Ruth S. Ruedebusch
November 10th, 1922 – August 7th, 2016

Ruth Smith Ruedebusch, 93, passed away peacefully on Sunday, August 7, 2016, in Ruskin, Florida. She was born on November 10, 1922, to Walter and Jennie Smith in Dadeville, Alabama.

She was the youngest of four siblings and was predeceased by her brothers Walter Douglas Smith, Jr. (“Cotton”), and Max Fowler Smith, and sister Virginia Smith Reddick.

Mrs. Ruedebusch moved to Lakeland as a young child and graduated from Lakeland High School and Lakeland Business College. She then worked for the Veterans Administration in Miami and in Washington, DC.

In 1947, she married Donald E. Williams, and they moved to southern California where they built their own home, and she learned to fly airplanes.

The marriage ended in divorce in 1968, and Mrs. Ruedebusch and her two daughters returned to Lakeland. In 1971, she married John W. Ruedebusch. They relocated to Winter Garden, Florida, where she worked as the church secretary for the First United Methodist Church for 12 years.

In 1983, Ruth and John Ruedebusch returned to Lakeland, where she worked for the Bishop’s Office of the United Methodist Church. After Mr. Ruedebusch passed away in 1987, Mrs. Ruedebusch divided her time between Lakeland and the Washington, DC, area, near her daughters and grandsons.

She was a lifelong member of the United Methodist Church and a member of the Blue Danube Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, which she joined in 2010 when briefly living in Vienna, Austria, with her daughter, Donna, and son-in-law, William C. Eacho, then the US Ambassador to Austria.

Mrs. Ruedebusch is survived by her daughters: Donna Williams Eacho of Chevy Chase, Maryland, and Ann Brantley Williams, of Tampa, Florida; and by three grandsons, Douglas Carlton Eacho, Gregory William Eacho and David Walker Eacho

Visitation

August 14th, 2016 at 5:00 pm – 6:30 pm
Heath Funeral Chapel
328 S. Ingraham Ave Lakeland, FL 33801

Service

August 15th, 2016 at 10:00 am
First United Methodist Church
72 Lake Morton Dr, Lakeland, FL 33801