Remembering Aunt Ruth

Love at first sight for both of us
Middlesboro, Kentucky, 1961

When I was a little girl, some of the neighborhood kids had come over to play.  While swinging in the backyard, one little girl began to make fun of me because I didn't have any grandparents.  Unlike most of the other kids, all my grandparents had passed away, you see.  I was hurt, but I said nothing.  However, my friend, Susan, who became a hero to me that day, immediately piped up and said:  "Well, she may not have any grandparents, but she has an Aunt Ruth!"  Yes, I had an Aunt Ruth, and she was a treasure.

Myrtle Ruth Lane was her full given name, though I didn't know that until I was a teenager.  (Aunt Ruth hated the name "Myrtle," and she never wanted my mom to tell me that was her name.)  Ruth Lane was the seventh of  William and Martha Lane's children, and was nine years older than my mom, Betty.  Ruth was born on January 25, 1917, in Eagan, Tennessee, another small coal mining community close to the Tennessee-Kentucky border.

M.yrtle Ruth Williamson

After graduating from Lafollette (TN) High School,  Aunt Ruth attended Lincoln Memorial University in Harrogate, Tennessee, for a couple of years.  She played basketball while at LMU and this was when women were only allowed to play half-court.  They played only offense or defense and only on one end of the court.  At the time, full court play was considered too taxing for women.

In 1940, according to the U. S. Federal Census, Ruth, then age 24, was living at her parents' home in Middlesboro, Kentucky, and working as an assistant photographer.

Joe and Ruth Lane Williamson
c. 1940

Aunt Ruth married Joe Williamson and they settled down in a log house on Pinnacle Road just outside of Middlesboro, Kentucky.  Their first child, Betty Jo, was born in 1942.  Joe enlisted in the U. S. Army in 1943 and fought in World War II, while Aunt Ruth continued to work and raise her daughter.  In 1949, a second daughter, Cynthia Ann, was stillborn.  Joe and Aunt Ruth divorced soon after.

Ruth Lane Williamson and
Betty Jo Williamson
c. 1947

Aunt Ruth and Betty Jo moved into Middlesboro, and this is where Aunt Ruth would live for most of the rest of her life.  She worked for many years as a social worker for the Department of Human Resources in Pineville, Kentucky, which is a short distance from Middlesboro.  After leaving this job, she became the first Director of the newly formed Cooperative Christian Ministries (CCM) in Middlesboro.  CCM was a combined effort of several area churches to aid disadvantaged people in the community.  Persistent health problems, however, forced Aunt Ruth to soon retire.

Me and my Aunt Ruth
Christmas Morning, c. 1978

Aunt Ruth's daughter, Betty Jo, and her children, Joy and Joe Goins, lived in Middlesboro for many years, as well, and were a huge part of Ruth's life.  Her grandchildren were her treasures.  Somehow she also found time for me.  My parents, Betty Lane and Frank W. Lee, and I lived in Middlesboro, too, and Aunt Ruth was a frequent and favorite visitor to our house.  She often took me for drives, and we would sing whatever songs we knew while cruising around town.  Throughout the year, she and I would regularly crouch down in front of our fireplace, look up the chimney, and yell for Santa Claus--just in case he might have stopped by for a surprise visit.  She was always at our house early on Christmas morning to watch me open presents and to see what Santa had delivered.  She was there, too, for every birthday, Easter, and other special day for me, and I loved her more than I can say.

Ruth Lane Williamson

Although I've always missed having my grandparents around, my friend, Susan, was right.  I had an Aunt Ruth--and she was enough.  

Betty Jewel Lane (1926-1992)

Red hair, blue eyes, an easy laugh, and sometimes a fiery temper, Betty Jewel Lane was the youngest of William Bowman Lane and Martha Pierce Lane's eight children.  My mom was born in Pruden, Tennessee, where her daddy worked as a coal miner and where the family lived in a company-owned house beside the railroad tracks.

Betty Jewel Lane (r) and her nephew Billy Schooler
Pruden, Tennessee, c. 1932

Her siblings were Gladys, Leland, Edith, Jessie, Nolan, Roy, and Ruth.  Mom always said that even though they were a poor family, they were happy.  Mom adored her parents and her brothers and sisters, and she was especially close to Gladys, who helped raise her, and to Nolan and Ruth.  With her family, she later moved to Lafollette, Tennessee, where she graduated from high school, and then to Middlesboro, Kentucky.

Betty Jewel Lane, c. 1945
Lafollette (TN) High School

In Middlesboro, Mom worked as a clerk in Lee's Drug Store where she met my dad, Frank Welch Lee.  They married in 1959, and I came along in 1961.  They also had another child, my little brother, Frank Lewis Lee II, who was born in 1962.  It was a difficult birth and my brother died when he was only two days old.  I don't think Mom ever really got over the loss of my brother, but I do think she loved being my mom.





1959 Marriage Announcement of
Betty Jewel Lane and Frank Welch Lee



Just Married, August 5, 1959
Betty Jewel Lane and Frank Welch Lee
Rose Hill, Virginia

When I started first grade, Mom, at the age of 40, started college.  Four years later, she graduated magna cum laude from Lincoln Memorial University with a major in sociology.  She worked for a number of years as a social worker in Bell County, Kentucky.  Mom passed away much too soon in 1992 from acute plasma cell leukemia.

Betty Lane Lee, 1971
Graduation from Lincoln Memorial University
Harrogate, Tennessee

Mom was a voracious reader, she loved to play golf, and she was an avid Tennessee Vols fan.  She liked to talk, she laughed until she cried when watching Steve Martin's movie The Jerk, and she hated people who acted as if they were better than others. What I remember most about Mom, however, is how much she genuinely liked people.  She especially loved being around young people, always welcoming my friends and our neighbors into our home.  She was fiercely loyal to her family and her friends, and she was so proud of her heritage.  So I dedicate this blog to my beautiful mother, and I look forward finding out about my Lane family roots.  I also look forward to hearing from anyone who wants to connect and share information about our family.

Betty Jewell Lane, c. 1945