Robert H. Ruby
Robert H. Ruby
Robert H. Ruby, MD, 91, Moses Lake, WA., passed away peacefully February 15, 2013. A Memorial Service will follow in the near future. In lieu of flowers, the family requests contributions to Grant County Animal Shelter or send dog food to Daze of Camelot Animal Sanctuary.
Robert H. Ruby was a physician, an author and a world traveler. He visited seven continents. Dr Ruby was born April 23, 1921 in Mabton, WA. He graduated from Mabton high school in 1939, then entered Whitworth College in Spokane WA taking pre-med courses. He left in July 1942 to enter Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis Missouri, graduating in 1945. After a rotating internship in a Detroit, Michigan hospital he entered the Air Corps, serving in the Army in the occupation of Japan.
After returning to the states he was separated from service and took a fellowship in cancer surgery at the Sugerbaker Cancer Clinic in Jefferson City, Missouri. He followed with a year's postgraduate work at the Washington University School of Medicine. Dr Ruby then served a four-year residency in pathology and surgery at the St Louis County Hospital.
Dr Ruby married the late Lelia Jeanne Henderson of Chelan, WA on July 11 1953. He has four children; Edna King-Grey of Anacortes WA, Henry Ruby of Kennewick, WA, Bob Ruby of Mt Vernon, WA and "Esme" Mary Davis of Shawnee, KS.
In July 1953 Dr Ruby began a second military service at the request of the government. He was assigned to the United States Public Health Service on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, where he was in charge of the hospital.
On discharge from this assignment he moved with his family to Moses Lake, WA where he set up private practice in General Surgery in January 1955.
Dr Ruby continued his interest in Native Americans since his time with them in South Dakota. He was an adjunct faculty member of Big Bend Community College in Moses Lake where he taught a course, "Indians of the Pacific Northwest".
He served as cultural advisor for Hallmark Entertainment Television's four hour movie Dream keeper, aired on ABC-TV December 28 and 29 2003.
Dr. Ruby lectured on the Stillaguamish Indians, televised on station TVW and at the Burke Museum, University of Washington, Seattle, on November 14, 2002.
He is referenced in volumes 7 and 12 of the Smithsonian Institution's Handbook of North American Indians.
Dr. Ruby is profiled in the history journal of the University of Washington, Pacific Northwest Quarterly, Vol. 95, No. 3 Summer 2004; in the monthly magazine Bulletin of the American College of Surgeons, Vol. 90, No. 11 November 2005 (visit website www.facs.org/fellows_info/bulletin/2005/sandrick1105.pdf.) and in the quarterly Outlook of the Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine, Vol. XLII, No. 3 Fall 2005.
Dr Ruby was honored with the Whitworth College 2006 Distinguished Alumnus Award.
He is a consultant and advisor to the Umatilla Confederated Tribes in Oregon.
Dr Ruby is co-author of:
The Oglala Sioux Warriors in Transition (1955)
Half Sun on the Columbia: A Biography of Chief Moses (1965)
The Spokane Indians: Children of the Sun (1970)
The Cayuse Indians: Imperial Tribesmen of Old Oregon (1972)
Ferryboats on the Columbia River
Myron Eells and the Puget Sound Indians
The Chinook Indians: Traders of the Lower Columbia River
Indians of the Pacific Northwest
A Guide to the Indian Tribes of the Pacific Northwest
Dreamer Prophets of the Columbia Plateau: Smohalla and Skolaskin
The Highland Runners: A Tale of the Okanogan
Indian Slavery in the Pacific Northwest
John Slocum and the Indian Shaker Church
Ester Ross, Stillaguamish Champion
Dr Ruby will be laid to rest at the Mabton, WA cemetery. A memorial Service is being planned at Moses Lake Presbyterian Church in the near future and an announcement will be placed in the paper. He is survived by his sister, Marion Johnson, McCall, ID., his four children and his ten grandchildren.