Scores of family and friends gathered at Westfield Friends Meeting April 6, 2013, to celebrate the life of Anne Knight Ruff who passed away in March at age 92.
The kindergarten room of the nearby Westfield Friends Schools transformed into a Bay Ruff Art Gallery – at least for the day of her Memorial Service – as relatives and friends brought with them items that Bay had so lovingly produced over the years to put on display.
Please leave a comment and know that we would very much like to post more photos or information about Bay Ruff’s extraordinary life.
We welcome corrections, or more information about any of the works in the photos – owners, when received, reason, any anecdotal information, etc. Contact us if you need help. – John McCormick, Gaslight News
Bay Ruff artwork display at Westfield Meeting 1
Bay Ruff artwork display at Westfield Meeting 2
Bay Ruff artwork display at Westfield Meeting 3
Bay Ruff artwork display at Westfield Meeting 4
Bay Ruff pots made from local clay
Bay Ruff Riverhouse 2006
Bay Ruff Quqkey Schools Instruction
Bay Ruff Quaker Schools 1998
Bay Ruff tub feet Quakers at Meeting
Bay Ruff Riverton artist chooses her canvas, BCT, Jan 3, 1983
Bay Ruff Tub Feet Quakers inside Westfield Meeting
Riverton resident Carlos Rogers goes for the hat trick June 9, 2013, 1:00 p.m., as The Historic Riverton Criterium returns this year for the third time to the gaslamp-lined streets of this near-square mile borough.
In a crit, cyclists race a specified number of laps on a closed course over public roads closed to normal traffic. In this case, athletes pedal 20-50 laps (depending on ability), around an eight-tenths mile fixed loop circuit of the Borough’s thoroughfares during a typical hour-or-so long match.
Capitalizing on the success of the last two competitions, Carlos’ HRC Facebook page has already drawn pro and amateur contenders signing up for the USA Cycling sanctioned series of bicycle races, which includes USAC CATEGORIES 3/4, 45+, and Pro/1/2.
Find out more about registration, race categories, directions, the cash purses and cash premes, lots of photos and results of the past races, and all particulars on that Facebook page.
Contributors have opened their checkbooks, and several sponsors have returned to throw in their support behind this exciting community event that already has a history of giving back to the local area’s groups and organizations.
The popular Kids Race returns and you might want to get your cameras ready for the Fireman’s Fun Lap!
From Left: Carlos and Adrienne Rogers , Karen Healey ( RFL President) Michael Robinson (RFL Manager)
Since 2011, the HRC has been committed to supporting Riverton and its surrounding communities by making financial contributions to various organizations to aid and benefit our friends and neighbors. See the HRC Missions Proceeds Sheet here. ( Word .docx) This year’s proceeds benefit the Riverton Fire Company.
Jeannie O’Sullivan, Staff writer for the Burlington County Times, wrote a great color piece on last year’s day at the races, and if you search “criterium” in our search box at the upper right of your screen, you will be directed to several other references to the 2011 and 2012 races as well as Riverton’s vintage bicycle races of the 1890s.
I am ready – I found my cowbell from last year. – John McCormick, Gaslight News editor
Kids and parents arrive at Riverton Memorial Park for the annual parade marking the opening day of the season for Palmyra Riverton AA.
Today was a great day for the groundbreaking of the new Riverton Memorial Park Grandstand. It was also the opening day of the season for the Palmyra-Riverton Athletic Association.
The parade starts at Riverton Park and ends with a celebration at Legion Field.
Scores of parents and kids started to gather here around 8:30 a.m. for the annual parade that starts at Riverton Park and ends with a celebration at Legion Field in Palmyra. It’s a day of fun, food, raffles, games and of course baseball and softball.
Project Engineer Harry Fox (right), Mayor Bill Brown (left), Freeholder Joseph Donnelly (middle), and Borough Council Member Joseph Creighton (blue shirt) are a step closer to realizing a new grandstand for the use of these kids as well as future generations.
At right, engineer Harry Fox gets the grandstand project started by putting to work Mayor Bill Brown, Freeholder Joseph Donnelly, and Borough Council member Joseph Creighton.
A reporter and several parents took advantage of the photo op and snapped the scene with cell phones and digital cameras.
Within hours, or maybe minutes for some, they will get Facebooked and Flickered, Snapfished and Instagrammed; they’ll get downloaded, uploaded, and attached to emails addressed to far-flung friends and family.
Grandstand Groundbreaking Crew
The men pitched in and turned over the symbolic first shovelfuls of soil.
Then they promptly delegated authority to some able-bodied athletes who happened to be on hand.
The youngsters may well remember years from now that they were here for the groundbreaking of the new Riverton Memorial Park Grandstand, and they witnessed Riverton history being made.
If you think of it, hook us up with some of those Pal-RivAA parade and game pics. They will be historic, too–someday. – John McCormick, Gaslight News editor
As anyone who has driven along Cedar Avenue can attest, the grandstand that since 1930 had witnessed so many rites of passage for generations of Riverton residents, it was simply there one day and gone the next.
Riverton Grandstand demolished_Feb 6, 2013
For anyone not aware of the years of work and planning by those who wanted to have the former grandstand either renovated or replaced, please read the account of Burlington County Times reporter, Kristen Coppock. She gives some particulars on this new project and explains why, for some, the old grandstand may continue to hold a nostalgic tug. Read her article here.
For Carl McDermott, it wasn’t just the grandstand structure made of cinderblock and steel; the grandstand became a symbol, an icon, for the many memories that he associates with that grandstand and Memorial Park and home. Carl writes:
Riverton Grandstand Many memories watching ball games. Had a candy store under grandstand – ate most of the profit. During the summer we would camp out over night and sleep on grandstand benches. Saw grandstand built… Saw it torn down. In the thirtys many activities were done in the grandstand by children under the supervision of a paid teacher in the summer months. One lady and one man teacher, during the months July and August – they were very talented and nice. We made bows and arrows and many other projects. The grandstand was in full use from 1929 to 1941, then came Pearl Harbor. My brothers Bill and Paul and myself Carl and many if not all are friends were drafted in1942 into the service. Army, Navy, marines and coast guard. Eighteen of us were drafted Oct 3rd 1942 from Riverton and Palmyra. We were sent to Fort Dix and all eighteen were shipped to Miami Beach to the Army Air Corp for basic training… All eighteen came home. Carl T. McDermott Note. My daughter’s family and Laverty family and myself painted the entire Grandstand around 1979 green for the Irish.
So understand when you hear that someone misses that familiar sight even though, at the end, the seats were unusable and parts of the concrete blocks looked like Swiss cheese.
The groundbreaking for the new grandstand is 8:45 a.m. Saturday, April 13, 2013. The proposed plans may well satisfy those looking for a familiar silhouette as they pass Memorial Park and be able to again provide safe, clean, and accessible bleacher seating, restrooms, and storage. You might have to admit that the new architectural drawing sure looks like the old grandstand.
Give it time and that will become a part of Riverton history and people’s memories, perhaps just as indelible as my friend, Carl’s.
1938 Riverton Athletic Assn. baseball
How sharp is your memory? Please leave a comment or send us a photo of you “back in the day” at Riverton Memorial Park, whether that day was last year, last decade, or 1930.
If you would like to refresh your memory about the history of Riverton Memorial Park, we cannot improve upon the marvelous article that Town Historian Betty B. Hahle wrote for the 1996 July Fourth Program. – John McCormick, Gaslight News editor
P.S. If anyone got a photo of the demolition of the old grandstand, please send us a scan.
Anne Knight Ruff, c. 2001Elsie Waters points to their grandfather Charles Wright’s home as her cousin, Bay Ruff, depicted it on this panorama view of Riverton’s Bank Avenue.
We were saddened to hear that after a long illness Anne Knight Ruff (known by all as “Bay”) passed away on March 19 at the age of 92.
Westfield Friends School Headmaster, Mr. William Probsting reports that friends and family who have been the recipients of many of Ms. Ruff’s works of art may bring them to display during the service.
Much of Bay’s art is executed in found or recycled materials. Can you tell of what these members of a Quaker meeting are made?
Regular visitors here have already seen one example; our masthead banner is a photo of one of Bay’s marvelous folk art style paintings on wood; this one, I believe she salvaged from a door.
This links to our page in which we acknowledge Ms. Ruff’s generosity for allowing us the use of her art to welcome readers to our website.
William Probsting wrote the marvelous profile of Anne Knight Ruff that appeared in the 2002 Riverton July Fourth Program when the town honored her as the Parade Marshal.
At age 81, she authored a book of stories about growing up in Riverton that grew out of the weekly gatherings of the Friday Ladies, a group she was invited to join.
Friday Ladies -Toby, Norma, Bay, Ruth, June, Nell, Elsie, Betty
We invite comments and the submission of photographs of anything pertinent to Bay’s life, writing, and art, and many other interests. Contact us if you need assistance. – John McCormick, Gaslight News editor
Somebody stopped by with a basketful of eye-candy for our viewers – five vintage postcard images of Camden, Moorestown, and Riverton.
I guess it depends on your definition of eye-candy, but for us history sorts at rivertonhistory.com these are a welcome treat.
And it is nice to have someone with which to share these goodies.
The first one comes courtesy of Ed Gilmore, HSR Board member and a frequent contributor to the archives. I have an image of this scene I scanned from one of Betty Hahle’s postcards, but the card was almost ripped in half and I painstakingly did some photo restoration on it.
Porch Club c. 1915
However, this 1915 postmarked card of the Porch Club is in very good condition. The writer tells Jenny in Tuckahoe that “We took a walk by this place this morning and have been out in the Auto 3 times it is lovely and a very pretty place.” The Porch Club, founded in 1890, had only just built their new clubhouse in 1909.
Forks of Road, Moorestown, NJ c.1907
The next one is a very familiar scene to collectors of Moorestown postcards. Forks of Road is one of the most popular subjects for picture postcards. Just when I thought my friend Harlan had every variation on this theme, he surprised me with this recent acquisition, a 1907 Moorestown post card – Forks of the Road – King’s Highway, or Haddonfield Road, and Camden Avenue.
Camden Bailey St West of 6th 1909
Harlan Radford is another frequent flier here who has generously shared many scans of his vintage postcard collection to help build this virtual image archive.
This marvelous real photo postcard of Camden, NJ shows that an early 20th century Bailey Street neighborhood certainly had its own version of a Glorious Fourth. Medford photographer Wm. B. Cooper produced the postcard, postmarked in Camden on July 8, 1909.
Main Street, Riverton, NJ 1908
Occasionally when the eBay power bidders are on a break I get lucky and win an auction bid. Such was the case with this next pair that I won within the same month.
Collecting scenes of Main Street in Riverton is like eating potato chips. You can’t just quit with one. We already display several on our images page, but I was delighted to see this “new” card with an April 6, 1908 postmark come up for auction.
Palmyra photographer Howard E. Powell captured this tree-lined view that he captioned, “Main St., Riverton, N.J.” The message, “Arrived home safe,” assures Mr. Langham, the Hammonton recipient, that “F” is alright.
The Divine Place – Riverton
The last one in this basket is a real photo postcard view of the riverbank postmarked July 13, 1906. The card writer tells “Tex, dear” in Houston that “…This is the divine place.”
We have to agree.
Please, be on the lookout for more “new” vintage images of the area that you can help us share with others, and add a comment if you know more about a topic.
