February 3, 1943 to March 15, 2023
Ruth was born in Kansas City, Kansas to William Harold “Harry” and Myrtle Heaton. She passed away March 15, 2023 in home hospice care from complications of a brain tumor.
After her mother Myrtle died when she was nine, she was raised by Myrtle’s younger sister Ruth and Ruth’s husband, Lester Meyers, along with her younger cousin, Patricia.
She attended public school in Shawnee, Kansas with her cousins and graduated from SM North High School. She then attended the University of Kansas where she graduated with a BS in nursing in 1966. She was passionate about her school and always a proud “Jayhawk” season ticket holder (and had a Jayhawk tattoo to prove it).
She began her nursing career as an instructor in Pediatrics at the KU School of Nursing. She then obtained a MS in nursing from Boston Univeristy and became a pediatric head nurse at the U. of Colorado in Denver. Ten years later she returned to Kansas as the head nurse of the pediatric hematology oncology unit at KU Medical Center. She subsequently became a nursing supervisor and remained in nursing administration at KU until her retirement in 2008 when she moved to Portland, Oregon to be near family. She was a member of the First United Methodist Church of Portland.
She traveled extensively, beginning with a European tour after graduate school. She visited all seven continents with family or friends. Her life’s work was education whether that was teaching nursing students or nurses she supervised or teaching bartenders in Europe, Asia and the Americas, the middle east, Antarctica and the Arctic, on land, rivers or sea how to make a Manhattan her way.
Great Aunt Ruthie was hard for her young grandnieces and nephews to say so to them she was always “GAR.” She was preceded in death by her parents, her Aunt Ruth and Uncle Lester as well as the adopted children of her father and his first wife: Billy Heaton and Doris Heaton Cathey. Ruth is survived by numerous cousins in Kansas, Texas and Oregon.
A celebration of life will be held at KUMC on Friday Jan 17th from 3-5p. Varnes Center, School of Nursing Room 4024.
Donations may be made to the Ruth C. Heaton Scholarship Fund of the University of Kansas School of Nursing. Her ashes will be interred near her parents in the Shawnee Cemetery, Shawnee, Kansas.
