Ruby Nielsen Akin

Ruby Nielsen Akin died peacefully on 19 Oct 2008 just one month and 4 days short of her 100th birthday. She was born 23 November 1908 in Logan, Utah, the seventh and youngest child of Peter W. Nielsen and Matilda Peterson Nielsen. She grew up in a loving home where the LDS church was the center of all activities. She has special memories of her childhood Christmas's. All the children got candy in their stockings which they all put in a bowl and shared. They always decorated a Christmas tree which had real candles on it. After supper they would pull the tree out into the middle of the room and light these candles and dance around the tree. In later life she wondered how they ever avoided catching the tree on fire and burning the house down. She remembered the great flu epidemic of 1918-1919 where all the schools were closed and the children would go on Monday morning and receive all their assignments for the week and turn in the last week's assignments.
She and her sisters would work very hard the next day or two because they knew when they had all their assignments done they could play the rest of the week except for their regular chores.
Getting a good education was very important in her family where all five children who grew to adulthood received a college degree. Maybe that was because her parents didn't have that opportunity.
Ruby has always been friendly and outgoing and had a great love for people. This probably led her to her teaching career. She graduated from Logan High School in 1927 and then from Utah State Agricultural College (now Utah State University) in 1931 majoring in Elementary and Secondary Education. She then spent the next 2 years specializing in the new program called Kindergarten. She started her teaching career in the tiny town of Mountain Home, Utah, were she taught for a year. She then returned to Logan and taught in the Old Whittier, Woodruff, Adams, and Wilson schools for 34 years. She introduced the Kindergarten program in Beaver, Utah, where she taught two different summers and also did the same thing in Tooele, Utah. She taught the parents and a few grandparents of children she taught later in her career. During many years she had an incubator in her classroom and the children watched baby chicks hatch and grow. She remembers how the children would
play with the chicks and, when they would take them outside, the chicks would follow them around like they would an old mother hen.
She traveled extensively during her life to places like Israel (four times), Russia (twice), England, France, Germany, Holland, Belgium, Denmark Sweden, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, Spain, Greece, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, Iran, India, Thailand, Hong Kong, Japan, Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean Area and 40 of the 50 states in the USA.
After retiring from teaching she served a full time mission in the Texas San Antonio Mission for the LDS Church. When she turned 90 years old, she moved into the Williamsburg Retirement Home in Logan were she served on the activities committee and lined up most of the musical programs for the next 7 years. She was also called as a counselor in the LDS Branch Relief Society Presidency.
She is preceded in death by her Parents and all six of her older siblings. She is survived by 12 nieces and nephews and their many children and grandchildren.
Viewings will be held from 6 to 8 p.m. on Thursday, October 23rd and Friday October 24th from 10 to 11 :30 a.m. followed by the funeral services at noon at the Allen-Hall Mortuary Chapel, 34 East Center St. Logan, Utah. Interment will be in the Logan City Cemetery.
Condolences and thoughts may be shared with the family at www.allenmortuaries.net