Ruth B. Heller

1928 - 2023

Ruth B. Heller
December 18, 1928 - February 28, 2023
Ruth B. Heller, wife of the late Alfred E. Heller, mother, grandmother, and life-long volunteer, passed away on February 28. She was 94.
Throughout her life, Ruth was dedicated to helping others and to the well-being of animals. An unassuming force for good, Ruth gave her time and energy to causes she cared about, including UNICEF, Harmony Fund, and Ritter Center in San Rafael, where she spent 16 years as a volunteer helping homeless residents of Marin.
Ruth was born on December 18, 1928, in Plandome, New York and raised in Beverly Hills, where she attended the Westlake School for Girls. Her father produced movies for Paramount Studios. In 1945, at age 16, Ruth went off to Stanford University where she majored in English.
Upon graduating from Stanford, Ruth worked as an assistant to her Stanford English professor, Wallace Stegner. Inspired by Ruth's special love for animals – she went to great lengths to rescue spiders and ants from her home – Stegner crafted a main character in his classic novel, "All the Little Live Things," in the likeness of the young Ruth Botsford.
At a clothing drive in Palo Alto, a mutual friend introduced her to Alfred E. Heller, a Stanford graduate and writer. They married in 1955. The Hellers had four daughters and raised them initially in Grass Valley, a small town in the Sierra foothills. There, Ruth helped start Tall Pines, a cooperative nursery school. Her daughters recall her practice of giving things away to people who needed them. She would send toys, clothes, magazines, and money to developing countries, to Quaker communities, and to the Mississippi Box Project.
Ruth also wrote many pithy letters to the editor, often typing them out from the back seat of her station wagon where no one could interrupt her. She was concerned about the Cold War and opposed the proliferation of nuclear weapons. She was most proud of one published in the San Francisco Chronicle in which she responded both to a study suggesting that older people be the ones to venture outside after a nuclear war and to a defense department official's advice to dig a bomb shelter and cover it with three feet of dirt. She wrote, "So now we can turn to our senior citizens to help before a nuclear war too, by staying outside the hole to shovel dirt on the rest of us. Survive nuclear war? Sure! All you need is a shovel, a door and a Grandma."
In 1966, the family moved to Kentfield, in Marin County. Continuing her volunteer work and activism, Ruth worked for George McGovern's campaign for president in 1972 and was proud to be placed on Richard Nixon's Enemies List the following year. She was a founding member of the Ploughshares Fund, an organization committed to the elimination of nuclear weapons. Ruth took her daughters to a demonstration at San Francisco's Steinhardt Aquarium to protest the harpooning of whales. She was the "UNICEF Lady," distributing and collecting from children hundreds of orange trick-or-treat boxes each Halloween. When the children at the Canal Child Care Center in San Rafael needed a play structure, she donated one. When Koko, the gorilla, needed a new enclosure, she donated that, too. Ruth also served for many years as a trustee of the Clarence E. Heller Charitable Foundation.
In 2005, the Hellers moved to Smith Ranch, the San Rafael retirement community, where they made new friends and enjoyed attending the Marin Symphony and opera performances. Until her last days, Ruth had a deep and abiding love of opera. She was an avid reader and collector of books, especially illustrated children's books. She shared her love of Harry Potter and The Wizard of Oz books with her children and grandchildren. Ruth was known for her kindness, her wit and for her love of her family.
Ruth is survived by her four daughters, Miranda Heller (Mark Salkind), Katherine Heller (Rolf Lygren), Anne Heller Anderson (Lee Anderson), and Janet Heller Harckham, eight grandchildren, Haley Tone (Riley Maddox), Nathan Tone (Alyssa Bernstein), Emilie Lygren, Erika Lygren, Kendall Anderson, Brooke Anderson, Emma Harckham (Mike Dixon), and Kate Harckham, and four great grandchildren. Her husband, Alf, and her brothers, Gardner and Stephen Botsford, predeceased her. Donations may be made to UNICEF.