She had learned to help

When Ruth Sanders McKeithan was 9, she and her six siblings were orphaned.

Her mother had grieved herself to death after the murder of her own parents years earlier, and nine months later, Ruth's father died as well.

Were it not for an uncle willing to take them all in, the fates of those Sanders children - a black family from rural Johnston County in the 1930s - would have been far different.

This fact never left Ruth. She would take that experience and use it to help others who did not have the support from friends and family that she did.

Ruth turned the challenges she faced into a 50-year career in social work, her experience ranging from prisons to nursing homes, public housing to community work within her church - and her example did not go unnoticed.

No one can be sure how old Ruth was when she died, said her daughter Dana McKeithan of Butler. The family thinks she was 82, but one of her sisters insists she was older.

Early trauma

When her mother was about 8, Dana McKeithan said, the family's house burned down while Ruth was home alone with her younger siblings. She got everyone out, but the Bible in which the family's births and deaths had been recorded did not make it.

"Now, if that happened to a child, that would be very traumatic for someone that age," Dana McKeithan said. To her knowledge, little was done to address the fear that must have struck the heart of young Ruth.

Her daughter likes to think that this experience informed her mother's never-ending passion for helping others.

"Through her personal struggles she knew how to deal with the people on her caseload because she had the same adversity as the people she was dealing with," Dana McKeithan said.

"Ruth always had two jobs," her daughter said.

To Shaw, then north

Her work ethic was so strong, even as a child, that a second cousin asked her to come live with him and his wife in Raleigh.

Ruth was given an education, but also made to cook, clean and iron, as letters found from her childhood reveal, according to her daughter.

She would go on to Shaw University, earning a bachelor's degree in social science in 1951, but left for the North, as many young, educated African-Americans had to do at the time to find work.

She was married to Aaron McKeithan at the time, but spent many of those years in New York separated from her husband, whom she had met in college. They had two children, whom she raised essentially on her own.

Although she was college educated, she worked as a maid for a generous family for a number of years, a family that never made her feel like a second-class citizen. But her full-time employment required living with this family, and her daughter and son had to live with friends. For a time, Ruth saw her children only on weekends.

Eventually, the family offered Ruth an apartment in a building they owned in New Rochelle, N.Y., and she could afford it only because she agreed to be the superintendent as well.

Ruth also secured a job counseling young female prisoners in New York State, but she would come home and have to wake her children to help her mop the halls of the building.

"She never relaxed," her daughter said.

No assistance needed

Looking back, what strikes her son, Lloyd McKeithan of Newport News, Va., is that they likely qualified for public assistance - but she refused to take it. "I never felt I went without," he said, but as an adult, he marvels at how she managed.

When Ruth moved back to North Carolina, she first worked at Cherry Hospital as one of the first African-Americans in an administrative position. In the late 1960s, she took a job with the Raleigh Housing Authority, in charge of social services for all residents.

Public assistance work at the time came without a guidebook, reminds her longtime friend George Leach of Durham. He worked with Ruth both as a trainee in Raleigh, then as a colleague in Durham, where she finished her career as education and training coordinator for the Durham Housing Authority from 1982 to 1995.

She pulled together resources from disparate entities, always advocating for those receiving help, educating them on how to get off public assistance as soon as possible, he said.

"Some were there for the dollar, some were there to make a difference," Leach said. "She was there to make a difference."

In the end, Ruth was forced into retirement not because she was ready, but because she was battling colon cancer. This was in 1995, but her work did not end there.

Ever helpful

She spent her final years continuously looking out for others in need, even trying to save the Meals on Wheels she received for those she felt more worthy, her children said.

She finally had time to focus on her love of black history, hanging out at the Blacknificent book shop in Raleigh, always ready to share stories for those willing to listen.

At her funeral service at Springfield Baptist Church in Raleigh, her lifetime of service was remembered by Rev. Daniel Sanders.

"She was a very proud person and wanted other young people to be proud of who they were," he said.

Her children are just happy that now, she can finally rest.