Lompoc, CA - Ruth Ellen O'Brien died at home in Lompoc, CA, on February 10, 2021. Born May 9, 1926, in Brewer, Maine, Ruth was the daughter of Bernice Clewley and Harry Dorr, owner of Dorr Plumbing on Exchange Street in Bangor. She graduated from Brewer High School in 1943. After completing her teacher's degree at Gorham College, she fell in love with Richard Everett O'Brien of Lincoln, Maine, whom she married in June of 1947.
She and Dick lived in Bangor, Hampden, and Clifton for five years, during which time Ruth had two boys, Richard and Timothy, and began teaching in Brewer. The young family then moved to White House Station, New Jersey, in 1951, where Ruth had two more sons, Matthew and Jonathan, while continuing her teaching career. Nostalgia for their home state took them back to Bangor in 1961. Ruth taught six years at Fruit Street School, and then, with the shuttering of Dow AFB, the family moved once more, this time to Lompoc, CA, in 1967, where the boys took full advantage of various educational and sports opportunities. All the while, Ruth served as their #1 supporter, pre- and post-game team chef, and on-call sports psychologist. Never missing a year of teaching, "Mrs. O," as her students called her, retired in 1992, after twenty-five years at Fillmore Elementary School. She would go on to live among three generations of appreciative students and to begin a decade of summer cross-country camper journeys with Dick, inevitably involving weeks in Maine to explore old haunts and to feast on fried haddock and "lobstah."
After Dick's passing in 2001, Ruth lived with her son, Jon, and daughter-in-law, Charlotte, in Lompoc, both of whom provided her with the close comfort of family and loving care she thrived on. Several years later they bought a camp on Green Lake in Maine, close to where Ruth's father and mother had built theirs 60 years earlier. During her extended summers there, Ruth enjoyed a glorious revival of long-dormant friendships with cherished classmates from Gorham and Brewer High School. She learned to kayak, one of the joys of her later life, and took particular pleasure in her tradition of being the first to take a plunge into the lake's "glorious" spring-fed waters on Memorial Day.
At every stage in life she found immeasurable happiness through people. She touched them with her sincere interest and caring, and they in turn allowed her to invest in their lives. She was the indispensable force in the O'Brien family, the "Press Secretary," as it were, keeping track of and communicating about friends, children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Her ability to remember names and birthdays, her genius for recalling obscure details and events from her past, her readiness to laugh at herself and with friends, and her remarkable optimism endured through the last stages of her life. The quintessential teacher and mother, she saw all of us as her children, as precious souls to cherish and encourage.
Surviving Ruth are four sons and their wives, Richard and Janice O'Brien of Spokane Valley, WA; Timothy and Benay O'Brien of Annapolis, MD; Matthew and Karyn O'Brien of San Antonio, TX; and Jonathan and Charlotte O'Brien of Lompoc, CA. Also included among those who will fondly remember Ruth are her "forever friend," Barbara Dameron, whom "Mrs. O" first met at Fillmore School, and her dear friend, Jack Jones, of Lompoc, CA. Four granddaughters and four grandsons, as well as twelve great-grandchildren, also survive Ruth, along with one cousin, Bertha Jennings of Plymouth, MA; two nieces, Beatrice Zimmerman of Mt. Pleasant, WI, and Diane Hoag of Redmond, WA; and two nephews, Bruce and Ken Wiley of Nampa, ID.
In lieu of flowers and gifts, donations can be made to the nonprofit Rona Barrett Foundation (www.ronabarrettfoundation.org) that provides housing and support for vulnerable seniors.