September 18, 1939 - June 11, 2013
Ruth Elizabeth Sutherlin Finney Hayward passed away Tuesday, June 11, 2013 at home in Pasadena, California, after a seventeen-month battle with brain cancer. She was 73.
Ruth was born in Indiana and raised in San Mateo, Calif. She was educated at Stanford and at Harvard universities, where she earned a PhD in cultural anthropology.
Her teaching at the University of Hawaii, her career serving the United Nations in Rome, Mexico City, Katmandu, New York, and Eritrea, and her book Breaking the Earthenware Jar: Lessons from South Asia to End Violence Against Women and Girls published by UNICEF were all marked by her unsurpassed spirit of adventure, openness, and generosity.
In what bore a faint resemblance to retirement in Southern California, Ruth dedicated herself to the cause of the Tibetan people. She was the prime mover for the first two shows of Tibetan furniture in American museums: Wooden Wonders at the Pacific Asian Museum in Pasadena and In the Service of the Buddha: Tibetan Furniture from the Hayward Family Collection at LACMA.
Ruth also founded the Panchen Lama-Tashi Lhunpo Project (PLTL), a nonprofit dedicated to supporting Tibetan religion and culture by rebuilding a key monastery in India. This project continues under the stewardship of her husband, Dr. Robert Hayward.
Ruth is grieved, celebrated, and survived by her husband Robert, brother John, sons Sean and Greg, step-daughters Wendy and Erica, first husband Ben, and many more people whose lives she has touched.
The family requests that donations be made in Ruth's name to the PLTL, with the funds dedicated to finishing the prayer hall for the Tashi Lhunpo Monastery in exile.