My Granny

Ruby Mae Gurnee

On September 2, 1920 the 4th of 5 children of Brady Myers and Nettie Keener Myers was born in the downstairs bedroom of a 2 story house in Plumville, PA. She had 2 brothers and 2 sisters.

After graduating from Plumville High School, she married Dick Gurnee on April 6th, 1941. He passed away in 1982. They had 3 children: Ruby Louise, Jim and Tamara Sue. After Ruby Louise was born, Ruby attended Transylvania Bible College.

Their daughter, Ruby Louise, and her husband, Keith Mattocks, live in Oklahoma; their son, Jim, and his wife, Mary Lou, live in Meadville, PA; and the youngest daughter, Tamara Sue, and her husband, Marc Cohen, live in Texas. Ruby has many grandchildren and great-grandchildren (Beth, Byron). She also has several nieces and nephews, one niece and her husband are here today – Roberta Floch (FLAW) and her husband, Raymond.

Embarrassing and yet humorous happening: Ruby twice had a learner’s permit. She was a good driver, but had an accident each time. The first time, the other driver was at fault. The second time, her husband, Dick, was insisting that she park between a big truck and her sister and brother-in-law’s car. Her sister and brother-in-law had just returned from vacation and had the trunk of the car full of personal belongings. She, under stress, panicked and hit the gas pedal instead of the brake. The car quickly accelerated and rammed into the back of her sister and brother-in-law’s car crunching the trunk lid and the stuff inside! It was possibly a good thing that she didn’t get a driver’s license because it has been said that she was a very fast driver.

In December of 1952 or 53 she stayed home from church on a Wednesday night because both of her children were sick. She got a frantic phone call from Dave Durfee telling her that Mark was badly burned and asked her to go to the church and tell his parents, Otis and Katherine Durfee to hurry home. She ran 2 blocks, up hill, in the cold winter air to the church. She was so winded when she got there that she couldn’t even talk. They knew something had to be wrong at home and left immediately. Otis said to her “Is it Mark?” and she nodded yes. Mark Durfee, was 10 years old and was experimenting with gasoline. Something apparently went wrong and he caught on fire. He ran out of the basement and Dave, who was down in the barn, saw flames, ran out, grabbed Mark, threw him down in the snow and put the fire out. Mark had 2nd and 3rd degree burns over 80% of his body.

Ruby and Dick moved many times in their married life. Before 1946 they moved frequently –very frequently. Between 1946 and 1967, they never stayed anywhere more than 4 years.

Ruby started wearing glasses when she was 19. After having surgery a couple of years ago on both eyes, she now can see well without glasses except to read small print.

She loves to travel – to ride in a vehicle. Before Dick passed away they would start out early in the morning and drive all day – just to ride around. She sure misses being able to do this.

Ruby is not afraid of snakes, but is deathly afraid of mice and ANYTHING that resembles one, even a cloth mouse.

Jim doesn’t mind the amount of discipline that she gave, even the many spankings with a heavy yardstick or belt, but thinks that a month a time of NO bicycle was abusive punishment!

She keeps the doctors and hospital in business - in past year she has been in the hospital 3 times. She loves to visit doctors. Just ask her.

Ruby worked many places: Flickinger’s nursing home, Westinghouse, Masons, Conser Petroleum Products, plus many more. When she went to Texas she was the manager of Graham Self Storage in Arlington for 5 years. She was given free housing, free utilities, a nice salary and a bonus depending on the occupancy percentage. While there she brought the occupancy rate from somewhere in the 20% range up to the high 90s range and, therefore, the bonus each quarter was a nice amount. While there she got to know many narcotic agents. She had a keen sense of smell and could tell them what storage units had drugs and drug paraphernalia in them. One time she called the narcotics unit and they told her she had to call the police first. She told them that would take too much time and that they better get there quick! They did and later told her that the chemicals in the storage unit could have blown up any minute with the high temperature in the unit. They were glad she called them directly. She was given permission to call any time.

Ruby loves to read. She many times gets 15 to 20 books out of the library.

She is now working part time at Meadville’s Free Clinic at the age of 87. By the way, she plans to live to be 100!

She was honored today at her church and I thought I would just share.