In “I Think I’ve Done Pretty Good!” I trace ninety-seven years of my mother’s remarkable life, 1915 to 2012. Ruby Mae (Etherton) Owens grew up on a modest, by today’s standards poor, Southern Illinois farm. She really did walk a mile to school, a one-room school, occasionally riding a mule. My mother boarded out and worked her way through high school and college. She taught in rural one-room schools, married, transitioned from rural to urban life, worked in the Willow Run Bomber Plant during World War II, gave birth to three children, taught in and retired from suburban schools. Her life is clearly a story of success. She is certainly proud of the way she lived her life. In later life, she often declared, with great satisfaction, “I Think I’ve Done Pretty Good!” I am confident the readers of this sketch will have a better awareness of what life was like in Ruby’s time and will agree she “did pretty good!”
