Ruth Lee Obituary

Ruth Hope Rushing Lee left the earth just as she inhabited it, with grace and dignity, on 20 April, 2016. A Valentine's baby, she was born to Ike and Ruby Rushing in Matador, Texas, on 14 February, 1924. The last survivor of nine siblings, she was a west Texas cowgirl with roots in the Old West. Her father had an intimate relationship with Vice President Cactus Jack Garner and a personal relationship with the Comanche Chief Quannah Parker. She had vivid childhood memories of annual autumn visits by his Comanche descendants who camped on their farm outside Matador during their yearly sojourns from their Ft Sill reservation.

In 1943 she married Chant D. Lee and after his ETS from military service in 1944 they lived in Panguitch, Utah, where in her words she "spent the coldest winter of her life during the summer of 1945." They moved to Post, Texas, in 1948, where he took the position of history teacher, school bus driver, women's basketball coach, high school principal, cook and bottle washer, and she took a position as Assistant Deputy Sheriff and secretary-in-general to the County Judge, Mayor and sub-altern elected officials in the Garza County Courthouse. They and their children Dave and Kathie lived in Post until 1963. Considered "a rising star in the Texas Democratic Party," she served multiple terms as Garza County Treasurer and on the County Elections Board. In 1963 they moved to Durango, Colorado, where they ran the Lightner Creek Ranch and later the Lobo Lodge in Chama, New Mexico. In the later 60's they added Jeff and JoMikel to their family, and Chant took an administrative position at Ft Lewis College. He preceeded her in death in 1984.

Ruth lived briefly in Albuquerque and then Moab, Utah, where she was desk manager for the Pack Creek Ranch. In 1994 she moved to St George, Utah to be near Dave and Jan and her grandchildren; in 1996 she married James E. Carr, Sr., and they formed a partnership centered around travel, R.V.ing from Mexico to Alaska, Orlando to La Conner, Washington. A gregarious motorhomer, she made friends all across the North American continent. After Carr died, in 2012 she moved to Canyon Lake, Texas, where she lived with her daughter Kathie. Survived by her four children, eight grandchildren and an indecipherable bevy of great grandchildren, she will be buried by Chant in the overlooking embrace of the San Juan Mountains in Durango, Colorado.