Ruby Rice Little

By John Rice Irwin Special to the Oak Ridger Posted Feb 06, 2009 @ 09:00 AM
NORRIS, Tenn. —
Ruby Rice Little, one of the oldest alumni of the University of Tennessee, passed away at her home in Eugene, Ore., just a few months before her 102nd birthday.

She was born July 23, 1907, in the home of her parents on Bull Run Creek in north Knox County. She was the daughter of Marcellus Moss Rice and Ibbie Weaver Rice, both of early Union County pioneer families. She attended a one-room school, and, since there was no high school in Union County in her day, she boarded in Knoxville, where she graduated from Central High School, a contemporary of country music star Roy Acuff.

She worked her way through UT, earning her undergraduate and master's degrees in 1932 and 1934 while working as a stenographer in the Botany Department at Knoxville Business College. She later completed the course work for her doctorate at Cornell University, but never obtained her degree due to her professor's death.

It was "unheard of" in those days for women to aim for careers other than teaching, Ruby said. She was interested in botany, and she accepted employment with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, where she met her future husband. She married Dr. Elbert Luther Little Jr., on Aug. 14, 1943, in Washington, D.C.

Dr. Little was a noted professor of dendrology, the science of tree identification. He published a number of textbooks on the subject, but perhaps his best known works are volumes I and II of the "Audubon Society's Field Guide to North American Trees." Ruby assisted him in this work as well as his textbooks, many of which remain in print.

During their marriage, the couple traveled extensively, particularly in Latin America. In 1949, after having three children, Ruby went to work as a research botanist at the U.S. Agricultural Research Service in Maryland where she was employed for 25 years. She continued in other jobs until retiring in 1987. An excellent historian and genealogist, Ruby concentrated during retirement on family history and work with the Daughters of the American Revolution; she also painted watercolors.

She was my devoted aunt, and that of my brother, David Irwin, both of the Norris area. She returned to her roots each year to attend the Tennessee Fall Homecoming at the Museum of Appalachia, where she became somewhat of a celebrity. She loved the old shape-note singing, and she and her daughter, Alice, were participants in a shape-note singing group.

In 2007, she broke a hip on her way to Norris but, after a visit to the hospital, she attended the event. In 2008, at the age of 101, she broke a leg at the airport between flights, spent a night at the hospital, and still arrived for the final day of Homecoming. Her mind remained sharp until a few days prior to her death.

Ruby and Elbert's children are twins Dr. Gordon Rice Little and Melvin Weaver Little, and daughter, Alice Conner Little Stroud. After her husband's death, Ruby made her home with her daughter in Eugene, Ore.