LEGACY ROOTS
Dr. Ruth B. Loving
By Joyce M. Wilson
.Mrs. Loving, Ruth, Ruthie or Dr. Loving were all names used to address Springfield’s own “Mother of Civil Rights.” I referred to her as Mrs. Loving. Our relationship was mother daughter based but definitely a true friendship.
Mrs. Loving and I met when I started working at the Martin Luther King, Jr Community Center in 1999. Like most elders that want to hold onto their independence; she was on guard with me as a person because a lot of the younger people there treated her with disrespect because of her age. They felt she wasn’t as sharp as she once was based on society showing a lot of elders living their lives in a fog.
As time went on I eventually won her trust because I taught her how to use the computer system at the front desk; so she now she could do more than just answer the phone and take messages. I was told by a co-worker they could tell Mrs. Loving really liked me because she referred to me as “Joycee” instead of “that woman” like she did with previous people working the front desk with her.
Mrs. Loving started to invite me to various events that she was a part of and we began talking on the phone on a daily basis. One evening in 2000 I was invited to dinner with Mrs. Loving. We ate, drank and were merry. I then brought it to her attention how she and I first met across the front desk when she came back to work after an illness. I reminded her she thought I was being rude because I answered a question for someone while she was getting settled at the desk. I told her she said “Well! If you think you can do this job better than me then you just go right ahead.”
She laughed and said “Did I do that?” I told her yes you did and because my parents raised me right I bit my tongue. We had a good laugh over that and continued getting to know one another.
As the years rolled past she became like a grandmother to my first grandchild, Nashaly. She would buy for her at Christmas and her birthdays. She rode the merry-go-round bench with Nashaly at the Harambee because Nashaly wanted nothing to do with the horses the first time she wanted to ride. When Nashaly graduated from pre-school Mrs. Loving was there cheering her on her way toward her future greatness. She even interviewed Nashaly about her thoughts on entering the 3rd grade on her radio program “Spotlight on Springfield,” station WMAS.
We consoled each other through our sad times too. Mrs. Loving never got a chance to meet my mother because she had passed before I started working at the MLK Jr. Community Center. But I would often tell people if her daughter Holly had lived she would have been my age and if my mother had lived she would have been Mrs. Loving’s age so we were given the opportunity to live out the mother/daughter relationship. Through the years people that didn’t know us thought we were mother and daughter. She knew she could depend on me to get her to her appointments and also make sure she was given proper respect in her later years while in public.
Joyce M. Wilson
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