Mike W. Bryant
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Apr 10/02) - Long-time Yellowknifers recall Ruth Stanton as someone who was active in the community, and always kept the door to her house open to friends.

Ruth Stanton, wife of the late Dr. Oliver Stanton -- Yellowknife's first doctor -- died March 25. She was 97. - NNSL file photo

Stanton, wife of the late Dr. Oliver Stanton, who was Yellowknife's first doctor, regularly hosted tea parties from her home. They were quite popular, says Barb Bromley. Not only was she was a gracious hostess, but her home was only a few during the late thirties and early forties to have running water.

"If she was having a tea party, she would say, 'anyone who needs a bath, go ahead,'" recalls Bromley. "It was sort of a standard."

Stanton moved to Yellowknife with her husband in 1937, and they stayed for the next 23 years. Originally trained as a nurse, Stanton stayed home to raise her daughter Paula. It was during this time that she came up with the idea of bringing a local chapter of the Canadian Handicraft Guild to Yellowknife, which she began in 1946. She was also a charter member of the Daughters of the Midnight Sun, and was active with the Holy Trinity Anglican Church.

The Stantons retired to Salt Spring Island, B.C., in 1960, but Ruth never lost touch with the North.

In 1996, Stanton returned to Yellowknife in an unsuccessful attempt to have Yellowknife's original hospital, where her husband worked, restored and declared a heritage building.

Mary Hamilton says she was still the outgoing hostess when she visited her at home a few years ago.

"My daughter and I went to visit on Salt Spring Island," says Hamilton. "She made us tea, and we sat and reminisced about the old days."

Stanton died March 25. She was 97-years-old. Donations in her memory can be made out to the Yellowknife Guild of Arts and Crafts.