RUUD, BARBARA DAILEY (1921 ~ 2016). The following is an obituary for Barbara Dailey Ruud, spouse of former longtime University of Texas professor Millard Harrington Ruud. The obituary was provided by Weed, Corley, Fish Funeral Home.
Barbara Ruud died of pneumonia at her Westminster apartment in Austin on April 7, 2016. She was born on April 25, 1921. She was 94 years old.
Barbara had an idyllic childhood in small town Mankato, Minnesota. Her doting father, C O Dailey, was one of the town's lawyers. Unfortunately, her father died before Barbara graduated from high school. An Irish immigrant, her father had wanted to take Barbara to Europe. He left money in his will for that European trip. After Barbara graduated from high school, one of Barbara's older sisters and her husband took Barbara to Europe in the summer of 1938, the last full summer before the war.
Barbara entered Macalester College in St Paul, Minnesota in 1938, making lifelong friends. She began the University of Minnesota's combined undergraduate-law program in 1940. On her first day at the University of Minnesota, she met southern Minnesota farmboy and brilliant student Millard H Ruud, who was to be her husband for 54 years.
They married in Mankato on August 28, 1943 in the first big Mankato wedding since the Depression. Captain Millard Ruud was already in the US Army. He deployed to the European front in the winter of 1943. Barbara stayed behind in Minneapolis, anxiously awaiting war news. She got her law degree from the University of Minnesota in 1943. In 1944, Barbara became the first woman claims adjuster for State Farm's Insurance.
After the war, the newlyweds moved first to Lawrence Kansas and then to Austin. Dean Page Keeton recruited Millard Ruud to teach at the University of Texas Law School in 1948. He would teach there for almost 50 years. Barbara had three sons in the 1950s, keeping her busy. But, not too busy as to keep up with her civic organizations. She worked to abolish the Texas poll tax. She was on the Texas Bar Association's administrative law committee. She became president of the Austin League of Women Voters. Active in PEO, she was president of Chapter BQ.
With her boys growing up, Barbara started working more in the 1960s and 1970s. She was legal counsel to Governors Preston Smith and Dolph Briscoe at the Capitol. She was assistant attorney for Attorney Generals Mark White and Jim Mattox. Not only did she have her own considerable legal skills, whenever there was a particular problem bothering the governors or the attorney generals, Barbara had the entire University of Texas Law School faculty to call upon as informal advisors. Question about federal courts or constitutional law? Call Professor Charles Alan Wright, the national expert on those subjects.
From 1973-1981 and again from 1983-1988, Professor Millard Ruud was executive director of the Association of American Law Schools in Washington. Barbara worked as chief legal counsel for local congressman JJ "Jake" Pickle with a fun-loving bunch who liked to call their workplace the "Pickle Factory" and themselves as the "Pickle packers." These years in Washington with their apartment in Georgetown were very happy times. They had cocktail parties at their apartment for visiting law school deans, then walked down to Georgetown for dinner.
When they returned to Austin in 1988, Barbara kept active in all her civic organizations. She and her husband traveled the world, able to go wherever and whenever they wanted. Millard Ruud died on February 10, 1997. Barbara stayed in the house they built in 1952, where they raised their boys, until September 2011, when she moved to Westminster, for many more happy years.
Survivors include her sons, Stephen, Christopher (Dian) and Michael Ruud, all of the Austin area; grandson Andrew Ruud (Chloe Kweon) of Seattle, great-grandchildren Ina and Ian Ruud of Seattle; grandchildren Olivia Freeman (Derek Del Porto) of Nashville; and Cecilia Fierro of Oakland; and members of the Ruud, Mason, and Walchuk families throughout the United States.
A private family burial service will be held at the Texas State Cemetery. The funeral service will be at the University United Methodist Church, 2409 Guadalupe Street, Austin, TX 78705, at 1 pm April 16, 2016. Free parking at the church and across the street. Catered barbecue reception at the church's Fellowship Hall at 2 pm.
In lieu of flowers, donations in Barbara's name are appreciated to University United Methodist Church at the mailing address above, or uumc.org/give; or the League of Women Voters of Austin, 1011 W 31st, Suite 510, Austin, TX 78705.
