Lynn and Ruth Roth

Lynn Russell Roth was born into a Kansas farm family on February 26, 1928. The fourth of five children, he grew up milking cows, gathering eggs (he could crawl under the grainary walls to find the hidden nests), finding the new-born baby kittens (and one time, baby skunks), and playing basketball with his older brother. In high school, he ran track and won the Kansas state championship in the mile race. After attending Grace Bible Institute, he was drafted into the US Army and sent to war in Korea, where he passed the war typing in the Port Services Office in Inchon. Upon his return to the US, he farmed with his dad until 1958, when he went to missionary candidacy school, where he met the love of his life, Ruth.

Ruth Lillian Ortmann Roth was born into a Great Plains Montana homesteading family on July 1, 1931. The second of four children, she grew up sewing her sisters and herself into their “long johns” to stay warm during the long, cold winters. When she broke her arm, she was allowed to sit by the fire for many weeks, during which she learned to sew left-handed. As a young girl, Ruth met a missionary to Colombia S.A. and decided to become a missionary herself. After attending Grace Bible Institute, Ruth went to missionary candidacy school, where she met the love of her life, Lynn.

Lynn and Ruth were married on December 28, 1958, in Whitewater, Kansas, having decided that Montana at the end of December was too cold for their wedding. After honeymooning in Galveston, Texas, they returned to Kansas in a snowstorm and began preparing to move to Colombia. During their first 5 years of marriage, they lived in both the Andes Mountains and a Colombian tropical rainforest, learned to speak Spanish, and gave birth to 5 daughters: Rachel, Lynette, Janette, Gloria, and Priscilla.

Their Colombia years were completed at the end of their first decade of marriage, and they returned to Kansas, where, for the next five years, Lynn taught Spanish and received degrees from both Tabor College and Emporia State University, while Ruth worked to keep her five daughters clothed (with homemade, matching dresses and knitted hats, scarves, and mittens) and fed on a rural Kansas teacher’s salary. Lynn taught his daughters to ride bikes, fly kites, and play softball, and he supervised homework and piano practice.

Five years later, in 1973, they moved to Wamego, Kansas, where they settled for the rest of their lives. Lynn taught sixth grade, and Ruth was active with children’s Bible classes, women’s church groups, and caring for widows. She always had one special widow that she would visit every day, and she often assigned her growing daughters to do tasks to help others. In 1977, Lynn became the weekend pastor of the Beecher Bible and Rifle Church, a small, historic church, founded by Free-Staters just before the Civil War, where he preached for over 45 years. Ruth taught Sunday School and Vacation Bible School at church, and yes, her daughters helped with that, too. In the summers, Lynn and Ruth tended large gardens, growing the family’s winter vegetables, which they canned and froze for later consumption. The daughters were involved with that, too, and although they loved eating corn all winter, they did not like laboriously removing silk from corn ears in the hot Kansas July heat. In later years, after the daughters had left home, they enjoyed putting in their orders for home-canned vegetables. Each daughter received a homemade afghan when she turned 13, a new quilt when she left home for college, and another new quilt when she got married.

On November 27, 2024, 65 years and 11 months (minus a few hours) after their marriage, Lynn and Ruth died of old age, leaving earth as they had lived, holding hands. They were greeted in heaven by their son-in-law Rob, who had previously worked hard to plan for their transition day. It seemed fitting for him to be in the heavenly welcoming committee. Also welcoming them to heaven were all of Ruth’s siblings and 3 of Lynn’s siblings. Left on earth to dream of seeing them again are Lynn’s basketball-playing brother Dean, their five sad (but well fed and clothed) daughters, three sons-in-law (Rick, Damon, and Bill), 12 grandchildren (Daniel, Hannah, Catharine, Sharon, Beth, Tyler, Hope, Kristina, Jonathan, Megan, Irena, and Katie) and their spouses, 11 great grandchildren, and numerous nieces and nephews. The daughters, supported by Brighton Hospice, helped complete their earthly journey by singing the closing hymn from the Beecher Bible and Rifle church: “God be with you ‘til we meet again.” They ended with their preacher-father’s closing benediction: “Go in peace.”