Ruey was born in Westfield, NJ in 1930 to Don Ivan and Olive Patch, both Congregational Ministers.Her happiest childhood memories are of summers spent with her family on Peak’s Island, Maine. She attended the University of Wisconsin in Madison. There she met her husband, Milton Keith Lindblom. They moved often, and while Keith taught high school, for many years Ruey was a hard-working stay-at-home mom, raising her three daughters to be creative, kind, and educated. She read to them every day, and showed them how to treat and care about others.

In 1970, the family moved to Amherst, and Ruey began working outside the home. She began as an aide at the Amherst Nursing Home, and then attended Smith Vocational to become an LPN in 1973. She followed that with Hospice training, and continued caring for others as a home care and Hospice Nurse for many years. She was dedicated, compassionate, and kind, and she considered it an honor to be welcomed into the homes of families as they prepared for the death of a loved one.

After all three daughters left home, Ruey and Keith moved several more times, eventually ending up in Greeley, Colorado. In 1996 Ruey found herself needing the help of her fellow Hospice workers to care for her husband of more than 45 years as he succumbed to cancer at home in June of that year.

In the following years she continued as a Hospice volunteer, but also devoted herself to other forms of service to the Greeley community: audiotaping textbooks for blind college and elementary students,helping at Connections for Independent Living, volunteering at the hospital’s cancer and cardio units, tutoring at a local elementary school through the America Reads program, and helping out at the Centennial Library shelving books and becoming their favorite volunteer.She always did little things for neighbors, bus drivers, or local fire fighters like sending thank you notes, baking cookies, or just saying kind words to them whenever she saw them. Ruey’s life was always about caring for and listening to others.

By 2014, Ruey’s declining health convinced her to seek out some of the help she had always given to others,and that fall she moved to Northampton to be near her daughter, Kirsten. She lived at Michael’s House, where she continued to read every day, listen to the classical music she loved, write letters, and enjoy outings with Kirsten and her husband, Jay. On her 85 th birthday her daughters surprised her with a trip to her childhood summer place in Maine.

There followed, however, several hospital visits and rehabilitation stays. Eventually, unable to manage at home, she chose to accept the gentle and thoughtful Hospice care she had so often provided for others, and after two weeks at Buckley she passed quietly in her sleep.

She once said she would like to be remembered as honest, caring, listening, and learning. Her daughters and friends would add that she lived simply, intelligently, and with integrity.

She leavesthree daughters: Solveig (and Ron Knott), Heidi (and Dean Webb) of Grand Island, NE., and Kirsten Lindblom (and Jay Baudermann) of Sunderland; grandson Jeremy Knott (and Alicia, their daughter Delia) of San Diego, California and granddaughter Amelinda Webb of Lake Side, Arizona.

As per her wishes, she will be cremated, and there will be no services.Remembrance gifts may be given to your local Hospice or library.