Ruth Penland turning 105; sister Sue Crittenden celebrating 100th birthday
Special to the
Progress
Ruth Ford Penland and her twin brother, Rex, were born June 19, 1918 to Edney and Bessie Sluder Ford at their grandparents George and Rena Bridges Ford’s home in Warne, N.C.
Her grandparents sold their farm at Leicester and moved to Warne on wagons where they bought a 640 acre farm with four houses. They later had a country store, grade A dairy, wheat and corn mill and a construction company that built roads and bridges. That is where 16 of 20 grandchildren worked as they grew up.
Ruth is the third child in a family of six children: Wayne, Re, Ruth, Leonard, Lois and Sue. There are four sets of twins in their family. The only living sibling is Sue Ford Crittenden, who lives in Chelsea Michigan Retirement Home. She will be 100 on Aug. 28. Sue graduated in 1942 at Hayesville High School. She married Charles Allen from Swannanoa on Oct. 17, 1944. They had two sons, Gary and Carrol. They lived and worked in Ypsilanti, Mich. Charles passed away on Feb. 2, 1962. Sue married Bernard Crittenden in 1973. He had two daughters. After 43 years of marriage, he died on Jan. 10, 2017. Carrol died on March 11, 2019. Sue, Gary and Carrol’s three children are coming to help celebrate their birthdays.
Ruth’s father was a farmer and truck driver. He built their home on Ford Rd. He passed away at their home on Dec. 26, 1956 and her mother moved to Swannanoa. The men depended on farming to make a living. There were not many cash jobs available. They took eggs, chickens and corn to the store for cash and paid for what they had to buy.
They went to Hayesville High School in ninth, 10th and 11th grades. Ruth met George Penland in ninth grade where he and two other boys were taking home economics in Ruth’s home economics class. He became her high school sweetheart.
They graduated in the class of 1935. Ruth was salutatorian and had the last five years of perfect attendance. The last two years of high school Ruth lived at the Hayesville jail and help her aunt Neva cook and feed the prisoners.
In February 1936 she went to live with her grandparents to care for two first cousins, 11 and 7 years old. Their mother had passed away. They later lived with George and Ruth. She helped them milk the cows and several other chores. She helped her grandmother pull feathers from the ducks to make feather beds and pillows. She remembers sleeping on straw tick beds and helped make cotton mattresses. She was a 4-H Club leader and Clay County news reporter. George and Ruth helped raise six other children.
George and Ruth were married on Aug. 28, 1937. They had three sons, Jerry, Jim and Joe. George farmed and worked in the TVA office where they were building the Chatuge Dam and helped James Clark sell stock at the Farmer’s Federation. From 1942 to 1959, they ran Penland and Sons Poultry and Feed, a Grade A Dairy and Tri-State wholesale company. Ruth was the bookkeeper and treasurer. She went to Young Harris College to get a business degree.
In 1959 the poultry and dairy business had slowed down. Jim was in college at Cullowhee. Ruth and George moved to Swannanoa to have a good financial future for their threes sons and their families.
In 1963 George was a supervisor at Beacon Manufacturing Company and Ruth was at Memorial Mission Hospital where she worked for 15 years as admitting supervisor. They moved to Berryman Hall Funeral Home in Asheville for George to manage for Ruth’s cousins. In 1970 they bought the business and changed the name to Penland and Sons Funeral Home. They also had an ambulance service with the Federal Veterans and Buncombe County contracts. They bought five apartment houses, but the fire department burnt one on Crescent Street to make a larger parking lot. Penland Ambulance Service office and Joe’s Business’s were on Broad St. Ruth and George resided on Baird St. beside her son, Joe, and his wife, Terri. After Georges’ father passed away in 1970 they moved his mother into the aparmtnet next door to the funeral home where she resided until she passed in 1979. They had two apartments on Charlotte St. that Ruth rented.
In 1976 they opened another funeral home at 125 South Avenue in Swannanoa. The funeral home in Asheville burned in 1986. They bought a home and moved next door to the funeral home in Swannanoa. Ruth’s brother, Rex, passed way in 1999; her husband, George, died in 2001 and son, Jerry, died Aug. 28, 2005. Jim retired after 44 years of service at Square D Company and joined Ruth and Joe at the funeral home.
In 2009 Joe had to retire because of bad health from exposure to Agent Orange in Vietnam. He died January 28, 2014.
After 60 years of bookkeeping, treasurer and manager Ruth decided to slow down. Her grandson, Jason, joined Jim to operate the funeral home. Jason also owns Asheville Mortuary and Asheville Area Alternative Funeral Home where his son, Jonathan, and daughter, Emily, work. This makes four generations now in the family funeral business. The present manger of Penland Family Funeral Home is Elizabeth Gillespie and the office manager and funeral apprentice is Brittany Gehring.
Ruth is the family genealogist. There were 12 children on Ruth’s mothers’ side and 24 grandchildren. On her father’s side there were 11 children and 20 grandchildren plus three generations, that makes for a lot of kin folk. Ruth has two widowed daughters-in-law, Janice and Terri; a son, Jim and his wife, Linda; 10 grandchildren; 20 great-grandchildren and 12 great-great-grandchildren and a host of nieces, nephews and cousins, who all that are of employment age have good paying jobs, such as doctors, lawyers, judges, school teachers, fire chiefs and VA Hospital Supervisors/Office Managers.
Ruth is an Atlanta Braves fan and a Carolina Tar Heel fan. She is the oldest member of Oak Forest Methodist Church, the oldest living graduate of Hayesville High School and is one of the oldest active funeral directors in North Carolina.
With the help of CPI security system, a walker, funeral home staff and family, the Swannanoa Fire Department within walking distance of her residence, who employs her grandson, Anthony, as fire chief and his grandson, Jarrod, and her grandson, Joe, living next door to her, Ruth is able to live alone in her home next to the funeral home.
There will be a “drop-in” birthday celebration for Ruth and her sister from 2-4 p.m. Saturday, June 17 at First Baptist Church of Swannanoa. All are welcome to come by and say hello to Ruth and her sister.