(Courtesy photo) Ruth Brown was photographed with a poster created for her 104th birthday celebration in June 2017. Her 109th birthday will be celebrated this week.

One of 10 children born between 1913 and 1926 to Swedish immigrants living in the Pittsburgh area, Ruth Anna Victoria Magnuson Brown is today the lone surviving sibling.

Doing the math would lead one to the most logical conclusion: Ruth Anna must have been the youngest, perhaps the second-youngest, of her siblings, right?

Wrong.

Ruth Anna was actually the first child born to the newly minted Americans, making her the “big sister” to nine “little brothers and sisters” as the Magnuson clan grew up in what must have been quite the active household before they came of age and, eventually, went their separate ways.

The way that Ruth took would lead her to work in a business office, then to a man named Robert “Bob” Brown, whom she married in 1938. It led her to motherhood, then to Oberlin, Ohio, with her family when Bob, a federal Air Traffic Controller, was transferred there in the mid-60s.

Following Bob’s death in 1990, Ruth’s way took her to Texas, to live near one of her two daughters, Kristine, and her family. That way was cruelly interrupted when Kristine died of cancer in 2015; her husband had died in 2006.

The next step along Ruth’s way was undoubtedly the bravest one of all: just a month or so after Kristine passed, Ruth – at age 102 – relocated a couple of thousand miles away to an independent and assisted living community in Nashua called Langdon Place, just a short drive from the Westford, Massachusetts home of her other daughter, Bonnie Oliphant.

This Wednesday, Bonnie and her husband and other folks close to the family – and perhaps a few special guests – will gather at Langdon Place to help Ruth celebrate her 109th birthday.

The gathering may look something like a Valentines Day party, as everyone is being encouraged to wear red, Ruth’s favorite color.

And word is there will be plenty of Baby Ruth candy bars on hand.

More about Ruth’s history, and the interest the researchers from Boston University’s centenarian study have recently shown in Ruth’s longevity, will be the topic of the Sunday, June 18 edition of this column.

Dean Shalhoup’s column appears weekly in The Sunday Telegraph. He may be reached at 594-1256 or dshalhoup@nashuatelegraph.com.

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