Ruth Janssen Gardner

Radiate love. It was Ruth Gardner’s credo. Widely known as “Oma” today, Helena Edelgard Ruth Janssen Gardner was born to German immigrant parents, Johannes “Hans” Janssen and Johanna “Hanni” Ziegenhein Janssen, in Reading, Pennsylvania, on January 12, 1929. She died with her hand in her daughter’s and her son-in-law at her side at Aldersgate Village in Topeka, Kansas, on December 5, 2017, attended by Great Lakes Caring Hospice support staff. Ruth’s childhood home was in a Pennsylvania Dutch community where only German was spoken. Her parents spoke German at home throughout their lives. When Ruth was eight years old, her parents traveled in Germany for a year leaving Ruth in a German orphanage as a kind of boarding school stay while her brother lived in a German military school. Her father saw Hitler speak at an industrial fair in Germany in 1938. Hans recognized that the equipment being displayed was in violation of the Treaty of Versailles and Hitler’s speech horrified him, so he moved his family back to the USA to stay. Ruth was a sickly child, and her parents moved several times when she was growing up which she said left her feeling insecure. Her parents were too busy leading interesting lives to be attentive parents. It must have been hard to be a teenager from a German family living in the USA during WWII. It probably didn’t help that her vivacious and fearless mother had been a controversial suffragette and political activist on two continents and was famously the only registered Socialist in Yankton, South Dakota. Ruth lived with her parents through graduating from tiny Yankton College where her father was a professor of economics and art history. Ruth’s lonely refuge was in books and radio. As an adult, her priority was stability. She lived in the same house in Topeka’s Kenwood neighborhood for 63 years. She filled it with fine music, reproductions of classic art, and thousands of books. Ruth’s father was the oldest of eleven children raised in Wuppertal, Germany. He was the only member of his immediate family to leave Germany. With ten aunts and uncles on that side of her family (only a spinster aunt on her mother’s side), the German cousins proliferated into a large number with the generations added over the years. Ruth worked hard at staying in touch with all branches of her family. She was a devoted correspondent until she just could not address an envelope anymore. Her last visit to Germany was in 1950, but as soon as her children were old enough to travel on their own, she sent them to stay with German relatives, to get to know the family roots, to share in the love she enjoyed long distance. It was a beautiful affirmation of her success in maintaining family ties that German cousin, Jonas Jaenicke, was at her bedside reading Bible verses in her first language in the last hours before she died. Ruth married her father’s star student, Riley W. Gardner, on August 27, 1950. She moved straight from her parents’ home in Yankton to married life in Topeka, where Riley had already begun working at the Menninger Foundation as a research psychologist before he completed his Ph.D. at KU in 1952. She reveled in the intellectual stimulation and friendships of the Menninger community until Riley’s sudden retirement in 1970. Ruth found many roles for herself in Topeka. She hosted NAACP meetings in her living room. As soon as her children could be trusted to speak to strangers, she had the whole family out campaigning door-to-door for Democratic Party candidates. She loved to invite people into her home for parties and events on almost any excuse and for almost any occasion. She hosted luminaries including Jean Piaget for dinners at her table. She encouraged neighborhood kids to use her home as a clubhouse. Ruth welcomed everyone. One scary night, her family found a group of rough-looking teenage boys eating dinner at her kitchen table around 10 pm. The strangers had come to her door “for help because their car had a flat tire two blocks away.” To this day, the family thinks that she simply charmed the boys out of robbing her. Either that, or books and art were not what they had been hoping to steal and when she offered them dinner, it just sounded like a good alternative. Radiate love. It’s powerful stuff. Ruth delighted in working with children. She was an assistant preschool teacher at Bruce School and in the earliest years of Discovery School when it was founded by her dear friend, Barbara Thiele. She was an active Potwin School and Roosevelt Junior High volunteer, teaching extracurricular cultural topics and remedial reading. She taught night classes in reading skills at Washburn University. She tutored students in phonics in her home. Creative and well-organized, Ruth led her son’s Cub Scout den. With her partner, Thelma Martin, and help from CJ Huss, Ruth was a Girl Scout leader from her daughter’s grade school years into junior high. It’s fitting that Ruth’s obituary should include lots of words. Even though English was a second language for Ruth and her family, they all cultivated vast vocabularies. They were a family of scholars. Though her English vocabulary was expansive, Ruth’s spelling was comprehensible only to people who speak both German and English. There was a memorable Mother’s Day when 31 little Girl Scouts presented their mothers with paper plate wall hanging gifts faithfully copied from Ruth’s written instructions to say, “Happy Muther’s Day.” It makes sense when you know that the German word for mother is mutter. Later in life, Ruth became a Bible scholar and a life coach to an untold number of friends needing an ear, some emotional support, or simply a warm smile. Always an avid reader, she read the Bible with discipline, front to back, repeatedly for one hour each evening, then spent a second hour reading related texts including St. Augustine, contemporary Charismatic texts, lives of the saints, and several translations of the Koran. She made herself an expert in Al-Anon and Nar-Anon. We don’t know how many women she sponsored. She staffed the local Nar-Anon Family Group meetings in Topeka for decades, contentedly studying that literature and praying alone if no one showed up. She was reliably available for anyone who might have found their way to the program. Radiate love. Ruth attended St. Joseph Catholic Church and Holy Name Church. She lectored on weekdays at Assumption Church, often staying to pray and to make herself available to anyone who might come by seeking comfort. She found her own comfort in the Glory to God prayer group meeting at Most Pure Heart of Mary Church. With impressive strength and iron-willed self-discipline, Ruth defeated chronic debilitating depression with a strict regimen of healthy eating, daily walks for miles outdoors, and prayer. She was resolutely cheerful and kind with others to the end of her life. When dementia drove Ruth into a locked care facility, her daughter-by-love, Kenyan immigrant Salome Ngure, brought smiles to her face and helped her to continue to spend time outdoors almost every day. Widowed for a decade before she died, dementia progressively affected her sharp mind and powerful memory and ultimately robbed her of her independence. Considering Ruth’s lifetime of devotion to guiding and caring for other people, it was most cruel that the first thing dementia stole from her was her recognition of people — first the names, then her recollection of even her dearest friends. Her last years in her home were very isolated, but she maintained her disciplined, healthy lifestyle. Her one indulgence was a scoop of ice cream as her treat for the day right before bedtime each and every night. Her family suggests that friends who want to honor her now treat themselves to an extra bowl of ice cream as a salute to Ruth. Ruth told everyone who cared that the greatest joy in her life was raising children. She was determined to give a different kind of love and devotion than she felt she had received as a child. Radiate love. Proof positive of her success is that each of the children she raised feels the strength of inherent good cheer and bold self-confidence. Ruth and Riley raised their own two children, Helen Ruth Crow and Mark Howard Gardner, and they provided daily care for their granddaughter, Samantha Ruth Crow Quist, from birth until she left for college. Ruth loved her son-in-law, Dan Crow, and former daughter-in-law, Naomi English, as she loved her children- by-birth. Her family was completed by granddaughter, Daya English Gazmawie, Samantha’s husband Jake Quist, Daya’s husband Ahmed Gazmawie, and great-grandchildren, George Daniel Quist, Aria Ruth Quist, and Felix Amir Riley Gazmawie. Ruth expected the best from those in her charge. Some of the last full sentences she articulated included an assignment. She said, “I am old. It is my time to be in this bed. You. You go out and do something good.” Ruth’s annual Christmas gift from her economist father was a budget book. She managed the family money carefully, maintaining a frugal lifestyle throughout her adult life. Though the peak household income in any year was $35,000 in 1970, and she never invested in the stock market or a business, Ruth saved enough money to pay for her own private care in comfort for the last three years of her life. She funded dozens of charities for decades: $1/monthly to each. In cash. Maybe even an occasional $5 bill if a cause touched her especially deeply. At tax time, she sent the IRS a little extra money each year because she was so proud to be an American. Radiate love. The family suggests that in lieu of flowers, memorial contributions might be made to the charity of the donor’s choice. The odds are strong that whatever your favorite cause might be, it might have been one of Ruth’s favorites, too. Giving beyond the end of her life, Ruth donated her body to University of Kansas School of Medicine. There will be a private funeral Mass when her family is gathered for Christmas. Arrangements are being handled by the Kevin Brennan Family Funeral Home of Topeka. Condolences may be sent online to www.kevinbrennanfamily.com.

Ruth Janssen Gardner

January 12, 1929 - December 5, 2017