With the sunrise on Sunday 24 June 2018, after a seven year battle with Alzheimer’s, beloved wife and mother Ruby Lois Morris Perkins passed gently into God’s loving embrace where there is no pain and she is her feisty self once again. Born 2 July 1932 in Waynesboro, VA, Mom is survived by her husband of almost 67 years, Hugh Lee Perkins, four children, Ricky (Janet), Gil (Susan), Phil (Dawn), and Mary (Susan), together with eleven grandchildren, ten great grandchildren, numerous nieces, nephews, and cousins, adoptive son Eric, and was adoptive grandmother to two. Always ready with a warm embrace and kiss when Dad came home from work, with our father she taught her children love, integrity, respect, tolerance, excellence, the value of hard work and education, inspiring us to become an architect, author, attorney, incredible salesman, and registered nurse. She taught us to know our past, appreciate where we came from, and to carry our heritage with us into the future.
The daughter of Eleanor Padgett Morris and Harry Austin Morris, and raised by Mary Morris Holtzclaw, Mom is preceded in death by her four sisters, Eloise Chalkley, Joyce DeLeo, Hazel Hicks, Helen Morris, and many close friends, including many from her time at Jackson-Feild Episcopal Home for Girls. A 1950 graduate of Greensville County High School, Ruby was a telephone operator, skilled seamstress, industrial worker, school bus driver, and hospital volunteer for almost twenty years at John Randolph Medical Center, Hopewell. Mom celebrated Christmas with undeniable joy and enthusiasm, building up each year’s season months in advance; for many years she planned and directed the annual Grace Church Christmas pageant. She loved a good game of Scrabble or Rook, as well as creative cooking, decorating, renovating, and loved traveling, the mountains, birds, her cats, and her dog Schnipples.
The family will receive family and friends at a memorial service celebrating her life to be held at Grace Church Purdy, 9986 Purdy Rd, Jarratt, Va., on Saturday 30 June, 11:00 a.m. In lieu of flowers the family asks your consideration of donations to the Alzheimer’s Association (alz.org), Animal Care Sanctuary (animalcaresanctuary.org), or Colonial Heights Fire & EMS.
