Humans of the Ozarks: 'I've had to kick a few rocks out of my way, but that's life'
For the News-Leader
Through rain, snow or sleet, young Ruth Pentecost Stewart would hoist a lantern and trudge the well-worn path to the barn. On the coldest mornings, she hastened her step; there was warmth waiting for her between two large milk cows.
In 1926, modes of transportation in the rugged, rural Ozarks were mostly still limited to horseback, buggy or a person's two feet.
Because of their isolation and self-sustenance, 10-year-old Ruth and her family were about as far removed from President Calvin Coolidge's economic prosperity as they would be from the Great Depression that was soon to follow.
"We had to pump and pump and pump to get the water going from the well," she said.
It would be another two decades before electricity arrived here. The family used an outhouse, and most babies were delivered into hands that knew no formal medical training.
In Pottersville, Ruth Stewart's schoolhouse only went to 10th grade.
"Mother made arrangements for me to live with a Mrs. Turley in West Plains so I could finish high school there," Stewart said.
But there was a problem: Mrs. Turley's daughter was "citified," Stewart says, and didn't want anything to do with her new country bumpkin of a roommate.
The teasing and exclusion became too much for the 15-year-old girl.
"So, after three days of that particular week — Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday — on Thursday morning I got up and just started walking," she said.
It's a hilly, heavily forested 12 miles from West Plains to Pottersville.
"Dad's cousin came along and took me about four miles," Stewart said. "Finally, I got home and Mom was milking my cows. I opened the barn door, and she said, 'What in the world?'"
The teenager declared she was not returning to school.
Her father cheered. Her mother didn't say a word.
"She got up, went to the house, and we had general conversation. I helped her get supper. Then we went to bed that night, no big deal," Stewart said.
And so went the weekend.
"I made the highest grades in school. She knew it. And she knew if she'd keep me in school, I'd go somewhere. She wanted me to teach," Stewart said.
On Sunday, Stewart's mother began packing her own suitcase.
"Daddy said, 'Why are you packing your suitcase?' And Mother told him, 'You can get along for yourselves, 'cause I'm gonna take a little vacation.' So she went with me to town. And she stayed three nights at the house where I'd been staying,'" Stewart said.
Stewart never knew what magic her mother worked, but on the fourth day, her mother was gone—and she began to thrive.
"I graduated in May of '34, and on the first of September, I stepped into a one-room country school to teach. I was 18, and I had 32 students," she said.
Stewart built a fire early each morning in the schoolhouse. She'd lecture to one group of students while the other group did written work.
Her oldest pupil, a rowdy, 16-year-old boy, had just come to school to see what the young, female teacher was like.
"He didn't last long," Stewart said.
Stewart lived with an elderly couple in a nearby home.
"They had cats. Lots of cats. He was a cat lover," she said.
"The couple slept in the living room by the fireplace. And I slept in the back bedroom where it was cold as anything. So I'd wait until they were asleep, then I'd get up and open the front door," she said.
And in pranced her feline friends.
"I'd bring them up on the bed and they'd form a ring around my feet. Then I was warm as anything," she said.
Stewart's schoolchildren told her about a handsome young worker they'd met at the nearby Civilian Conservation Corps camp, one arm of Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal.
On a Friday afternoon field trip through the woods, she pointed out natural habitats the children were learning about.
"The kids were delaying and dragging on and begging me to stay outside near the road. It was nearly four o'clock, and I was getting very confused," she said.
Suddenly, two men appeared in a bend in the road, walking.
"The older man just came and stood off to the side grinning while the younger man talked to me. The kids were giggling," she said.
The matchmaking worked: Ruth was married to her husband, Clyde, until he passed away 66 and a half years later. They raised a family together and ran their own business.
"I wouldn't change a thing. I've had to kick a few rocks out of my way, but that's life," she said.