Ruta Ilze Jurisons

Ruta Ilze Jurisons was born on October 13, 1938 to Karlis and Otilija Trapans in Riga, Latvia. She lived in a log cabin outside of Lielvarde for the first years of her life. She recalls her father making her a playhouse in the yard out of peas and sitting inside with him having a snack. She also remembers having a large cat that helped her gather the eggs every day.

WWII called her father into military service and she and her mother were forced to leave on foot with just a suitcase and her teddy bear, which she still has. She and her mother boarded a ship in Riga and departed for Germany. They found their way to Singen, a DP camp in southern Germany. Ruta attended school and lived with her mother in a single room of a hotel. While in Germany, Ruta recalled sleeping on the porch of the sanitarium in the winter when she was ill with Rheumatic Fever. While in Germany, she was notified that her father had died in Latvia, defending their beloved homeland. On her birthday in 1949, she and her mother boarded the General McRae transport ship in Bremerhaven and arrived in New York on October 24.

They then boarded a train for Oregon, where their sponsor lived. She recalls having $3 for food and her mother stating that if Oregon was flat like the prairie states, they would not stay. They arrived in Oregon to great relief to find green hills and trees, much like the home they left years before.

Their sponsors, the Newlands, lived in Laurel, Oregon. They were of Latvian decent, having arrived in the states in the early 1900’s. Ruta went to school in Laurel’s one room school house and had to learn English. She was, however, very good in geography and was asked to lead the class in in the subject. Her mother worked her required service year and moved to the city to find work and a place to stay. Ruta spent the next several years with her uncle, aunt and two cousins on a farm in Tualatin. She remembers going to school in what is now the administration building for the West Linn – Wilsonville school district on Stafford Road. By 1951, her mother had secured a studio apartment and a job at St. Vincent’s Hospital in NW Portland, and Ruta finished her elementary education at Chapman Middle School. She and her mother also joined the Oregon Latvian Ev. Lutheran Church in October of 1952. Ruta spent her next four years at Lincoln High School and worked part time at Olds & King department store, now the Galleria. During her high school years, she was active with the Oregon Latvian Church, the Oregon Latvian Society, as well as the American Latvian Youth Association. She and her Latvian friends spent many hours organizing various events, including trips to the beach and to conferences in Seattle and San Francisco. Ruta graduated from Lincoln High School in June of 1956.

After graduation, Ruta received scholarships from the Art Institute as well as the University of Portland. She was encouraged by her mother to attend UP to study nursing, which she did. In January of 1959, Ruta pledged and was accepted in the Latvian Sorority Imerija. She graduated from UP with a Bachelor’s in nursing in May of 1960, one month after marrying her latvian sweetheart and companion, Juris, also a Latvian refugee, in April.

Their first home was a one bedroom house in SE Portland. They welcomed their first son, Karl, there in February of 1961. After Karl was born, Ruta was naturalized in August and was hired by Kaiser Permanente as a pediatric RN, working with, or rather training, as she put it, a new doctor by the name of Dr. Morton Eleff. They worked together for many years. Ruta and her family then moved to Cedar Mill area and welcomed their second son, Viktor, in November of 1963. With two growing boys and Juris volunteering to go to Vietnam as a civilian with the US Army Corps of Engineers, they bought their first and only house in West Linn, in June of 1965. A year later, they welcomed their daughter, Mara.

Ruta and Juris hosted many Latvian gatherings at their home as they were active with the choir, church and the Latvian society. They raised their children in the Latvian culture, sending them to Latvian school in Portland in addition to the public schools in West Linn. They also sent their children to the Latvian summer camp and summer high school, both of which were in Washington. All three children were active in folk dancing and choir, and both parents were quite proud to have raised them in the Latvian way.

Ruta and her mother were both avid knitters and needle pointers, using Latvian symbols and colors. Ruta recalled her grandfather in Latvia being the owner of a woolen mill and being able to tell the species and sex of the sheep just by feeling their fleece. She felt this was why she was so interested in making her own yarn, spinning and dying them all with natural ingredients. She learned to weave, as well as the Ukrainian method of egg dying with wax, but using Latvian designs and symbols. She was also an avid mushroom hunter, teaching her children and grandchildren what types to look for in the woods of Mount Hood and how to prepare them for a grand feast. Ruta was well known in the Latvian community for her artistic talents, her sourdough rye bread, and her family will continue the traditional Christmas cookies, following her recipes.

Ruta continued working as an RN, even after Juris retired. After the fall of the Berlin wall, Juris read that volunteers were needed to assist the renewed Latvia to grow with the expertise from Latvians from around the world. Being bored sitting alone at home and watching the grass grow, he left for Latvia in 1993 to lend his hand in this grand new adventure. Ruta visited him several times in the next three years and retired soon after he returned home, as he had been diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma and died in November of 2001 of an Aortic Aneurism. His death left Ruta broken hearted, and her health deteriorated with back issues, CHF, and renal failure. Over the last two years, dialysis ate away at her fragile vertebrae, causing her great pain in the back. Being of the generation she was, she always had a smile on her face and tried her best to show that she was alright.

Ruta will be remembered as a simple and elegant lover of animals and nature by all she has touched over the years, and luckily for us who survive, that is a lot of people. She deeply loved her family and friends, her pets, her garden of many plants and vegetables, and has instilled her love of nature and reading in everyone she met.

Ruta died peacefully in the early morning hours of December 30, 2013, in her own home while her family slept. She was not one to be fussed over and wanted to exit on her own terms, in her own time. She is survived by her family: Karl and Mary, Viktor, Mara and Peter, as well as her grandchildren, Sarah, Paul, Klara, Dominique, and Jacob, as well as Tigger, her purrsonal cat scanner. She is also survived by many other friends and family members in the US and Latvia.

A memorial service will be on Saturday January 18th at 2pm at 1st Immanuel Lutheran Church, 1816 NW Irving in Portland, Oregon. A celebratory gathering will follow at the Oregon Latvian Center, 5500 SW Dosch Road, Portland. In lieu of flowers, donations may be sent to The Oregon Latvian Church, c/o J. Zommers, 32089 Buena Vista Dr, Arch Cape OR 97102.