In Tribute: Ruth White Burns was 'interested in everything'

Some Clovis and Portales residents knew Mary Ruth (White) Burns as a historian. Some knew her as a teacher who could teach young students in fluent Spanish as well as English.

Her two sons – one a retired engineer, the other, a businessman – knew her as a "very dynamic" woman "interested in everything," including science and animals.

Burns, who was best known as Ruth White Burns, died on Aug. 29 at 93 years of age.

She spent most of the 1950s and 1960s raising her sons and helping her husband Mike Burns with their candy and tobacco wholesale business in Portales, according to her younger son Patrick, now a retired engineer. Her older son Michael Burns Jr., is a Clovis area businessman.

Patrick Burns remembered his mother as "interested in everything."

In addition to a love for languages, he said, "she was interested in insects, animals and science. "Everything we kids would get into, she would get involved with. She even had a pet tarantula,"he said.

Patrick Burns remembers his mother reading stories to the boys, including some she had written herself and some written by her mother Rose Powers White, whose notes from interviews with early settlers in the Portales area would form the basis of Ruth Burns' book on the early history of the Portales area.

Ruth Burns' love of language and interest in education led her to obtain a master's degree in bilingual education from Eastern New Mexico University and a teaching career in the 1970s.

She became a pioneering bilingual teacher in Clovis' first program of its kind at La Casita Elementary School, where she taught secondgradersin both English and Spanish.

In the classroom next door, RosEllen Dunn was also starting her teaching career as a second-grade teacher.

Dunn was fascinated by Burns' ability to speak Spanish, and found Burns to be "helpful and kind."

Dunn was younger, much younger as she learned later to her surprise, than Burns, and Dunn found that Burns' life experience was very helpful to her as she launched her education career.

"She did things out of the ordinary," Dunn said.

She remembers that Burns and her second graders attempted to make turquoise-colored necklaces from pinto beans for their mothers at Christmas, but after the beans were cooked and dyed, "they got moldy."

Despite the failure, Dunn said, she admired Burns' ability to think out of the box.

Outside of school, as things turned out, Dunn said she and Burns lived just a few houses away from each other in Clovis.

"We set up play dates for my children and her grandchildren," she said, and she remembers being entertained by the chickens in the Burns' yard.

When Burns retired from teaching, she turned to history.

In 2012, she compiled her mother's notes and some independent research for a book entitled, "A Man Was a Real Man in Them Days, Pioneers of the Llano Estacado, 1860 to 1900," which, according to a description on Amazon.com, "celebrates the life and character of the first settlers who dared to challenge the vast prairie of the Llano Estacado of eastern New Mexico." 

Patrick Burns said his mother was responsible for having a historic plaque installed at the Blackwater Draw historic site north of Portales that honored Rose White's contribution to recording local history.

The book won the admiration of two other Portales history enthusiasts who are also columnists for The News, Betty Williamson and Karl Terry.

Williamson said Burns' book is very well written and "a great read" for people interested in the history of that era.

Williamson, who also collaborated with Burns on other history projects, remembers Burns as a "really warm and kind lady. She was very welcoming and friendly."

When Burns came to visit, Williamson said, "I would be ready to sit and listen," because of Burns' thorough knowledge of local history.

Terry, the executive director of the Roosevelt County Chamber of Commerce and a local historian, said Burns' book "fills in the time pre-railroads" for the Portales area.

In visits with Terry, Burns "was always interesting. It was always fun to visit with her," especially with her wealth of stories about area history.

One of Terry's fondest memories, he said, was taking a drive out to the site of Portales Springs, which was important watering hole in the early ranching days, when cattle shared the water with herds of buffalo.

The springs dried up a long time ago, Terry said, but as he and Burns walked along the historic site, he said, Burns related many stories about the springs and the ranchers whose herds watered there.

"It was a really special, good-time experience," he said.