EATON — Nearly 13 years ago, a staple in The Register-Herald’s newsroom said goodbye to the newspaper business and headed off into retirement after 60 years.

May 27, 1951, was Ruth Williams’ first day at The Register-Herald. May 27, 2011, was her last. And she has been missed as have many remnants of the “good old days” at the paper.

Williams’ column, “It occurs to me…” appeared in the paper for decades, as her column “Busy as a bee’ had for decades before. In her final “It occurs to me…” published in the May 25, 2011 issue of The Register-Herald, Williams bid us all farewell.

Williams declined having an interview done about her time at the paper as she said goodbye. “ My friend/co-worker/sports writer/reporter asked when he could come to my home to interview me for a story about my years at the paper,” she wrote. “Said he’d been assigned the duty by our boss lady. I told him, ‘There ain’t no way a story is gonna be written about me.’ Did he actually think I would let him see me embarrass myself by breaking down and bawling in front of him?”

So she wrote her own story.

Williams served in a variety of positions at the R-H: office manager, bookkeeper, society editor, copy editor, ad salesperson, proofreader, feature writer, classified layout person, and columnist. “And I’ve done my share of cleaning the office toilets, too!” she said in her last column.

She continued, “I could have retired at 65 like most people, but I felt good (still do) and believed I still had something to contribute. Now I have decided my FM (favorite man) Jim and I need to spend our remaining years together.”

“I feel I’ve come full circle in this business,” Williams shared much of the history of how technology had changed the creation of the newspaper, and shared the feelings of sadness and loss when The Register-Herald building, which stood on the corner of Main and Barron Streets in Eaton now occupied by William Bruce Memorial Park, burned April 1, 1987. She wrote of the first use of computers and a “mouse” in the office and proofreading and designing pages on a screen.

“But with all this modernization, we’re still a small town newspaper,” she said. “I’ve typed thousands of obituaries over the years: neighbors, friends, former classmates, former employers, former co-workers, former boyfriends, even my sisters-in-law and my own parents. However, I did not write George Washington’s obituary, which a Cub Scout accused me of during a tour at the paper several years ago, because I had been here ‘such a long time!’”

She went on to talk of the change in the business, the dress code’s evolution, and more.

“I have met so many wonderful people in the past 60 years — customers, business people, celebrities, some politicians, and the people I’ve worked with. Some have become my closest friends. But now it’s time for me to go. I asked that there be no farewell dinner the final day, no farewell gift, no goodbyes. Just let it be a normal working day and I’ll put the key on my desk when I leave. I’ll see you around; and when you pass my home, toot your horn, or better yet, stop and visit. I’ll have plenty of time.”

Last week, I had to process for the paper Ruth Williams’ obituary, just as she had so many of them in her time at the R-H. We had a complicated relationship, she and I, as she was the person tasked with proofreading the hundreds of inches of sports articles I wrote as Sports Editor, as well as everything else that went in the paper. She was the first person to tell me I needed to be doing regular reporting rather than sports, because my main news articles were “so much better.” (I wish I had a dollar for every time she said she hated reading sports!)

Ruth Williams’ farewell in 2011 left a hole in the R-H, and her passing on Wednesday, Dec. 27, reminded me of what we lost. She deserved more than 5 ½ inches of text in an obit. We needed to say farewell to her as she did to us, in fine fashion.

Ruth Williams, 92, of Eaton, died Wednesday afternoon, Dec. 27, 2023, at Hospice of Dayton. She was preceded in death by her husband of 72 years, her “FM” James. She is survived by two sons, a daughter, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, step-grandchildren and great-step-grandchildren.

Services were private, just as she wanted her retirement from the R-H to be 13 years ago.

But those of us who remember what she meant to The Register-Herald of old needed to say this public final farewell in newsprint.

“It occurs to me…” she would have been okay with it being done this way.

Reach Eddie Mowen Jr. at 937-683-4061 and follow on X @emowenjr.