Ruth Klepper
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Ruth Klepper, January 2, 1944 to January 24, 2021- Multitalented writer, actor, translator and tutor.
Ruth Klepper died at Mercy Hospital in Springfield, Massachusetts in the early morning hours of January twenty-fourth after a two-decade long battle with breast cancer. She had just turned seventy-seven.
She was a retired house painter, and spent her retirement alternating between travel and tutoring immigrants to prepare them for their citizenship exam. In addition to English- her native language- she spoke Hebrew, French, Russian, and Spanish, had an advanced knowledge of Latin and had studied Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphics. She was a big fan of Spanish language and Russian language soap operas.
Ruth was born in Brooklyn, New York to Mendel and Rose Klepper on January second, nineteen forty-four. Her father was a doctor, and her mother was a public-school teacher. She attended Brooklyn's Erasmus Hall School, and, later, the prestigious Rhodes School in Manhattan.
After graduating, she travelled to Israel, where she met and married her husband, Meir. The couple divorced fifteen years later.
Ruth had planned to remain in Israel, but, in the first year of her marriage, was forced to return to New York for treatment for a benign tumor. It could not be treated in Israeli hospitals, which had not yet developed the technology for treatment of complex tumors.
Once back in New York, Ruth graduated from Brooklyn College, where she studied Russian, French, and Latin. She also participated in the drama society, and starred as the Wicked Witch of the West in the Brooklyn College production of "The Wizard of Oz." Ruth pressed her two sons, Jai-then eight years old- and Lee- then only three- into service to play munchkins. Lee upstaged his mother by falling asleep downstage on a piece of scenery, preceded by a dramatic stretch and yawn. At the end of the scene, he had to be carried off the stage, fast asleep, by the other munchkins to the delight of the audience.
Ruth moved to Longmeadow, Massachusetts, when her husband, Meir, became principal of a Hebrew school in Springfield. She was a housewife until her divorce three years later, in nineteen seventy-seven.
Ruth faced a problem common to single mothers of that era. As a housewife, she had few marketable skills, and there were limited types of jobs available to women. She applied to be a schoolteacher- only to be told that her degrees made her "overqualified." She tried to be a real estate agent, working for two years at George and Green, but did not thrive in that highly competitive market.
Rescue came through a federal program designed to teach women marketable skills in order to get them off of welfare rolls, and/or to keep them from needing welfare in the first place. She joined "Women In Construction," and studied to become a house painter. The training led to a union job, which, in addition to a living wage, provided her with health insurance and a comfortable pension.
In a sad epilogue, the Reagan Administration, despite the expanding economy, cancelled Women In Construction, and other similar federal programs. This penny-wise but pound-foolish move denied generations of women a clear path to self-sufficiency, and doomed them to a difficult-to-break cycle of poverty and dependence.
Ruth, meanwhile, found it challenging to be a female pioneer in what was seen as a male profession, but she won the admiration of her co-workers through her skill, hard work, and professionalism. Soon, she was "one of the guys." The work took her to exciting locations, from the upper floors of high-rise buildings under construction in Springfield to the inside of the reactor core at Vermont Yankee (Crews were assigned to teams. Each would work inside the core for a very brief time, then be replaced by the next one.)
During her painting career, Ruth enjoyed her avocation- acting in community theatre. She performed some lead, and many supporting roles for local groups, including the Longmeadow Encore Players, East Longmeadow Community Theatre, and the Agawam Repertory Theatre. Her most memorable role was when she reprised her wicked witch persona to play Fruma Sara in Temple Beth El's "Fiddler on the Roof." She belted out her number along with hair-raising, goose-bump inducing shrieks and laughs. No one in that audience left that theatre with any desire to be the "my pretty" that her character might "get."
Ruth was able to retire with a pension after twenty years, in 2000. She moved to Florence, Massachusetts, and spent her retirement well. In addition to travel and tutoring, she also enjoyed writing short satirical essays- something she had stopped doing while working to support herself and children after her divorce. During the nineteen seventies energy crisis, Ruth wrote a long, Erma Bombeck influenced essay on how to save energy- One memorable suggestion: use binoculars to watch your neighbor's television. Now, she was able to write essays which she published in The Lafayette Nicollet Ledger, a Minnesota newspaper run by her son, Lee. In a spoof editorial, she advocated solving the border wall crisis by invading Mexico, and making it the fifty-first state. In another, she imitated Donald Trump, declaring "I'm going to take over the press. Get used to it [paraphrased.]" In the early days of the presidency, long before anyone could even imagine the constitutional crisis caused by Trump's refusal to concede, she spoofed Trump saying "I'm never going to leave office. Get used to it [paraphrased.]" (Fortunately, she lived long enough, and was aware enough, to see Biden transition into the White House.)
While Ruth had a long history of benign tumors that required surgical intervention, the tumor that developed soon after she retired was anything but benign. She was diagnosed with breast cancer. Over the next two decades, she underwent surgeries, radiation, and chemotherapy. Although some interventions caused difficult complications, Ruth was, nonetheless, able to enjoy a good quality of life.
Ruth is survived by her sons, Jai and his wife Shuli, Lee, sisters Esther and her husband Elliott, Judy, nieces and nephews Erik, Bradley, Gwen, Jonathan, their spouses and children. Her youngest niece, Debbie, died in 2019.
Ahearn Funeral Home
(413) 587-0044