Ruth Anne Hudson, a longtime librarian at the Chase Library in West Harwich, died July 8 in Cambridge. She was 91 years old.
At the Chase, a century-old Harwich landmark on Rte. 28, she worked for nearly 25 years with her late husband, Francis E. Hudson Jr., and many good friends to ensure its survival.
With him for a time as president and her as variously treasurer, secretary, librarian and children’s librarian, they battled at town meetings to eke out a small annual appropriation, and worked to improve the library’s small collection. The library, co-founded by Salome Chase (of the Chase & Sanborn coffee family), was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2014.
Her passions were literature and travel. Throughout her 64-year marriage (he died in 2013), she wrote poetry and stories, and took many opportunities to visit Britain’s literary landmarks. She passed her love of literature on to her two sons, who went onto careers in writing. She was, in her words, an “omnivorous reader.”
Her poetry often celebrated the Cape and her family. She compiled several of her verses in a book, “Not without a Trace,” which included this reflection on Harwich after the tourists are gone:
I revel in the quiet of the beach!
No shouts, no watchful mothers’ calls,
No wails from tired children,
No blare of radio.
Just peace, just spaciousness,
And wonderful withdrawal from the crowd.
I follow footprints in the hard-packed sand
That lead to water’s edge and disappear.
I feel the rippled sand between my toes,
And smell the fishy, dampened air.
I stoop, to gather razor-backs and conchs,
I feel the squirt of clams against my legs,
And listen to the quiet of the beach!
She was born in Framingham on June 9, 1925, and adopted in North Cambridge at age four by Daniel Patrick and Mary Lawrence Leahy. Dan Leahy was a Cambridge politician and manager of the local baseball team which, in the 1920s and 1930s, drew bigger crowds than the Boston team (now the Red Sox.) She attended St. John’s School in Cambridge, and Boston College.
She was married on Aug. 16, 1947, to Frank Hudson, a recently returned Marine from the Pacific. They moved to Woburn, Bedford and finally Lexington, with their sons, Francis Edward (Chuck) and Richard Lawrence Hudson. She was for several years bookkeeper for the Grey Nuns in Lexington. In 1983 she and her husband moved to Harwich, where his father had lived.
Besides writing, her interests included painting, crafts, music and the Cape. She sang with the Chatham Chorale for nine years, delivered books with her husband to shut-ins, and volunteered to teach remedial reading in the Harwich schools. She kept copious notes of her travels – counting 26 trips to Europe.
She leaves her two sons; their wives Jody and Diane; five grandchildren, Shane, Darcie, Jessica, Louisa and Clara; and six great-grandchildren.
A memorial celebration for her will be held August 17 at the Chase Library, from 1:30 to 3:30 pm; friends may drop in at any time. In lieu of flowers, donations may be sent in her name to the Chase Library, 7 Route 28, West Harwich, MA 02671.
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