Ruth Shook Hampton

My thoughts and prayers are with you all. Ruth has always been a part of my life. I turned 50 yesterday (5/26), and I can’t remember not knowing and loving both Ruth and Earl. Mother and Daddy bought their house in March, 1953; I was born in May of 1953.

I believe the last time I saw and spent time with Ruth was around Thanksgiving–when the ‘Hampton Clan’ was celebrating their Christmas at her house.

I remember apples from the front yard. The little ‘studio’ in the back where Dena and I would play school sometimes. Dena and I picking flowers (mostly Iris) from Mother’s flower garden and leaving them on doorsteps–particularly Mama Shook in the little house at 84 1/2. We just picked the blooms–not much (if any) stems–Mama was rather upset with us to say the least. I remember ‘Trish’ and her ballet. And Lynn and Buddy’s wedding at Christmastime with golden bridesmaid dresses and I believe white poinsettas–the first I remember seeing. Dena was a bridemaid or perhaps a junior bridesmaid–seems like Beth was, too. I always loved it when Beth would come for a visit and we would spend hours together. I remember Earl and the Boy Scouts. Earl sitting in the sunshine on the porch in his red sweater with his oxygen–waiting for a hug and a smooch from a passerby from Stone Mountain, Georgia–that hugged and kissed him everytime she came home and saw him on the porch. That always gave me the opportunity to see and visit with Ruth as well.

My thoughts will continue to be with all of you this week and in the days to come. I don’t believe I can take off work to come up for the funeral. If I can I will be there. Just know that I will be there in spirt. Thanks for letting me share my memories with you.

Lovingly, Robin Garbee Thompson
5007 Brittany Drive
Stone Mountain, GA 30084

Sylvia, I am sad to hear of your mother’s passing. Please know that you and your family are in my thoughts and prayers.

Our deepest sympathy is extended to all of the family. It was good visiting with daughters Carol, Lynn and Sylvia this afternoon.

Dear Lynn & family,

I was SO sorry to read of your mother’s passing. I wish I could be there with you, but it just isn’t possible. You are all in my thoughts & prayers. I will miss your mom, she was such a dear person & a big part of my growing up years! As were all of you! My mom, Mildred sends her condolences as well. Love, Vicki

I was Mrs. Hampton’s neighbor for several years on Nevada Avenue.She enjoyed watching my children play and I often cleaned her house for her.We always got a good laugh at the excessive amount of baby powder that was covering her bathroom.She loved her Baby Powder!!!It took me an hour to clean it all up…I helped her the day she broke her leg in the basement and my children we so worried about her.I have’nt lived in Asheville for several years,but recently,I called her to check on her neighbor,Mrs Greene,who was not answering her phone.We had a wonderful conversation and spoke of old times when the kids came to get candy from her and how Mr. Hampton scared all the little kids in the neighborhood.She told me she was enjoying her solitude without him and that it was his time to go and that she would see him again someday.She encouraged me to call again.She was a very nice lady and I feel lucky to have had her in my childrens lives and mine as well.Sandy Waldecki

Hi Mamaw,
This is the last letter I’m ever going to write to you, and you won’t get it, but at least I have somewhere to send it to. Thanks for all of yours. I was walking around yesterday with one of them in my pocket, reading it on the metro on the way to a meeting (I’d tell you what meeting, but even if you could read this, you’d only want to know if it was for something that made me happy, and it was), and you know how you always start a letter and then you write on it for a week or so? Anyway, as usual you’d run out of things to say and started another page a few days later. And you said, ‘Oh, I got all the way to the next page and forgot to tell you that I loved you.’ I don’t know why you wrote ‘loved’ instead of ‘love,’ but suddenly the fact that everything about you is now in the past, and that for the first time your Freudian slip or spelling mistake or whatever was true –

I said goodbye to you so many times wondering if it was going to be the last time that in the end I stopped wondering about it. As a result, all the last times blend together. Thank god we never know when it’s going to be the last time, eh?

Well, this is the last time, the last letter, and just like yours, it’s late, and just like you, I don’t know what else to say.
I used to have this fantasy that when you were really really old you’d say to me, ‘Josh, I really want to go up and see the top of the Blue Ridge Parkway one more time, but I don’t think I can walk anymore,’ and I’d say, ‘Well, don’t worry, Mamaw, I’ll carry you,’ and somehow I would. Anyway, state parks have gotten a lot more car-friendly since when I was a kid and used to imagine that. We went to Mill’s River last year and walked around, even though it was hard for you to walk a lot, and I guess that was the real life version of it. You didn’t say a lot, I think now maybe you weren’t feeling too great but you were really trying to be nice. It was sunny, and there were ferns everywhere and nobody rakes the leaves there, so there were all kinds of the little plants you like pushing up around the trees, and I could see you were thinking about telling me about some of them, but instead you were just quiet. Were you really being so sweet because you wanted me to remember that? Were you being so quiet because you were thinking it would be the last time we went out to the woods together to tromp around? I wouldn’t have cared, whatever you did, or whatever you said, even if you’d complained about your ankle the whole time. It wouldn’t have made any difference. Remember that time we went out to the woods with Sean and you fell feet-up in the creek? We thought maybe you were hurt, and we were kind of worried, and then you started laughing really hard, like to reassure us, but mostly because you must have thought it was hilarious.
Well, since this isn’t really a letter, I don’t even have to say goodbye, which is nice, but I will say, like you, for the first time, I loved you, instead of I love you, and that’s about as hard as saying goodbye.