Hamm, Ruth Thelma Bitting
Ruth Thelma Bitting Hamm was passionate about her community, genealogy, and the DAR. Her mother’s family, the Merwins, had deep roots in McLean County. And when Ruth and her family returned to Illinois, she wasted no time in becoming involved in her community.
Ruth was born on July 3, 1915 in Torrington, Wyoming. She was the first-born daughter of Frank Leslie and Harriet Belle (Merwin) Bitting, Frank and Harriet moved to Central Illinois to take over the 240-acre David Merwin farm in Ellsworth, Illinois. Ruth attended first and second grade at the Fairtown School (located between Ellsworth and Padua, Illinois) which was built by her great-grandfather Asher Merwin. The family was urged to relocate to Hialeah, Florida where Ruth attended Hialeah High School. The family survived a large fire that burned close to the family home and the Miami Hurricane of 1926 which destroyed their home. Because of this, the family decided to move back to Central Illinois where they continued to farm in Ellsworth. Ruth and her sister, Fern, sought employment in Bloomington at various agencies and the Prairie Farms Creamery.
Ruth married James Justin Hamm on July 22, 1936, in Ellsworth. The couple soon moved to the Hudson area to a farmhouse built by James’ grandfather, James Wilson. They lived in this house for 50 years and then moved one mile south into the brick home build by James’ other grandfather, Jacob Hamm, where they celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary. The couple had no children of their own but had many nieces and nephews.
Ruth became an active member of the Hudson community. She became involved in 4-H and served as the leader of the Hudson Girls 4-H group for 10 years. She watched many of her girls model their award-winning designs at the Illinois State Fair. In 1937, Ruth was invited to join the Hudson Home Bureau Unit. She was a member of that group for 72 years, which included serving one term as chairman. On the county level, she was a member of the McLean County Home Bureau and served a three-year term as president of that organization. Ruth also led Sunday School courses.
When Ruth moved to Hudson, she had never heard of the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution. However, that changed when she was paid a visit by Etta Carrithers, who came to meet the “woman who married native James Hamm.” Etta encouraged Ruth to join the NSDAR in 1939. And thus began Ruth’s active 69-year membership. She belonged to the NSDAR on the local, state, and national levels. At the local level, she chaired numerous committees, was Registrar and Chapter Regent of the Letitia Green Stevenson Chapter. At the state level, Ruth was the Illinois State Registrar and was elected Illinois State Regent. At the national level, she was elected Vice President General of the National Society and was elected Registrar General of the National Society. When interviewed by The Pantagraph in 2007 about her service to the NSDAR, she stated “my poor husband ate a lot of microwave dinners.”
Because of her outstanding contributions to the Hudson community through state and local activities, Ruth was awarded the first Kenneth Koons Memorial Award in 1977, presented to her by the Hudson Lions Club.
She also belonged to several other lineage societies including the National Society Colonial Daughters of the Seventeenth Century (Recording Secretary and then President General); The National Society Daughters of Founders and Patriots of America (Councilor); The Colonial Dames of America, Chapter XII; Hereditary Order of Descendants of Colonia Governors (Registrar General); and The National Gavel Society.
Ruth was an accomplished genealogist and published several titles including: “Soldiers of the American Revolution Buried in Illinois, 1976,” “The Bitting Family Now and Then,” and “The Hudson Colony,” which was a project of the Hudson Bicentennial Commission in 1976. At the time, the Village President, Donald W. Holmes, wrote the following forward in the book about Ruth’s work to compile the history of Hudson: “The compiling of all the facts chronicled in this book represents a great amount of time and effort on the part of the author. It took an extensive search for old records and their painstaking study. It involved a massive gathering of bits and pieces of information and concentrating them between two covers.”
Ruth and her husband James were very active in traveling, which led them to destinations such as Canada, Iceland, Bermuda, Mexico, the Bahamas, Cuba. They also spent three months in Europe visiting 15 countries and attended the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953. They traveled to all 50 states in the U.S. working on family histories, and returned to Germany in 1994 to research the Bitting family.
Ruth Bitting Hamm passed away July 12, 2008, at the age of 93. She is buried at the Hudson Cemetery, in Hudson, Illinois.