Nora Ruth Joiner Harvey

July 26, 1926 - Nov. 6, 2008

Nora Ruth Joiner Harvey, 82, passed away Thursday, November 6, 2008. Services are set for 9:30 a.m. Monday, November 10, at Memorial Funeral Chapel in Bryan, with interment to follow at Reliance Baptist Cemetery. Visitation will be 2 to 5 p.m. Sunday, November 9, at the funeral chapel.

Ruth was born July 26, 1926, in Mumford, Texas, to William Henry and Gussie Emma Wallace Joiner. She married H.H. Harvey in 1946, and they moved to the coast where we worked in heavy construction during the war building bridges as well as the causeway in Corpus Christi. They then moved to South Texas, where H.H. worked in law enforcement and Ruth raised their five children.

After the children grew up, Ruth fulfilled a lifelong dream by attending and completing nursing school. She was employed as an LVN at Mineola General Hospital for 12 years.

Ruth finally pulled up stakes and moved back to the Brazos valley in 1988, working as a home health and special duty nurse. She also helped take care of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She was an accomplished seamstress, an avid quilter, an award-winning food preserver, and a virtuoso piano player. She played on a cruise ship as well as the stage of the Grand Ole Opry at Ryman Auditorium in Nashville.

She loved to go back to the old neighborhoods and entertain her children and grandchildren with stories of the depression and the war. She spoke of how her mother often fed hobos during the depression and how soldiers coming home from World War II would hand letters to parade spectators to be mailed to loved ones. She was moved to tears by the parades of soldiers returning from Afghanistan and other wars. She was a wonderful woman and was dearly loved by all who knew her.

Survivors include brother, W.H. Joiner of Gilbert, Ariz.; daughters, Elizabeth Montalbano of Bryan, Pamela Barvosa and husband, Eddie, of Lebanon, Ore., and Mary Ringo and husband, Bobby, of College Station; sons, Henry T. Harvey of Boerne, Texas, and Bob Harvey and wife, Tina, of Bryan; six grandchildren, Edwina Barvosa of Santa Barbara, Calif., Edward Barvosa of Modesto, Calif., Laura Blackburn of Bryan, Lynette Montalbano of Mansfield, Texas, Kevin Ringo of College Station and Keenin Ringo of Bryan; eight great-grandchildren and a host of relatives and friends.

The family requests that memorials be made to Brazos Valley Hospice.