Amy Kleppner's Eulogy of Ruth

Remembering Ruth
Amy Kleppner

(Delivered at Ruth Auslander's Memorial Service, June 25, 2014)

I met Ruth over 50 years ago when my husband was a new member of the Math Department at the University of Maryland. It didn’t take long to discover that she was among the kindest and most generous of all the people I have ever known—one who was warm and welcoming, who was a loyal friend, and who loved to bring together people whom she thought would like to know each other, something that kept her circle of friends constantly expanding.

During those years when our children were small, it also became clear that Ruth was a font of knowledge. When I once asked her about footwear for babies, she knew instantly that Pedibears were what I needed. She knew that if you’re on the phone trying to explain to the doctor the croupy noises your child is making, that you should “just put the baby on the line.” She knew that children were the most important thing in our lives. But not as trophies or evidence of our own success, but as individuals who would find their own way.

In recent years, since my family moved to Vermont, my friendship with Ruth became focused on the trips we took every year to a major arts festival. These included four incredibly rewarding trips to Santa Fe, to the Spoleto Festival in Charleston, the Shakespeare Festival at Stratford-on-Avon and the Shaw Festival at Niagara-on-the-Lake in Canada. These trips remain among my happiest travel memories. One could not ask for a better travel companion; Ruth was uncomplaining, cheerful, undaunted by minor mishaps, and willing to try almost anything, with the exception of unhealthy food.

Not that Ruth was a flawless traveler: on one trip she forgot her passport and missed her plane. Fortunately she improvised the rest of the journey and arrived at her destination only a few hours later. She neglected to check the weather in Santa Fe so nearly froze at the first opera we attended. And in one near-catastrophe, she lost her glasses. I’m convinced that it was only divine intervention that allowed us to find them since there were probably 50 places where they might have been.
It’s only fair to say that I was far from a flawless traveler as well. Ruth had to ask that we upgrade our accommodations after an awful stay at a shoddy motel in Santa Fe whose sole merit was its proximity to a Whole Foods. I forgot that she was not the serious long-distance hiker that I was, and consequently I sometimes dragged her on long, exhausting walks instead of calling a cab or getting the car. There were walks that on the map—to the Folk Museum, for example-- looked short and easy but turned out to be weary miles long and uphill both ways; galleries that went on forever along never-ending streets that left us weary and footsore, but they all had to be seen.

And there were differences in style as well: I prefer to follow maps and discover places on my own, while Ruth liked asking strangers (no better informed than we, in my opinion) for directions at regular intervals. But one way or another, we always managed to find our way, and we never argued about it.

It is not that we had spectacular adventures on these trips. But we took enormous pleasure in the many wonderful performances that we saw: operas at Santa Fe, plays at the Shakespeare Festival and the Shaw Festival, and a great variety of music, drama, and experimental art at Spoleto.  We managed to see almost everything. When tickets were unavailable for the Philip Glass interview, we just sneaked into the hall and waited. There’s a moment, late one night at Spoleto, that epitomizes our whole experience. It was a day on which we had attended a chamber music concert in the morning, choral music in the afternoon and a play at night, with gallery-visiting in between. As we left the theater after the evening’s performance, Ruth asked me, “Where do go next?” She was always ready for more, even though at that point, the only proper response was “Straight to bed.” Those were some of the moments that cemented our friendship and kept it going all these years.

Finally, I will end with a metaphor and a poem, even though they are both somewhat counterintuitive. First, I think it is true that life deals us a number of hands—some good, some bad—and we have to play them as best we can. Ruth played the hands she was dealt with courage, skill, and equanimity. She never despaired, never gave up, never tossed her hand in.

And last, because Ruth loved all the arts, it seems appropriate to end with a poem that to me speaks to the occasion. It is an old-fashioned poem by Ben Jonson, not the sort of poem that is popular today, but one that I love all the same.

It is not growing like a tree
In bulk doth make Man better be;
Or standing long an oak, three hundred year,
To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere:
A lily of a day
Is fairer far in May,
Although it fall and die that night—
It was the plant and flower of light.
In small proportions we just beauties see,
And in short measures life may perfect be.

We all know too well that life is never perfect, and yet in Ruth’s life, we see just beauties.  We were fortunate that her life was not cut short, but on the contrary, exceeded the stipulated “three score and ten” that we are allotted. Her life enriched us all, and she will be in our hearts forever.