Ruth Ann (Richmond) Gardner, age 92, left the world a little lonelier place on October 19, 2022. She was born in Seward, Nebraska, to Russell and Alta Carse Richmond. She was a good kid in the neighborhood where the family home still stands, selling eggs for her mother and playing football with the boys who had to include her because it was her football. At Lincoln High, she continued a friendship with several friends that began in junior high and lasted a lifetime. She rode a horse named Lady while other girls took gymnastics. She played flute and piccolo in the band, and ever after marching bands made her tear up.
At the University of Nebraska, she became a Mechanical Engineer. She was a loyal Sigma Kappa sorority sister to many more lifelong friends and a talented stage designer in the theatre. After graduation, she went out west to become the first female mining engineer at Kennecott Copper Corporation. In 1957 she married Kenneth Nolte, and in 1958 she became a mother.
She was an amazing piano and banjo player, often singing the girls to sleep with “Sentimental Journey” and “She’ll be Coming ‘Round the Mountain.” In 1967, as a widow, she raised two children in various engineering jobs around the west. In 1975, she became a graduate student in Mining Engineering at the University of Nevada Reno. In 1981, she married John Gardner, moving to Salt Lake City for his graduate school, and later to Laramie where John taught at the University of Wyoming. There, she was in charge of the Joshua Hendy Papers as a volunteer at the American Heritage Center. They traveled all over the West discovering its history. With John, she became a stepmother of two, and later a step-grandmother of five and a step-great grandmother to nine.
In 1989, a widow again, she set out to find her new place in the world. She found Meeteetse, Wyoming, a town of 300 that took her in and made her one of their own. She lived in an historic shepherd’s cabin and made many more lifelong friends. She received baskets of goodies for widows, was a Reading Grandmother, enjoyed therapeutic horseback riding and played piccolo in the Meeteetse High Pep Band.
Though she would have stayed forever if she could have, eventually she had to move in with family, and she became a Colorado citizen, but she continued to travel to mining history events all over the world including Australia.
She was a proud member of the Society of Mining, Metallurgical and Petroleum Engineers, the Klepetko Chapter of the Society for Industrial Archaeology, the Mining History Association, the Australian Mining History Association and the Western Museum of Mining and Industry in Colorado Springs.
She is predeceased by her parents, dear sister Lois Richmond Song, step-mother Margaret Richmond, her husbands, an infant son and also many dear pets. She is survived by two daughters: Shannon Nolte of Lincoln and Jean Nolte of Colorado Springs, two step-daughters: Markie Jean Southerland and Catherine Canice Saylors, five step-grandchildren and nine great step-grandchildren. Also Bond, her loyal husky who was by her side when she died.
Celebrations of Ruth’s/Richie’s life will be held at a future date in Meeteetse and Lincoln. Please find Jean or Shannon on Facebook if you are not already in touch and would like to know more. Gifts, in lieu of flowers, may be made in Ruth’s memory to the Meeteetse Senior Center, the Mining History Association or the Western Museum of Mining and Industry.
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