- Change-makers
- 1920
- Ruth Audrey (Batty) Mcintyre
Ruth pioneered her way through life with joy and determination.
Ruth was born in Assiniboia, Saskatchewan, in 1921, the fourth child of eleven children. The children were raised on a homestead. Her father was a great organizer, sports enthusiast and entrepreneur. Her mother was the calm center of this loving family and of the community in which they lived. Ruth often remarked, “I always hoped that I could emulate her.”
Their lives were filled with such activities as sports and chores. She also remembers ball games, schoolyard games, and such pranks as trying to drown gophers. There were also school dances, concerts, picking saskatoons, and the joy and busyness of autumn (Ruth’s favourite season).
Ruth and her family experienced the “dirty thirties” with its dust storms, grasshoppers and hailstorms. The dust was piled so high that the children walked on top of the trees that had been planted for shelter!
She got into trouble one night for going with a group of friends who stole, cooked and ate four of their neighbour’s chickens.
At this time, her brother Stanley died of bone cancer. It was a terrible loss for the family.
Ruth boarded in Assiniboia for her high school years. She loved it and was also in the midst of any high jinks, such as stealing produce from gardens and overstaying her time at the local theatre.
She trained as a teacher in Moose Jaw in 1941 and loved the program there.
Near the end of the war, both she and her sister joined the military to train as radio operators. Ruth remarked, “The only service we saw was helping to dismantle the training center as the war ended.”
After attending the University of British Columbia for three years, she realized she did not have enough money for the fourth year. On impulse, she replied to an ad she found in the newspaper for a teacher in the North. She had no money for the ticket so, as she remarked, “I was the only teacher I know who was shipped to her first job C.O.D.”
In 1946, this intrepid lady travelled by ship, rail and DC3 arriving in a small opening in the boreal forest of the Yukon. This was Mayo where she would spend the next nineteen years. She embraced both teaching and the community. She played badminton, attended dances, played cards, joined the students in their games at school, went on picnics and tutored children after school hours. She taught school for a few years and then took a Commercial Course in Edmonton.
Upon returning to Mayo, she became an entrepreneur: opening a restaurant called Ruth’s Luncheon Bar, opening a store named Ruth’s Dress and Novelty Shop (She actually carried Chanel #5), dibbling in real estate, and even becoming a cook on one of the mining creeks for a season. Ruth remarked, “I never questioned whether I could do something that I wanted to do or not; I just did it!”
In Mayo, Ruth met and married Gordon McIntyre and they raised three children: Angus, Mary, and Norman. She loved cars, and at this time, she owned a yellow Bel Air Chev convertible even though most roads were dead ends! The family spent a lot of free time camping, fishing and doing photography. Ruth loved people and loved a good time. One sport she really enjoyed was bobsledding!
Without hesitation, she did such things as clearing the school chimney by climbing up on to the roof and poking a stick down the chimney to clean out the creosote; encouraging some First Nations girls to train in her restaurant; agreeing to assist a lady in childbirth; raising money for school activities; unplugging the waste water pipes in her restaurant by crawling into the crawl space under the building, unscrewing the cap off the pipe and ramming a broom handle into the pipe to clear it.
The family moved to Whitehorse in 1965. Ruth became involved in education once more. She worked at the Yukon Technical and Trade School and then taught at F.H. Collins where she was Vice Principal. Her door was always open for students who needed to talk. She earned the nickname of Mother Mac. She once stated, “You must always leave a person with his or her dignity and self-respect, whether an adult or a child. Also, never back someone into a corner with no way out!”
A student told her years later, “You believed in me when others did not.”
Then she moved to G.A. Jeckell School where she developed an innovative method of teaching math to her homeroom class of special needs children. They built and ran a portable store through which they developed their math skills.
Ruth moved on to develop a program that prepared remedial tutors for entrance into the Yukon Teacher Education Program. This evolved into the Yukon College where she became Coordinator of Academic Studies. However, she retired the year before the new Yukon College campus opened.
Ruth and Gordon then bought a condo. Gordon’s only request was that it have an area large enough to hold a table where the family could all gather. Her great joy has always been her large family and in retirement she and Gordon were very busy with children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. The condo is roomy and airy and has a marvelous view! It also has a large balcony. It has seen many family get-togethers at Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, birthdays and anniversaries.
Ruth enjoys a great conversation and a good joke or two, and keeps up on world and community happenings.
For quite some time, she would have an open house in the afternoon where friends and family would drop in for coffee or tea and a chat.
She now has an assistant, Share Knorr, who helps her so that she can continue to have visitors. “It’s a really great way to enjoy retirement!” she remarked.