Ruth Doris Ward

Funeral service will be held at 3:30 p.m. Sunday, November 22, 2015, at Cason Monk-Metcalf’s Sunset Chapel with Alvin Stanaland officiating. Visitation will be held from 2:00 p.m. until service time. Burial will be held Monday, November 23, 2015, at Forest Park Lawndale Cemetery in Houston, Texas, with a 1:00 p.m. graveside service.

Ruth was born December 10, 1915, in Houston, Texas, to William Elijah and Polly Ann Walker Hawkins. She grew up in Houston and was graduated from Sam Houston High School, where she was salutatorian. Due to the untimely death of her father, she gave up her scholarship to Rice University and went to work to help support the family. She and her mother turned their Victorian home into a boarding house to be able to survive the Depression. The majority of her life she was an executive legal secretary and office manager for the Chris Dixie Law Firm.

She married James Edward Ward on Thanksgiving Day 1935.

She is survived by her sons, James Edward Ward, Jr. (Jim) and wife Kathy and Michael Wayne Ward (Mike) and wife Mary Jane, all of Nacogdoches. She is also survived by grandchildren, Angie Jacobs (Lance), Alisa Ward (LeeAnne), Michael Ward, Mary Hockenberry (James), Stephanie Bobbitt (Joe Don); and great-grandchildren, Madison, Ethan, and Caleb Jacobs, Jackson Ward, Georgia Ward and her mother Angie Cain, and Haley and Grant Hockenberry.

She was preceded in death by her parents; husband; daughter, Roxie Rae; and granddaughter, Laura Lyn.

At the age of 85, she began quilting with the Piecemakers at Nacogdoches Treatment Center and with the Thimblebees. She was a world traveler, an avid reader, loved music, but her greatest love was her family and friends. She was an extraordinary woman and our lives are richer from having loved her.

Online memories and condolences may be offered at www.CasonMonk-Metcalf.com.

Arrangements are under the direction of Cason Monk-Metcalf Funeral Directors, located at 5400 North Street in Nacogdoches, Texas.