Ruth Yuriko Moss

Ruth Yuriko Moss 74, passed away in Logan, Utah on November 30, 2024. She collapsed to the floor in her home after a long period of several weeks of intense upper body pain, was treated using CPR by her husband and paramedics in her home, and was later transported and treated at the hospital, where she was pronounced dead after several hours of rescue effort.

Ruth was born on June 6, 1950 in Tokyo, Japan to Drs. Aigi and Kiyo Kamikawa, who had been sent to Japan as Japanese - American educational missionaries to Japan after WW2 to help the Japanese nation get back on its feet. Ruth was born and raised in Tokyo, Japan, and attended school at the American School in Japan (ASIJ) where many of her classmates were the children of Diplomats from various countries, government workers, and business leaders. At ASIJ she was exposed to numerous cultures and languages as she was growing up.

When it was time for college, she moved to the United States in 1968 to attend Chapman College (now Chapman University) in Southern California, where she formally studied accounting and English, but in reality, majored in being a friend to everyone. She loved to cook and entertain, and had a very organized and stable lifestyle. At Chapman, she met and married a student from Germany, so her standard phone message for incoming calls was to “leave a message in English, Japanese, or German and I will return the call”. While living in Southern California, Ruth and her first husband made a number of trips to Japan to visit her family and bring back various Japanese art works for her home.

During this time, Arthur Moss (also known as Art) had been working on a wide variety of construction, environmental engineering, consulting, hazardous waste remediation, and nuclear waste storage projects in several different western states, mostly in Nebraska, Arizona, New Mexico, and California. At one point he was working on a Superfund Landfill remediation project in southern California for an environmental firm known an Environmental Solutions, Inc. (ESI). This was significant in the Circle of Life story that was developing. Art was getting burned out professionally with all the hazardous waste projects and the associated heavy work loads, long hours, and tight timelines. He began considering that it was time for a change of pace to a “Low stress” environment of a Ph.D. Program in Civil Engineering.

Ruth was employed part time at Disneyland while in college at Chapman, and later spent several years working at Kawasaki Motors. Eventually, Ruth and her first husband developed other interests and they terminated their marriage. Ruth continued to work in Orange County, California, eventually ending up working as a Project Co-Ordinator for Environmental Solutions, Inc. (ESI), a company that specialized in environmental cleanups and Superfund Projects all over the State of California. She was assigned to work on a particular project, which happened to be managed by Arthur Moss. She read his resume with interest and her first question to him was “Did you really graduate from Phillips University?” His answer was “Yes”. That was how she first met Art Moss, her current husband. By coincidence, both of Ruth’s parents had graduated from Phillips University in Enid, Oklahoma in the late 1940s after they were released from the Japanese Internment camps following WW2. Art Moss was also a graduate of Phillips University, but several decades later, in 1970. Art had recently separated from his first wife (also a graduate of Phillips University and whose parents were also graduates of Phillips University and served as medical Missionaries to the former Belgian Congo during the 1950s). Incidentally, Art’s first wife Kay, and second wife Ruth, actually knew each other as missionary kids back in the 1950s, and both sets of parents knew the other as fellow missionaries. The connections back to Phillips University are truly amazing, and can be summarized with the idea of a Circle of Life, which seems to came around again when you least expect it.

Ruth joined Art when he moved to Logan Utah in 1993 to obtain a Ph.D. in Civil Engineering at Utah State University. When Ruth and Art found their current and forever home by the Logan River, Ruth proclaimed “This is it!”. She did not want to leave again. Ruth and Art were subsequently married in their Logan home by Art’s Father (who was a County Judge), and Ruth’s parents (who were both Ministers). The wedding ceremony was also assisted by Art’s mother (also named Ruth), who was a professional artist and painter who also professionally supplied wedding cakes and taught cake decorating classes at the local college. Ruth and Art were well taken care of for their wedding. Again, the idea of a Circle of Life comes full circle. Ruth went to work at Utah State University in the Toxicology program to help support Art in his studies in Civil and Environmental Engineering. While both were on campus at USU, Ruth and Art got to know many different people in various departments and especially with international students and professors. This developed into a lot of good friends which later would be important since Ruth loved to entertain, and they would sponsor large pot-luck dinner parties in their back yard. Their home has a large roofed back porch with a large upper-level back yard lawn next to the house, then a second large lawn on a middle bench about 5-ft. lower, then finally a naturally wooded terrace an additional 5-ft. lower, at the level of the 100-yr. floodplain of the Logan River. They could sit on their back patio and listen to the sounds of the river 100-ft. away. The property has 100-ft. of Logan River frontage. The Logan River flows fast enough to be a white-water stream, with a bed of rocks and gravel. They often saw kayakers’ shooting the rapids. It was a magical place to live. They often hosted dinner parties where Ruth and Art would supply some selected cuts of meat and the gas fired BBQ grill, and groups up to 100 would show up bringing food. They kept a Guest Notebook for people to sign and share memories of the events. Over many years they had people representing 64 different Countries from all around the world, and most of the States within the United States, that had attended one or more of the pot-luck dinner parties in their home. Again, the Circle of Life idea continues, this time at an international scale. Ruth assisted Art in writing his Ph.D. Dissertation, and after completion of the Ph.D., Ruth and Art decided to remain in Logan, and formed a 2-person environmental engineering company, Moss Engineering and Geological Associates, Inc. (MEGA Inc.) with Ruth as Vice President and Secretary-Treasurer, and Art as the President and professional staff. MEGA Inc. offered consulting work in geology, civil engineering, geotechnical engineering, environmental site remediation and hydrogeology. Representative MEGA Inc. projects included numerous environmental or industrial site cleanups, Manufactured Gas Plant (MGP) remediation projects, and industrial cleanup sites at various locations throughout California. Additional work developed working with other environmental firms where Art provided the technical expertise for Superfund Project cleanups for the EPA. Since Art was the professional staff, he ended up doing a lot of traveling with interesting field work over a wide variety of projects. Ruth and Art worked together to produce all the necessary reports and publications required.

One of Ruth’s many talents was folding paper money using the Japanese paper folding techniques of Origami. She taught Art the details of Origami folding, so that even today he continues to fold money as a hobby. There are a number of restaurants across the region that have nice collections of Origami from both Ruth and Art due to numerous trips back to Oregon and Washington to see family, and the Mojave Valley Museum located in Barstow, CA set up a museum display of folded money Origami examples supplied by Art and Ruth Moss. Art would leave a folded Origami specimen with each trip to the area due his to frequent environmental cleanup projects around Barstow over several years, and eventually the museum staff showed him a display cabinet that had been set up and told him “By the way, here is your collection of Origami.” It was a very satisfying time of life for both Ruth and Art, and there were a lot of disappointed people who tried to get them to move to California or elsewhere. Ruth and Art would simply tell them they preferred to stay in Logan and travel.

Ruth was preceded in death by her parents, Drs. Aigi and Kiyo Kamikawa, and by her older brother Gene Kamikawa, all of Vancouver, Washington. Ruth is survived by her Husband, Arthur Moss at their family home in Logan Utah, and her younger brother Steve Kamikawa in Fremont, California. She has several surviving aunts and uncles and many cousins from the extended Kamikawa family scattered all over the central and western parts of the United States.

There is a Celebration of Life for Ruth Y. Moss scheduled for Saturday, December 14, 2024 at the Herm’s Inn Restaurant, 1435 Canyon Road, Logan UT 64321, from 3:00 – 5:00 pm. The Herm’s Inn will provide food for the event. Restaurant Phone: 435-752-4321

Memories and condolences may be shared and expressed at www.allenmortuaries.com.