Birthday gal turns 100

Published 10:08 pm Thursday, June 5, 2008

By Staff
NILES – Niles native, Ruth June (Walker) Greene is celebrating her 100th birthday today. And it would seem that her life so far is filled with as much warmth and energy as her smile – which still catches the eye.
Ruth currently resides at Vineyard's Adult Foster Care in Galien. She still enjoys getting out and takes great pleasure in visiting with friends and her extensive extended family which includes her two children, five grandchildren, nine great-grandchildren, six nieces and nephews, and numerous grand and great-grand nieces and nephews.
The eldest child of William H. and Julia A. (White) Walker; Greene, with her brother and three sisters grew up on their family farm just five miles north of Niles, which has now been in the same family for more than 100 years.
The family attended church at Morris Chapel, a short distance from their home on Pucker Street and the first eight years of Ruth's education took place in the one-room Pucker Street School. She graduated from Niles High School in 1927.
Her dream of becoming a nurse came before the days of financial aid so, to earn tuition, she worked in an office in Chicago for a short time before returning to Florida – a place she'd fallen in love with on a visit as a child.
In late fall of 1925, her parents hired a family to care for their farm over the winter, William modified a Model-T into a traveling home and the Walkers packed up their five children and made the big trip to Florida. The trip took more than three weeks. They slept in their car-house on the side of the road. Julia prepared all their meals on a portable cook-stove they took with them. The trip was stalled in Tennessee when the crank on the Model-T recoiled, breaking William's hand.
In Florida, they wintered in Orlando in the Lorna Dune Camp, one of several such sites erected by Florida cities in the 1920s, specifically for these snow birds from the North. In the same camp were an aunt and uncle with their children, wintering in the south from Iowa and another aunt and uncle lived in Orlando. So the winter was quite an extensive family occasion.
She stayed in Florida for two years and with her money saved, she was able to attend St. Joseph Nursing School in South Bend, Ind., graduated in 1932.
In 1931, Ruth married Ray von Steinen and they had two children, Raymond Earle, now of South Lyon and Ina Sue Nairn, now of Hamtramck.
She worked in Berrien County as a special duty nurse.
After her husband died in 1951, she returned to her nursing career, eventually with Michigan Blue Cross/Blue Shield.
Retirement in 1973 allowed Ruth to return to Florida. She moved there and shortly thereafter, married M. B. Greene.
In 1997, at age 89, she returned to Michigan to be closer to family. Though Ruth had an apartment in nearby Buchanan, she resided primarily with her sister, Maxine, in the home in which they grew up on Pucker Street. Ruth's centennial celebration will be followed in 2010 with the centennial celebration of her closest sister, Edna Vite, of Niles.