Ruth Mosher Brown, 99, died on Wednesday, April 10, 2014, in the Northcrest Retirement Community Health Care Center in Ames. Ruth was born in Agatha Hospital in Clinton, Iowa, on January 7, 1915, to Elva Catherine Forman Mosher and Martin Luther Mosher. Ruth spent her early childhood in Eureka, Illinois. The family moved to Urbana, Illinois, when she was fourteen.

Ruth began cello lessons in eighth grade and delighted in playing in high school and university orchestras. She played in small groups in concert and for school plays. One summer she performed in a sextet for a University of Illinois Art Extension tour on a Mississippi river boat, a weeks-long adventure she would treasure for the rest of her life. In the 1960s she sold her cello and bought a piano, which she played for her own pleasure well into old age.

In 1936, Ruth earned a B.S. in Child Development, with high honors, from the University of Illinois in Urbana after spending a semester of her junior year at the Merrill Palmer School of Child Development and Family Studies in Detroit, Michigan. For a year she worked in the southern suburbs of Chicago, going door-to-door as a Home Lighting Advisor for the Public Service Company of Northern Illinois. Then, after a year in graduate school at The Ohio State University, she decided to move to Ames to attend Iowa State College because both of her parents had earned degrees at Iowa State. She completed work for a Masters in Child Development in June of 1940. A month later, on July 7, she and Farwell Brown were married in Champaign, Illinois. They lived all seventy years of their marriage in Ames.

Ruth and Farwell had five children. After Cathy, the youngest, was in school, Ruth taught child development for two years at Iowa State and then realized that her dream was to teach young children. For seventeen years she taught kindergarten and first grade at Meeker Elementary School in Ames, a job that she loved.

Soon after her retirement in 1976, Ruth and Farwell moved into Northcrest, and they began doing a lot of travelling across the United States. When at home, Ruth enjoyed sewing, knitting, quilting, and reading. She especially enjoyed poetry and kept a notebook full of poems she loved. She was active in the Congregational church, San Souci (a retired teacher's group), and the HO chapter of PEO, as long as she was able.

Proceeding Ruth in death were her brothers Arthur, Luther, and Robert Mosher, and her sister Vora Mosher Straw; her husband Farwell, who died in 2010; her first child Elva Louise Brown, who died in 1943 of complications of Downs Syndrome; and her son Roger Mosher Brown, who died in 2010. Ruth is survived by two daughters and a son and their spouses: Mary Howard and husband Bob Bataille of Ames; Kendrick Brown and wife Bernie of Raleigh, North Carolina; and Catherine Tkacz and husband Michael of Spokane, Washington. Her grandchildren are David (and Linda) Howard, of Lawrence, Kansas; Paul (and Tiffani) Howard, of Portland, Oregon; Zach Brown, of Raleigh, North Carolina; and Jessie (and Daniel) Sellner, of Charlotte, North Carolina. Her great-grandchildren are Lindsey, Matthew, Nicholas, Emma, Charlie, and Jack Howard, and Helen Sellner. Ruth will also remembered by Brent, Erik, Brielle and Ben Bataille.

Ruth's family wishes to express appreciation for all the years of true friendships and loving care Ruth enjoyed at Northcrest Retirement Community, where she lived for thirty-eight years.

The memorial service will be held on Saturday, April 19, 2014 at 10:30 a.m. in the Green Room at Northcrest Community, 1801 20th Street, in Ames. There will be an opportunity to visit with the family at a reception in the social room following the service. Interment of Ruth and Farwell's ashes will be held in the Ames Municipal Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to the United Church of Christ, in Ames, or the Northcrest Foundation. Online condolences may be directed to www.grandonfuneralandcremationcare.com.