Ruth Odelia Bohms

Ruth Odelia Bauer Bohms, age 97, died peacefully in her sleep at the Anchorage Pioneer Home on Saturday, October 26, 2024.
Ruth, born in Sheboygan, Wisconsin and raised in Milwaukee, was the oldest daughter of William and Catherine Bauer's five children. Ruth grew up during the Depression. To help the family finances, she waitressed at Kuglitsch's Arcade, the local bowling alley. In exchange for manually setting the pins, she & her older brother got to bowl for free. As a result, Ruth became a championship bowler for many decades to follow.
After high school, her sights were set on college, but tuition was an obstacle. Undeterred, she put her lightning-fast typing and shorthand skills to use and got a part-time job with a small law firm near the campus of Marquette University where she attended & graduated with a BA in Journalism.
Ruth loved Milwaukee, but wanted to see the world. She moved to Los Angeles working for Alaska Communications. Before long, the newly completed ALCAN Highway created a need for the company to open an office in Fairbanks. With little more than a suitcase in hand, Ruth arrived in Fairbanks on January 3, 1951, exactly eight years before statehood.
Alaska was a young, exciting place in the 1950s and it wasn't long before she met and married kindred spirit and fellow Midwesterner, Jerry Bohms, a pilot with Wien Air Alaska. They built their home and family in Fairbanks. When the four kids had left home and with Jerry's encouragement, Ruth applied to Law School. At age 54 she was the oldest in her cohort at Gonzaga where she earned her JD. In 1995, Senator Ted Stevens appointed her as his delegate to the White House Conference on Aging in Washington, D.C. In 2004, she was the only woman among a group of eight senior attorneys in the United States admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court. In 2005, she was honored by the Alaska State Legislature for her community service based on her more than 1,600 hours of pro bono service to Alaskans.
Before moving to Anchorage in 2015 to be closer to her oldest daughter & son, she was member of the Fairbanks Women's Auxiliary of the Pioneers of Alaska, attending annual conventions, serving as President, as well as being crowned the Queen Regent.
Ruth was preceded in death by her husband, Jerry; son, Mark; brothers, Bill Jr, Don & Bob. She is survived by her daughters Cathy (Richard) Giessel of Anchorage; Ellen (Rick) Bohms of Santa Rosa, CA; Julia (Stephen) Cordz of Port Townsend, WA; sister Audrey Jones of Tok; 10 grandchildren, 8 great grandchildren and numerous nieces and nephews.