Richard Maurice Ruby

1935 - 2021

February 10, 1935 - March 17, 2021 Richard's gift to the world was friendship – he delighted in spending time with colleagues, neighbors, chess and bridge partners, people he met in the spas and hot tubs of the world. His death from longtime heart disease March 17 followed an ideal afternoon of chat with a neighbor and a St. Patrick's dinner made with love by nextdoor friends.Richard was born in Detroit, Michigan, to Hungarian immigrants Julia and Louis Ruby (Rubinstein), who moved to Los Angeles when he was eight. He attended Los Angeles High School, Los Angeles City College (where he met wife Jackie) and received a master's degree in microbiology at Arizona State University, Tempe.He found his future when he began work as a microbiologist at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in Los Angeles. Whether identifying Listeria in cheese as the cause of deaths and stillbirths or supporting a requirement for warning labels on raw milk, he had a serious commitment to protecting public health. He took pride in being included in the Food and Drug Administration online oral history as someone whose work could help others in the future.Richard enjoyed travel – across the United States in car and RV to Paris in the springtime, to Japan, where he gloried in the hot baths and conversation, to Korea, where chatting with a couple living in a traditional Korean house led to helping their daughter apply to work for the FDA. He viewed solar eclipses in Oregon and Hungary, and joined the Deutsch/Rubinstein/Friedman trip to synagogues, cemeteries and towns in Hungary and Romania of special significance to families devastated by the Holocaust. Italy in 2019 was challenging, and his spectacular collapse at Pompeii was a highlight of the tour.His greatest happiness was in family – wife Jackie, daughter Allika (Rick Fitzgerald), who predeceased him, and daughter Keturah (Darrick Anderson), who treasures him as a patient and thoughtful person and loving father. He delighted in grandson Dean Austin Anderson and granddaughter Calla Rochelle Ruby, who misses him as a great listener who responded to her help in setting up his computer home screen by posting a picture of her. Sister Rochelle McAdam, niece Pilar McAdam and honorary niece Gail Eichenthal miss his kindness and warmth.Inurnment will be in Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery, with a service at First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles later after covid restrictions are lifted.