This is a printer-friendly version of an article from Zip06.com.
09/21/2016 08:30 AMRuth Schumacher has a prediction: 100 years from now, handwritten notes will exist only as museum exhibits. But Ruth is certainly doing her part to keep them alive. Every morning she writes four or five notes, not a simple hello or thank you, but cheerful missives that try to bring good news and a bit of inspiration to the recipient.
“I want to make somebody’s day happy,” she explains. “So many times I see people on the street and they say they were feeling bad and then they got a letter from me and they felt better.
She’s been writing the notes for some five years now.
“At first it was more challenging, but now it’s easier and always rewarding,” she adds.
And to whom does she send a Ruth-o-gram?
“To whoever comes into my head,” she says—she has no hard and fast rule. “Things just hit me and then I have to write a letter.”
Sometimes she uses the directory for St. John’s Church in Essex, where she worships. Sometimes she congratulates people for an event like a confirmation; sometimes she simply tells people she is glad they are part of the parish family.
“Friends need to know how much they are loved. People need that,” she says.
Sometimes the recipient is a person whom she has seen at the store or on the street.
“I tell people I am glad they are passing through my life,” she says.
Every note, no matter to whom it is addressed, has a small heart somewhere on the envelope or in the letter. For people Ruth knows, she sometimes signs with a heart.
Ruth buys cards at a local bargain store and doesn’t worry about the price of stamps, even when it goes up.
“How much stamps cost is not a consideration. I’d do it anyway,” she says.
Some people get more than a note from Ruth. She also gives people small presents. On a recent visit, four were wrapped by her door waiting to be delivered. She knows what her friends like and she makes the rounds of thrift shops and bargain outlets looking for appropriate gifts.
“I can live at that Goodwill shop in Westbrook,” she says. “I love buying gifts. If I know someone has a grandchild who likes horses, I will buy a horse; if they like cows, I’ll buy a cow. There are collections of my presents all over town.
She brings Teddy bears as gifts to very ill patients at Middlesex Hospital where she volunteers. She admits that this kind gesture has a flip side.
“If somebody gets a bear, I’m afraid they’re going to think it’s all over,” she says.
She reports that someone else at the hospital advised: “If Ruth comes to see you, don’t look up.”
Still, don’t get the idea that Ruth is a bundle of saccharin sweetness. She can be biting when the situation demands, as she recently demonstrated in a letter she wrote but did not send to a clinician who administered a cognitive impairment test, which Ruth referred to a mental wellness test, now a part of Medicare physicals. Ruth was not amused by the experience. Among the exercises that examiner read her was a story about Jack and Jill and their family.
“I don’t give a darn about how many kids Jack and Jill have,” Ruth wrote. “I have a very large circle of loved ones and Jack and Jill aren’t on it so you can understand why my mind wanders while you are telling me about them.”
But Ruth was clear about what she did want to remember.
“Do I need to remember to make and keep appointments for my 91-year-old husband, and be there on time with proper cards and co-pay check? Yes! Do I need to remember to put the trash cans out on Tuesday night, make sure I have my husband’s favorite cereal…have [his] proper meds and times ready to consume, Yes!...I remember what really matters to me and that’s all I have need for,” she wrote.
Though Ruth did not send the letter to the doctor, she made copies and many of her friends have asked to have one.
“My friends have had that wellness test and everybody loves it,” she says.
Ruth’s husband John Schumacher retired as an Essex Town Hall employee. The two were both divorced and met at Parents Without Partners.
Ruth, born in Niantic, has lived in her house for some 50 years and has taken an active part in community affairs. She has served on the town’s Park & Recreation Commission, the Essex Board of Education, and on the Housing Authority and was deputy Democratic Registrar of Voters. Now she works as a ballot clerk passing out ballots. She is also proud that her three sons and now two grandsons have served in the Essex Fire Department.
She is an active member of St. John’s Church and in the 1970s, she was the first woman to serve at the altar as a liturgical assistant.
“Oh my gosh, it was a big day,” she recalls.
She stopped serving after she caught her foot and fell at the altar. She loved serving, but was comfortable giving it up.
“It was time for a younger generation,” she says.
Though four or five people get notes every day that mail is delivered, there is one way nobody will get a message from Ruth: by email. She doesn’t have a computer, and says she is regularly teased about not using one. She has cell phone, but uses it sparingly, and never to text.
“I like to talk but now I never see people talking. They are all sitting there using their thumbs. Family time goes by so quickly. If you don’t talk, it will all be gone,” she says.
Recently she went for some blood work and noticed everybody in the waiting room was texting messages on their cell. Ruth knew what to do. She said to the person sitting next to her,
“Put that away. Let’s talk,” and that is just what happened. “It was really nice. All you have to do is ask,” she says.