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Note: Ruth Kuhn: Autobiography -- February 6, 1996 I was born in Pleasant Hill, Missouri on August 14, 1915. Moved with my parents, Margaret and William Gulick, to Olathe, Kansas in 1920. Attended Green Springs Elementary School, a one room school house, from 1921-1929. We had five different teachers, but the same teacher for the 5th, 6th, and 7th grades. I played "Minuet in G" at my 8th grade county graduation. I graduated from Olathe High School in 1933. In 1925 I joined the "Oxford Hustlers" 4-H Club. In 1929 another club member and I won first place with our posture demonstration at the Topeka Free Fair. We competed at the Kansas State Fair in Hutchinson and won fourth place. Mary Elsie Border was our Home Demonstration Agent. Since we were in the midst of the depression, I worked in the Johnson County Farm Bureau office from April 5, 1934 until September 1936 at $2 per day in order to save $500 to enroll at Kansas State. My salary was later increased to $2.50 per day. I worked my way through college in four years in the History Department, Art Department, and the Vice-Presiden't office. Because I could type and take shorthand, I earned 40 cents per hour while many students were earning 15 cents per hour. During my senior year it was necessary for me to borrow $300 from the Women's Federated Clubs. At Clovia, Ethel, and I were roommates several semesters. Mr. M. H. Coe, Kansas 4-H Club Leader, took Gwen Romine Jordan, Glenn Kruse, another Collegiate 4-H Club member, and myself to the Rural Youth Conference at State College, Pennsylvania, the last week of August, 1939. We spent the night of September 1 (when Hitler's Army invaded Poland) in Steubenville, Ohio. In the spring of 1940 I was selected one of four outstanding seniors belonging to the Collegiate 4-H Club. Graduated from K-State on May 27, 1940 and started working for the Kansas Extension Service on June 1. Three weeks later I was hired as the Atchinson County H.D.A. Gene Kuhn interviewed me at my Mother's Vacation Camp on July 31. We were married next year on July 2, 1941 in Kansas City, Missouri. At that time Gene was the State Publicity Director for the National Youth Administration in Topeka. The first five months of our marriage I was in Effingham during the week and I joined Gene in Topeka on weekends. I was asked to stay on the job until someone had been trained for six months to replace me, and that was Rachel Featheringill. One important duty was to supervise the making of 960 mattresses. I held meetings in each township for the purpose of giving out tick material and directions for sewing the pieces together at home. I tore the material into 6 pieces: top, bottom, 2 sides, and 2 ends for each mattress. The women took the material home and sewed the pieces together as directed, returning the next time to stuff the ticks. I demonstrated how to stuff the cotton and tie the tufts to hold the mattress together. Then each family received enough cotton to make a comforter with the completed mattress. One cold winter night I got stuck in a snow drift on a country road while driving to a 4-H Club meeting, and again on the way home! Both times I had to walk to a farm house for help. I was 26 then and healthy, and would go anywhere to get the job done! During the year I lived in Topeka, I was School Lunch Supervisor for eleven schools in Topeka and two schools in Lawrence. Men employed by WPA raised the vegetables in the summer and the women canned them in 64 quart pressure cookers. I worked 12 hours a day during the summer of 1942 and lost 19 pounds. I supervised one shift from 6 A.M. until noon and another shift from noon until 6 P.M. Gene began his Navy training as an Ensign at Princeton University in October, 1942. I joined him there the day after Thanksgiving as he had received orders to go to Boston for two months. We lived in Brooklyn, N. Y. (three blocks from Flatbush) beginning in the latter part of January until October 12, 1944. Our daughter, Lydia, was born at the Brooklyn Naval Hospital on June 6, 1944 (D-Day). I worked for Frederick Snare Corporation (contracting engineers) in the Wall Street section for one year before Lydia was born. The Corporation built all the bridges on the Central American Highway. We three came to the West Coast the latter part of October and remained in Oakland until Gene's ship left for the Pacific. Lydia and I stayed with my folks from April 12, 1945 (the day President Roosevelt passed away) until Gene returned to Kansas the latter part of November. Our son, Peter, was born at the Kansas Medical Center in Kansas City, Kansas, on October 10, 1945 while Gene was in Tokyo Bay. Peter was 5 1/2 weeks premature so he spent his first ten days in an incubator. Now he is 6 feet 5 inches tall. Gene worked at the Olathe Mirror until he became editor of the Mueller Record, a house organ, in Decatur, Illinois. We lived there three years (1947-1950). Then Gene became City Editor of the Champaign-Urbana Courier (Illinois) in the late spring. He was recalled to duty in the Navy on November 5, 1950, but the children and I stayed in Urbana until we left for Sasebo, Japan the latter part of February, 1953. I worked in the Mortgage Loan Department of Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company where my job consisted of typing notes and mortgages and closing real estate loans. We arrived in Sasebo the first day of spring in 1953. Gene was Executive Officer of the Military Sea Transportation Service. The children and I were only there five and one-half months as Lydia contracted polio (two years before the vaccine) and we returned to Oakland so she could have physical therapy at Oak Knoll Naval Hospital. Gene was released to inactive duty the latter part of December, 1953. Our family lived in Stockton from 1954-64. Gene was rewrite man on the Stockton Record and I taught there five years until I joined World Book Encyclopedia full time in 1960. We moved to Fresno in 1964 where Gene was with the "Fresno Bee" until he retired in March 1981 following back surgery. He took military leave from the "Bee" in 1968 and 1969 to go to Vietnam. I met him in Honolulu during his R & R for Christmas in 1968 and in Hong Kong in August 1969. I was fortunate to visit our son in Taipei on my return trip to Fresno. I've won many World Book trips. Some of the most outstanding ones were to the Playboy Club in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin in October 1972, to Spain in May 1973, to Acapulco in May 1978 and to Hawaii in January 1979. In October 1978 I won Flying Circus (comparable to Academy Awards) as I was one of the ten best District Managers in the United States and Canada. In june 1981 I won an Overnight Club trip to Bent Tree Country Club in Dallas, Texas where we had a 7 course dinner. We stayed at the Hyatt Regency at the expense of World Book. While in Dallas, we went down to the Neiman Marcus store where I opened an account which I still use when ordering from their catalogue. I'm listed in the 1983 edition of Who's Who of American Women. Lydia and I attended the Zonta International Convention in Sydney, Australia in June 1984. While there we also visited New Zealand and Tasmania as Lydia wanted to see the Tasmanian Devil. Thought it interesting that there were eight race horses on their way to New York in the Cargo Section of Quantas on our return flight. We went to the Opera House for the opening ceremonies of the convention and later there to see a German opera. We also attended the Zonta International Convention in Toronto, Canada in June 1986. We stayed in the Royal York Hotel where Queen Elizabeth II always stays when in Toronto. I joined A.A.U.W. in Atchison in 1940. Since then I have belonged to branches in Topeka, Decatur, and Champaign-Urbana, Illinois; and Stockton and Fresno, California branches. This year Lydia is president of our Fresno branch and I am a 50 year member. I've held many offices in the Stockton and Fresno branches, including First V-P, Second V-P, Membership Treasurer for four years, and Chairman of four home tours in Stockton to raise funds for scholarships. Lydia has been at the Fresno County Free Library for 27 years and is currently Manager of Adult Materials and Service to Institutions. Peter is a Senior Test Planner in the Home Office of the Ford Motor Company in Dearborn, Michigan. Peter and his wife, Yoke Chun, from Malaysia, reside in Rochester Hills, Michigan, with their children Phillip, Paul, and Robin. Gene and I still live in Fresno where I'm sill working with World Book Encyclopedia. I have plenty to keep busy as I have been all my life!
Former Olatheans Enroute to Japan Mrs. Gene J. Kuhn, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. William Gulick of Olathe, and her two children, Jeanie and Peter, sailed from San Francisco yesterday for Japan where they will join Lt. Kuhn. Mrs. Kuhn and the two children spent three days in Olathe last week visiting with her parents. Lieutenant Kuhn, a member of The Olathe Mirror's staff before he joined the staff of the Champaigne-Urbana Courier in Urbana, Ill., has been on active duty with the navy since November, 1950. He is currently executive officer of the military sea transport service at Sasebo, Japan, and before this assignment was operations officer for the service for eight months at Pusan, Korea. The family expects to live in Japan one year. Source: Unknown newspaper article, 1953.
Source: The News, Tuesday, November 14, 1961 -- In Our Past -- 25 Years Ago (1936) ((I believe this is from the Olathe, Kansas, newspaper)) Alice Ruth Gulick of Olathe has been awarded a gold medal of honor for making the best report of any 4-H club member in the county in a National 4-H Rural Electrification Contest conducted by extension agents.
NEW RESIDENCE . . . Mrs. Gene J. Kuhn, a former local teacher and active member of the American Association of University Women, is making last-minute preparations to leave her Park Woods home (2111 Meadow Ave., Stockton, CA) and join her husband at their newly completed residence in the Northgate area of Fresno (665 W. Escalon, Fresno, CA) this weekend. Mr. Kuhn is a reporter with the Fresno Bee, and his wife will become Fresno's district manager for Field Enterprises Educational Corp., the same post she has held in Stockton for the past two years. She was previously on the faculties of Stockton College, Lincoln High School, and Marshall Junior High. The Kuhns' daughter, Jeanne, returned to Whittier College earlier this month for her junior year as a political science major, and their son, Peter, is a private first class stationed with the Army in Bangkok, Thailand. He enlisted a year ago and was on Okinawa until Sept. 1 . . . . Mrs. Kuhn served on the AAUW board of directors for seven years, held several offices including first vice-president, and was chairman of four AAUW house tours. She also helped produce the branch's newly published cookbook. Source: The Stockton Record, September, 1964
The following information was copied from a letter written by Ruth Kuhn on November 22, 2003. "After graduating from Olathe M. S, in 1933, I worked at the Johnson Co. Farm Bureau Office for 2 1/2 years to save $500 to enroll at K-State. This was during the Depression and I earned $2.00 per day in the beginning. Later I received $70 per month. I worked my way through KSU in four years, most of the time in the Vice-Presiden's Office where I received 40 cents per hour my senior year. I was one of four honored at the spring dance held by the Collegiate 4-H Club. Is that club still meeting on the campus? My husband and I lived at 400 Topeka Blvd. the first 16 months we were married. During that time I was School Lunch Supervisor in Topeka and Lawrence. Gene was a naval officer in three wars, and I worked in offices from N.Y. to Japan. Later I taught business subjects for five years in Stockton, Ca. I was Dist. Mgr. with World Book/Childcraft the last 34 years I worked. Our daughter Lydia retired in January this year after working at the Fresno Co. Free Library for 33 years. The last 10 years she was manager of adult services. Our son Peter has been in the Home Office of Ford Motor Co. in Dearborn, Mi. for 25 years. He is Senior Test Planner, married and he and his wife have three children (15, 19 & 21 yrs.)"
Obituary for Ruth Kuhn -- Ruth Kuhn passed away on Sunday, October 31, 2004, at the age of 89. She was born on August 14, 1915, in Pleasant Hill, MO. She moved to Olathe, KS, in 1920, where she attended a one room school house for eight years. She graduated from Olathe High School. She worked her way through Kansas State University receiving a BS in Home Economics. She met her husband, Gene Kuhn, when he interviewed her for a newspaper story. Ruth was District Manager for World Book Encyclopedia/Childcraft for 34 years. She won many trips including Acapulco, Corte del Sol, and Honolulu. In 1978, she was one of eleven District Managers to make Flying Circus. She was active in A.A.U.W. for over 50 years holding many offices. She was a member of the Zonta Club of Fresno for over 30 years. While President, she was instrumental in sponsoring the Miss Teen of California Pageant from 1983-1988. She also served as President of the Friends of the Fresno County Public Library and the Friday Club. Ruth is survived by her daughter Lydia of Fresno; son Peter and his wife Yoke-Chun of Rochester Hills, MI; and grandchildren Phillip, Paul, and Robin. A Funeral Service will be held at Stephens & Bean Chapel on Friday, November 5, 2004, at 10:00 a.m. Interment to follow at Belmont Memorial Park. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that contributions be made to Friends of the Fresno Public Library, 2420 Mariposa St., Fresno, CA 93721. STEPHENS & BEAN CHAPEL202 No. Teilman, Fresno (559) 268-9292. Published in the Fresno Bee on 11/3/2004
Mom passed away in her sleep at home. I was fortunate enough to visit her for a week about two months prior to her unexpected death.
Pastor D. Kevin Smith officiated at the funeral service, and the three songs sung were: Amazing Grace, The Navy Hymn and On Eagles' Wings.
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