The phrase "Greatest Generation" tossed around a lot these days, but when you meet someone like 88-year-old Ruby Beatty, you begin to understand what those words really mean.
Ruby has been volunteering for Serve's Clothes Cupboard for more than 50 years, longer than Serve has been Serve. She participates in the First Christian Church's outreach, which provides food for the homeless shelter. She organized to raise money for the care and maintenance of Fairview Cemetery when funds ran out. She cooks meals for her family one night each week because her granddaughter called and asked her grandmother if she could come to see her one night a week, and Ruby made it into a regular family dinner. She embroiders tea towels and makes denim rugs in her spare time.
"When the day is done I want to be able to think I've done something to make a difference," she said.
But Ruby isn't one to take a lot of credit, so she continued to defer the good work that is done at the Clothes Cupboard to Director Melody Craighead.
"I always knew this place had so much potential, but it would have never gotten where it is if it wasn't for Melody," said Ruby. But Craighead was having none of it.
"Ruby is the epitome of what "giving' is," she said. "When I started this, when we made this move to the new building, Ruby was here painting and helping me get it ready. When I would start to melt down, it was always Ruby who picked me up. She's my rock and my support."
The bond between the two isn't a new one. Craighead was a youth candle-lighter at her church when Ruby was in charge of the candle-lighting part of the service. "I was scared to death. Ruby kept me from being so scared," she said.
Raised in Salem, Mo. during the depression in a family with 10 children, Ruby grew up learning about getting by.
"We didn't have a bathroom or running water. My mother made our clothes out of feedcloth," she remembered. For those who aren't familiar with feedcloth, feedbags used to come in colorful materials. Families often used the cloth from the bags to make their own clothing. Ruby said her mother would take them to the store to choose which colors they liked.
"I'm glad I grew up that way," Ruby said. "It helped prepare me for what might come up in life."
For example, during a week-long power outage, Ruby kept her wood stove burning. It not only kept the house warm, but enabled her to cook. Something she had learned to do over a wood stove as a child.
Ruby was married to a military man and raised two sons. She has grandchildren and a great-grandchild. She didn't go to high school, but she earned her GED when it was required for her to become Dining Room Supervisor at the State Hospital where she worked for 17 years. Before that she worked for the International Shoe Company here in Fulton for 32 years until they shut down. A brain tumor in 1988 took the sight from her left eye and the hearing from her left ear, but nothing has diminished Ruby's desire to give back.
"My husband was on dialysis and had to go to Columbia three times a week. We thought we were going to have to move there because I couldn't drive," Ruby said. "But the drivers at Serve helped us. They took us to Columbia three days a week for seven years." She said her volunteer work pays them back for what they gave.
"It's my tenth," she said, referring to the idea of tithing a tenth of our income to the Lord. And on a sheet of paper she is holding are the Bible verses Luke 6:33-38, which starts with "Give, and it will be given to you."
"There are so many people hurting," said Ruby. "People from all denominations, races, ages, everyone. Working here with Serve is a way to help make somebody's life better."