Ruth Main Abbott

Ruth Main Abbott

10/16/2015

Ruth Main Abbott went to be with the angels on Friday night, Oct. 16, 2015 in DeLand. She was 98.

Born May 22, 1917, Ruth was raised on the family’s farm in rural Union Bridge, Md., where she attended classes in a one-room schoolhouse and did chores with her younger brother, Bill, and older sisters, Helen and Olive.

After high school and a stint at Bridgewater College, she met and fell in love with Carl Campbell Abbott, a mechanic, entrepreneur and musician from Philadelphia who spent summers with his grandfather in Union Bridge. Carl and Ruth married on July 7, 1937. A year later, they welcomed a daughter, Jeanne.

In 1947, Carl and Ruth moved to Miami, partly to offer Ruth an escape from the cold winters that had started to aggravate her asthma condition. There, Carl found a job with Eastern Airlines, after impressing the hiring manager with his passion as much as his wartime aviation maintenance experience, at the Glenn L. Martin Company in Baltimore. “You don’t really have the qualifications we want,” the manager told my dad, “but I’m going to make sure you get a chance.”

It launched Carl’s 31-year career with Eastern, in which he received commendations from both Eddie Rickenbacker and Frank Borman. Carl and Ruth moved from a bungalow in Allapattah to a new home in Miami Springs, a tree-lined suburb only 10 minutes from Miami International Airport.

In Miami Springs, Carl and Ruth would welcome a son, Jim, as well as five grandchildren – Michael Goff, David Goff, Tom Goff, Joseph Goff and Debbie Goff. At Christmas holidays, all the kids would bunk barracks-style at the homestead on Falcon Avenue. On at least one holiday, a vacationing neighbor opened his home for extra space.

Ruth lived to love her husband and her family. She also was a devoted member of various churches including Poinciana United Methodist Church in Miami Springs and the First Presbyterian Church of DeBary.

To her family, Ruth was the ultimate support system, whether it was mending clothes, providing taxi service or gentle advice. She also was adventurous enough to embrace the unconventional fun of the feathered and sequined Merry Mummers Marching String Band as a member of that quirky ensemble’s Ladies Auxiliary.

When her son wanted a signature from future baseball Hall-of-Famer Ernie Banks, she waited by the team bus after a game to pass an autograph book through an open window.

By the 1990s, Ruth was helping to care for two more grandchildren, Kennedy and Taylor Abbott, often taking them to Little League games in her Dodge Neon, distinctive for its bright purple paint-job and silver racing stripes. Her love eventually extended to five great-grandchildren: Chelsea and Noah Goff; Joseph Goff Jr. and Sam Goff; and Wyatt Abbott.

In addition to her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, Ruth is survived by her sister Olive Roop, age 102; and brother, Bill Main, 90.

Ruth’s ashes will be interred at Pipe Creek Cemetery in Union Bridge, Md., with Carl, who died in 2001.