Ruth Etherington Archives - Thomas C Sanger

Ruth Etherington returned with her husband, Harold, and their ten-year-old son, Geoff, to their home in Milwaukee following their rescue from the torpedoed Athenia. Ruth would never again experience the intensity of the emotions she felt saving her son’s life (see Ruth Etherington, An Unlikely Hero, Jan. 2, 2015). But in the years that followed, she would support and encourage the remarkable achievements of the two men in her life.

When the United States entered World War 2 in 1941, Ruth used her university studies in mathematics and chemistry to take a job as a hydraulic engineer for the Allis-Chalmers Co. On the day Japan surrendered to end the war she resigned her position and returned to the varied hobbies and interest she loved. An avid photographer and artist, she also supported many civic causes in the communities where the Etheringtons lived. Read More

Ruth Etherington and her family checked into their Liverpool hotel the evening of Sept. 1, 1939, concluding a five-week holiday with relatives in Great Britain and preparing to depart the next day for Canada aboard Athenia. Germany’s invasion of Poland that same morning brought a sense of urgency to their voyage home as war between the British and Germans now seemed imminent. Ruth had no way of knowing she was about to become one of the first targets of that war and one of its first heroes (as featured in my forthcoming historical novel, Without Warning).

Born 35 years earlier to a Scottish mother and Welsh father, Elesa Ruth Ashton grew up in England’s West Midlands. At the University of Wales, she studied mathematics, chemistry, and botany on the way to earning a degree in education. A petite and energetic beauty, Ruth also enjoyed playing romantic and comedy roles in student theater productions. She graduated “magna cum laude” in 1925 and took a teaching job in northern Wales before meeting Harold Etherington, a brilliant mechanical engineer who was nearly four years her senior. They married in early 1928 and their son, Geoffrey, was born that December. Read More

Ruth Etherington

Meet the Character: Ruth Etherington, An Unlikely Hero, Part 2

Meet the Character: Ruth Etherington, An Unlikely Hero