Ruth D. Ewing

1915 - 2014

PETERBOROUGH - Ruth D. Ewing, 98, co-owner of The Keene Sentinel for nearly four decades, who was deeply involved in community affairs, died Feb. 19, 2014.

She was born Aug. 31, 1915, in Boston, daughter of two distinguished academic parents. Her mother, Francis Dewing, was one of the first women to earn a doctorate from Radcliffe College, in psychology. Her father, Arthur Dewing, also held a doctorate from Harvard and went on to become a distinguished professor at Harvard Business School, which used his textbook, "The Financial Policy of Corporations," long after he left teaching to follow business interests in the 1930s.

Ruth Dewing, the youngest of three daughters, grew up in Newton and Cambridge, Mass., and in 1937 was in the second graduating class of Bennington College in Vt. then, as now, an innovative institution in the arts and humanities. She remained an ardent supporter of the college.

The year following her graduation from Bennington, she received a master's degree in economics from Columbia University, and entered the field of labor mediation.

She served as director of labor relations of Cascade Laundry in Brooklyn. N.Y., which in the late 1930s was the largest commercial laundry in the world. During World War II, she was a mediation officer of the War Labor Board in Washington, D.C., where she met her future husband, James D. Ewing.

She took particular pride in serving on two Mayor's Commissions on Community Goals in Keene, in 1967 and 1977. Starting in the mid-1970s, she served on the board of the MacDowell Colony, the Peterborough artists' retreat. For 10 years, she served on the board of what is now Cheshire Medical Center, and she was involved with the Unitarian Church in Keene.

In addition to her involvement in community and journalism affairs, she remained physically active her entire life. She took pleasure in ice skating, particularly ice dancing in her younger years, and until relatively late in life was proficient on the ski hill, the golf course and the tennis court.

Among other activities that put her in touch with nature, she enjoyed kayaking among the loons on Granite Lake, where the family kept a summer home.

She is survived by two daughters, Carolyn Cobelo and her husband, Thor Schulte-Starcher of Bali, Indonesia, and Tsultrim Allione of Pagosa Springs, Colo.; a son, Thomas, and his wife, Marilyn, of Leverett, Mass.; nine grandchildren; and six great-grandchildren.