Ruth O. Ginsburg

Ruth Ostrow Ginsburg passed away peacefully on July 22 at the age of 102. Born in New York to Manuel Peter and Sarah Ostrow, she graduated from the University of Texas with a degree in Sociology. She married Nathan Ginsburg shortly thereafter. She was a public-school art teacher in Syracuse, NY; a volunteer assistant to the historian at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, DC; and a trained volunteer archivist who worked on the Texas Jewish Archive and then at the Botanical Research Institute of Texas (BRIT) in Fort Worth, TX. In 2002, at the age of 81, she published a book based on her work at BRIT: Lloyd Herbert Shinners: By Himself. 

In between, she traveled the world with her husband Nathan. She was an avid observer of everything she saw, both as an artist and as a citizen of the world - something she instilled in her daughter, Susan, and her grandchildren, Lucy and James. She took great pride in completing the New York Times crossword in ink and loved playing bridge and pounce.

In the final chapter of her eventful life, she moved to Newton, MA in 2007, where she continued volunteering as an archivist with the Newton Historical Society. She also took up gardening and transformed the hilly backyard of the Newton house that she shared with her granddaughter and her family into an extensive perennial garden.

Her only child, Susan, died in 1995; her husband Nathan died the following year. She is survived by her widowed son-in-law Jim, her two grandchildren Lucy and James, their spouses Will and Sara, and her five great-grandchildren. She is sorely missed.

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