Ida Ruth Looney, beloved wife and mother, homemaker, devout Christian, and world traveler, died at the age of eighty-nine on June 1, 2016. Born Ida Ruth Courtright on January 21, 1927,near MacDonald in Rawlins County, Kansas, the daughter of Richard Tracy Courtright and Alfaretta Bartholomew Courtright, she excelled academically, attended the University of Kansas in Lawrence, and later graduated from the University of Maryland. In College Park. In Lawrence she met the love of her life, Chesley Hall Looney, an electrical engineer and space scientist whom she married on February 14, 1950, and with whom she shared sixty-six years of unalloyed happiness.
After one year in Kansas City, Ruth moved to Maryland with Ches and began a family. She is survived by her husband and all five of her children, Chesley Howard, Richard Glen, John Jefferson, Andrew James, and Kathleen Ruth, as well as four grandchildren, Sarah Elizabeth (Shriner), Eric Chesley, James Jefferson, and Sharon Abigail, and three Shriner great-grandchildren, Abigail Mae, Matthew Robert, and Nathan Gabriel. She is also survived by one sibling, William Courtright, and many devoted friends and relatives.
Ruth loved life, babies, animals, gardening, both of her alma maters, Washington’s sports teams, reading, Scrabble, Shakespeare, opera, and Irish folk music. She loved to travel and with Ches achieved a lifelong ambition of visiting all seven continents. A den mother and longstanding member of the League of Women Voters, she was a much-loved parishioner and choir singer at University Christian Church.
A memorial service and celebration of Ruth’s life will be held at University Christian Church, 6800 Adelphi Rd, Hyattsville, MD 20782, Saturday, July 16, 2016, at 2 PM, with a reception to follow. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to University Christian Church.
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