"Words of Windham" is the creation of Ruth B. Ridgeway, who was a founding member of the Windham Historical Society and was Windham Town Historian during the decade of the 1990's. In order to introduce Ruth to the readers of her "Words of Windham" page, we have prevailed upon her to provide some facts about her own life, now reaching into its 90th year. Fortunately for us, Ruth has spent virtually all of her adult years as Windham resident, and has a reservoir of knowledge and experiences related our Town that is both extensive and unique. She has graciously consented to share her wisdom through these "Words of Windham."

Ruth Frances Borges was born 24 August 1910 at Pepper Box Hill, in Waterford, Connecticut. Her parents were Ruth Elliot Hazard and Frank Egbert Borges. She attended the East Neck school and Jordan school in Waterford. Ruth graduated with the Class of 1927 from the Williams Memorial Institute (WMI), a high school for young women located in New London, Connecticut.

Ruth first came to Windham to attend college at the Willimantic Normal school. In 1929, she received her two-year teaching certificate from there. Ruth's first teaching job was in a one-room schoolhouse, grades 1 through 8, at the Lebanon Road school in Franklin, Connecticut. After two years in Franklin, she took another position at the Jordan school, where she had been a pupil in her youth, and taught there for another two years.

While a student in Willimantic, Ruth met Benton Ridgeway. During his teen years, Benton had commuted by trolley from Baltic, Connecticut, to attend high school in Willimantic. After graduating from Windham High School in the Class of 1927, Benton became a teller at the local Windham National Bank.

Ruth and Benton were married in 1932. They first lived in Norwich, Connecticut, but soon relocated to Bridge Street, in Willimantic. In 1935, they moved to South Windham. In 1938 - the year of the great hurricane, as Ruth reminds us - she and Benton established their life-long family home on Pigeon Swamp Road in South Windham.

Ruth resumed the role of public school teacher once her own children came of school age. After a son and daughter entered the Windham Center school, Ruth worked as a substitute teacher for the Rural Education Superintendent. When a third child entered school, Ruth went with the Windham School System, and taught there from 1951 to 1972.

When the Windham Historical Society was formed in 1964, Ruth agreed to be in charge of accessions. She handled accessions until 1982, while in the mean time, was gradually broadening her concerns and service to the Society in other areas as well. One of Ruth's favorite subjects is the history of the first families that settled in Windham. She has amassed a vast collection of file cards on which she has recorded and documented their genealogies. Ruth's other special projects on behalf of the Society have been her bus tours, for example, on Brooks and Ponds and on the Churches of Windham; and her many programs for children, including ones about Water Power, Indians, How the Town Grew, and the Birds, Plants and Animals of Windham.

The Windham Historical Society is but one of many community organizations that have benefited from Ruth's devotion to volunteer service. Over the years, she has been active in the Congregational Church and the Guilford Smith Memorial Library in South Windham, and with the Visiting Nurses and American Lung Association chapter in Willimantic.

Ruth has long been concerned about preservation of Windham's historic cemeteries. She was involved with a project on Early Gravestone Carvers that was one of the more ambitious past undertakings of the Windham Historical Society. A legacy of Ruth's concern today is "The Cemetery Project" that is described on another page of this website.

Benton Ridgeway retired in 1970. He had risen through the ranks to become an officer of the Connecticut Bank and Trust (CBT), the corporate descendent of his first and only-ever employer. Retirement permitted Ruth and Benton to travel, for example, to Florida, where Benton found new waters in which to ply his fishing hobby. On 8 June 1990, after more than 50 years of marriage to Ruth, Benton died at age 82.

Ruth has remained steadfast in her faithful pursuit of local history and in her performance of service to the community. One of her favorite haunts over the years has been the Windham Town Hall, which she frequented often in search of vital facts about a deceased resident or an old piece of property. In 1989, Ruth was officially named Town Historian of Windham - without compensation of course - and for the next ten years, consulted with the Town on historic matters of all sorts, and represented it in the Association of Connecticut Municipal Historians

In the coming months, we hope you will visit windhamhistory.org often, and when you do, will remember to click on the "Words of Windham" page. Posted here will be Ruth's latest writings on subjects that represent her wide range of historical interests, and that draw upon her vast experience and knowledge of our Town. If you have a question or comment for Ruth, you may send it to her in care of the Windham Historical Society's main e-mail address jillson@windhamhistory.org