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Tribute to a Fellow Writer & Role Model:
Ruth Lampland Ross 1908-2002

Ruth Lampland Ross squeezed everything out of her life of 93 years, as you would squeeze the last drop out of your tube of toothpaste. She didn't preach a way of life; she didn't proselytize. She simply lived her beliefs right up to last Friday afternoon.

Ruth had a weathered voice that never lost its child-like wonder at all the gifts life has to offer. As I went through Grand Central Station on the way to her memorial in Connecticut, I looked at the newly refurbished terminal bathed in sunlight and realized how delighted Ruth would have been at the spectacle and its magnificence. I thought of how she would've meticulously described the beautiful astrological symbols, vibrantly and magnificently painted on the so very high, vaulted Beaux Arts ceiling more than 100 feet overhead. Once in Connecticut, I looked at the serene shoreline of Long Island Sound, not one mile from where I grew up in Branford, and realized how lucky I was to see the water's glinting brilliance. My paying more attention to its vivid detail is part of the legacy Ruth leaves behind.

Ruth allowed herself to be in awe of it all. Fortunately, she was a brilliant writer and speaker, with a huge command of the English language, through which she could express herself to anyone who would read or listen. How could you not read or listen to those long and winding sentences that wove tapestries of soaring depictions of virtually anything she perceived? Ruth was an "experience expander." First came the experience perceived, then the experience of her description.

Ruth Lampland Ross wrote for scores of media outlets including The New York Times, the New York Herald Tribune and the Brooklyn Eagle. In 1934 she authored "Hobbies for Everybody," published by Harpers, which was reprinted 18 times. She was also an Arts critic for the NBC Radio Network. While she was a publicist for Schrafts, she ran into the dashing Duncan Ross, who was no less a character and every bit as eloquent himself. She came to New York from Minnesota while he came from Northern Ontario. He was of sturdy Scottish stock while she came from Norwegian lineage.

Whilst writing for Soda Fountain Magazine, Duncan and a colleague concocted a way to eat high off the hog during the Great Depression of the 1930s. They started a restaurant review guide similar to today's Zagat's. Naturally, all the finest eateries in New York clamored to be in this review guide, so Duncan (whom Ruth eventually married) lived like a swell thanks to his indomitable sense of enterprise which, no doubt, Ruth found tremendously attractive. Duncan became a classic figure in the "Grey Flannel Suit" days of Madison Avenue.

Together, they knew the movers and shakers on the New York scene from the '30s until just a few years ago. In fact, Ruth's picture and their wedding announcement appeared in Walter Winchell's column. Just a few weeks ago, Ruth filled me in on some fascinating details on Anne Morrow Lindbergh, whom she knew through her affiliation with American Pen Women.

Throughout the years I knew them, starting in the '70s, Duncan and Ruth obviously took great delight in using their considerable language skills to challenging each other.

I remember visiting them on Duncan's 80th birthday in the mid-'80s. Ruth was intent on letting everyone know of Duncan's landmark birthday. Duncan was, well, let's say considerably less enthusiastic about informing everyone of this fact. "Ruth, you're a flannel-mouth!" said he. I inquired as to what a "flannel-mouth" was. Of course, Duncan was once again using me as a type of bank-shot to underscore his point.

"Oh! You never heard of that expression, Larry?" "No, Duncan. What does it mean?" "Welllll, a FLANNEL-MOUTH (in easy earshot of Ruth) is someone who talks far too much, like a sock puppet who's mouth is made out of flannel. So you see Larry, that's what makes Ruth a FLANNEL-MOUTH!"

What great theatre it always was visiting them at their home in Fairfield, Connecticut. Built in 1774, the house had not one straight line to it. The floors, ceilings, doorways, and all angles were visibly skewed. This little house, originally built by the British to oversee both the inlet and the town of Fairfield, had 200 years of additions stuck onto it and the whole structure was constantly teeming with life. Once, son Rod pulled up some floorboards, only to find bills of laiding from the 1800's.

Approaching the then green house, you would notice the open door of the Chrysler New Yorker. You couldn't help noticing it as it mindlessly and mechanically kept saying through its radio speaker: "A DOOR IS AJAR! A DOOR IS AJAR! A DOOR IS AJAR!"

Your arrival would be heralded by the basso profundo barking of Boo, the Labrador-Weimaraner who was all black except for a white blaze across his chest. Boo's gone 12 years, yet I think of his loopy nobility every day. Rocky the cat would bash his head into your arm from a table on the porch insisting: "PET ME!"

I knock on the door. "Hello?" "Who is it?" says a startled-sounding Ruth. "It's Larry!" "Oh no, not Larry!" "No?" I say. "Ohhhh no, I don't have a shred of clothing on. Wait, wait, wait!"

I waited.

Once inside, you noticed the familiar kitchen television that was sometimes stuck between channels, emitting fuzzy voices through the snowy reception. You could not refuse any food offered to you. Well, you could try, but you would eventually fail. As daughter Meredith pointed out at the memorial service, it was Ruth's Norwegian sensibilities that persisted -- your saying "No" meant Ruth would keep asking you until you gave in. Ruth was destined and determined to serve anyone who crossed her path. Meredith also pointed out that God must have been close to Ruth at all times, for none of the aluminum pots that accidentally melted on the stove ever did set fire to the house. Sometimes the food you got consisted of the most unusual concoctions imaginable. One person recently recounted peanut butter and olive sandwiches. This person noted that it was simply easier to accept Ruth's offering and then surreptitiously give it to Boo in the hopes that he would eat it, which wasn't always the case.

I remember the sound of the Ross home being as warm as the hospitality received there. It was an intimate sound, due in part to the furniture, the rugs and piles and piles of paper...oh, the piles of paper! Newspapers in the whole, but also piles of news clippings from the 1930's through the 1990's. It was all equally important: Ruth was a non-stop clipping service for everybody, in the days when "cutting & pasting" did not simply mean a couple of keystrokes.

Ruth was nearly twice my age. I came to know her through her son Rod, whom I knew as a fellow broadcaster at radio station WPKN in Bridgeport. But I visited the house whether Rod was there or not.

Most of Ruth's contemporaries are gone now; the ones still with us weren't well enough to make it to the service. Yet the church was full of people from ages 5 through 85. Age was never a barrier for having a tight connection to Ruthy's (nickname Beany's) heart.

Up until a few years ago, she and Rod did a radio show together called "Ruth's Round-Up of the Arts" that attracted alarge and diverse audience as it was so spontaneous, humorous and unlike anything on the air before or since.

She did not like "dead air," as one could otherwise put that airtime to use reading or saying something that wouldn't have otherwise been mentioned.

One fine day, I told Ruth and Rod I was going to Seattle on business. They both agreed I must visit and stay with Laurie, the oldest daughter, even though I had never met her. And so it was to be that I would experience the exotic Widby Island where Laurie raised horses, all the people were marvelously hospitable and the landscape lush.

Ruth and Duncan's love and command of the language has been passed down undeniably from one generation to the next. This publication has been profoundly affected by Ruth's son Mac (the DM Fox) Ross. The reformulation of WDFM's intro and the introduction of WDFM into the list management business were deeply influenced by him.

Mac notes that Ruth never flagged in her love of life. Her failing vision kept her from her beloved reading; her trouble swallowing prevented her from enjoying food; her hearing loss made it difficult to enjoy the conversation she craved so; still, her indomitable love of being on the planet wasn't one bit diminished. She knew it was all a gift and, by example, showed us.

Rod asked her recently, "Ruth, you're bent over like a comma from osteoporosis, you can hardly hear or see, how do you do it?" "I hold on tight," she said. She tore a napkin in half and gave one part to him. "Why are you always sharing everything you have, Ruth?" Rod asked. She paused a moment and looked up with that unforgettable smile and said, "Isn't that what it's all about?"

One of the last things she said to me was, "Memories are the dividends." The minister at the memorial service confessed that he didn't know her well, but remembered that she attended services last Christmas. After the final hymn she said out loud, "Applause! Bravo!"

You didn't have to know Ruth Lampland Ross long to capture her essence and spirit. She led a long life that set examples for the thousands of her fans, a life that found regular transcendence in the minuscule and majestic alike. A life at the end of which you can only say, "APPLAUSE! BRAVO!"