold Buck, Mom's youngest brother, asked if his son, if stories are correct he was less than a year old, could come to live with us. Thus, Douglas Buck became part of the family. He would live with us until his father remarried about 8 years later. Once Doug went to first grade, Ruth got bored at home and applied to be a school cook which was a part time job. She learned to cook for 300 students at Burger Junior High School. She then had to relearned how to cook for 5 at home. It was a challenge. She would laugh about the challenge of switching back and forth. She was the only woman at the dinner table where a lot of the time the discussion was about Scouting. Boy Scouting and Troop 7 were a major portion of our home and community lives. She learned quickly that when her sons and husband came home from a week at summer camp, the duffle bags were unpacked in the breeze way (it ran between the garage and the house) so that any creepy crawler hitchhikers didn't come into the house.
Camping was a major vacation activity. Early on we would spend our summer vacation camping. She took me camping in a tent at age 6 months so that the family could go camping in the Adirondack Mountains for our summer vacation. Mom and Dad's passion for camping would continue until 2010 when Dad had his stroke. Over time they progressed from tents to camper trailers to RVs. They would travel around the country and spend their winters in Florida. When they were camping in Florida (can you say snow-birds?), they would leave shortly after Christmas and stay until early Spring when the Spanish Mackerel would run – come from the ocean to fresh water to spawn. The stories about the competition between Mom and Dad, Mom and their friends as to who would catch the most each day were numerous and funny. One time, mom was starting to catch fish when nobody else was. Pretty soon, their friends started moving closer to mom and asking what she was using as a lure.
Through a friendship that Gerry developed at work, Katrina Cartee came into her life and would become a life long friend who also became one of those social family members. She would have a daughter, Candice, who would become a social granddaughter. Ruth would tell stories about how when Candy was staying with them overnight, Candy would eat certain foods until her mother Katrina came in the door. Then whatever was in her mouth got spit out with the exclamation of look at what Grandma was trying to poison me with!
Vietnam impacted her life. After Gary graduated, he enlisted in the Marine Corps. We would go visit him for graduation from Paris Island. Gary went to Vietnam and we followed his movements on a map of Vietnam in the basement. In June 1969, Gary died in combat. As a family we would grieve and our close neighborhood supported us during that time.
Eric graduated from High School in June 1971 and in September he went off to Eisenhower College. Eric joined the Cross-country team consisting of 7 guys who would travel by car on Saturdays to competitions. If the trip to the competition went past Exit 46 of the Thruway on the way home, the team would stop at 48 Bailey Road, only 3 minutes off the Thruway, and eat a delicious home made spaghetti dinner. Ruth would make enough sauce and spaghetti for 14 people, buy 4 gallons of milk, and make a couple of gallons of Kool-Aid. The team would come in, eat and then leave. There were no left overs for Dad or Mom. This would happen 4 or 5 times a season. Mom would joke about that her feeding the team for 2 seasons amounted to her contributing to the college. Another benefit of working in a school kitchen, mom learned how to make wonderfully delicious chocolate cookies like the school made. One small challenge. She had to reduce the recipe from making 300 cookies to making 50 and 50 was the smallest amount that she could make. I paid off a lot of debts at college with home made chocolate cookies.
While Eric went to work for Kodak in 1976, Ruth went to work for Monroe Developmental Center as the kitchen supervisor and cook. Dad would take early retirement from Stromburg-Carlson which would create more stories about Dad at home and Mom at work. Mom couldn't figure out how someone could work (at home!) for 2 hours and then need to take a coffee break! She would wonder how a pot of coffee could be drunk over the course of a day while housework and meals were done. During this time, Eric would marry Donna and eventually they would have a son Benjamin. Eric and his family would move to Hilton to live. In the summer of 1987, Donna was pregnant with her 2nd child and Ruth and Gerry decided to move to Brockport to be closer to the grandchildren. In the Fall of 1987, they sold their home of over 30 years and moved to 50 Woodstock Lane. They would live there for over 30 years. While waiting for their second grandchild to arrive, Ruth and Gerry were in Alabama. Dad would tell the story about one of Mom's shopping trips in March of 1988. They were out shopping with close friends. Dad saw mom reach for a Polly Flinders dress for the yet unborn child. He called over and said that if she touched that dress, she would have another grandson. She pulled her hand away as if touching a hot stove! Mom's friend then grabbed the dress and said that it didn't pertain to her picking up the dress. Amanda would be born in April of 1988.
Years later another first showed up in Ruth's life. Ben would have a daughter Cadence Marie Stahlecker. She was the first great-grandchild in the family and oh the stories that got told. Around the same time that Cady was born, Dad had a stroke followed by a diagnosis of lung cancer. When Cady was over to mom and dad's house, Cady wouldn't sit in dad's lap unless he had Goldfish crackers for her to munch on. Cady was also fascinated with a small mirror that mom kept on the floor. Both of these situations brought Ruth a lot of laughs and joy. Two cute giggles happened with Cady and Ruth. One day when Cady was about 3 years old, she went over to Ruth, who was a little over 80 at the time, and put her finger on mom's facial wrinkles and asked Grandma are you old? It caught mom off guard for a moment and then she laughed and said why yes I am. The other favorite giggle of mom's was the day when mom was putting on a lilac colored nail polish. Background piece: Stephanie, Cady's mom, routinely put nail polish on Cady's fingers and toes. So when mom asked Cady if she would like her nails done, Cady dramatically stated that a day without nail polish was sooooooo boring! Mom would tell this story anytime she wore that particular color nail polish and someone would comment about it.
Dad would die from his lung cancer in December of 2010. This new chapter of mom's life had some interesting stories in it. One of the first ones that I would hear about would be what she watched on TV that day. She and dad didn't agree on what to watch on TV some nights and she would be relegated to the bedroom TV if she wanted to watch something different. After dad passed I would hear about late night shows that she had watched (Steven Colbert), or the Sunday morning talking heads political commentary, or did you see that spooky movie last night, or (later on when she had cable) do you know that the hero and heroine of the Hallmark movies kiss on the 57th minute of the hour at the end of the show? Mom joined in the fun at the Sweden Senior Center's knit and quilting groups which provided socialization as well as an outlet for her creativity. She enjoyed going to Life Solutions of Hamlin and shopping their treasure store. One day she went in to shop using her walker for mobility. The staff told her to sit down and they would get her the items that she was looking for. While she was waiting, one of the staff asked her if she knew anything about African violets as she was having trouble with hers. Mom proceeded to hold a class on growing African violets while sitting on her walker.
There are many more chapters and stories to tell about mom. However, this has gone on long enough. I would encourage you to remember your own stories with mom and if you would like share them with the rest of us. Please leave them in the "memories" section of Ruth's website obituary page.
