Ruth S. Kirtland, 89, Hays passed away Monday, October 20, 2025 at Hays Good Samaritan Society.
She was born May 15, 1936, the daughter of John O. and Virginia B. (Oldham) Kirtland at Hadley Hospital in Hays. She was among the first premature babies to thrive in an “incubator” newly available to hospitals.
To family and friends, Ruth’s extraordinary sense of adventure and love of life brought many experiences at home, and especially in her career as a teacher of elementary aged students overseas on U.S. Air Force bases. After schooling at Hays High School, Fort Hays State, and Kansas State University, she began her teaching career in Casper, Wyoming. There she learned of the program for teachers to work and live abroad on U. S. Air Force bases. In 1963, she took at position in Adana, Turkey at Incirlik. The following two years she taught in England at Alconbury. Her next assignment to Tripoli, Libya in 1966-67 was interrupted by the evacuation of Wheeler Air Force Base due to the military coup by Muammar Gaddafi. With her personal items packed into one or two trunks, she flew safely to Madrid, Spain where she taught from 1967-1969. Her trunks were lost then were spotted in a storage room, and she was ultimately reunited with her belongings. Following her tenure in Spain, where she purchased an antique Rolls Royce which she painted black and yellow, she ended her teaching career in Upper Heyford and Bicester England (1969-1989). This twenty-year life of teaching in England made her a solid anglophile who later followed The Royals in American news reports. In England, she owned her own home and cultivated a proper English garden. At home in Hays, from 1990 on, she gave her life to caring for her elderly mother with the support of a Hays contingent of family members.
Those who knew Ruth loved her sense of humor, her love and generosity, and her tremendous affection for animals of every kind – feline, canine and even a parrot.
During the war years, Ruth was a teenager. She was the baby of three sisters, Joan and Marilyn. In the yard south of the home on south Main Street grew a mighty Hackberry tree which supported a swing. Ruth would climb the tree and never missed an opportunity to whistle at the soldiers walking on the sidewalk, while one of her sisters innocently swung in the tree. This joyful trickery was not necessarily appreciated by her sisters.
Many videos of family and friends chronicle her life, and one might see her atop a camel with Egyptian pyramids in the backdrop, or in a family favorite – her photo with her mother dangling in the air above the ski slope in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
She is survived by her sister Joan Kirtland McAfee of Kansas City, Kansas, her nieces Melinda McAfee and Wanda Osborn (John), her nephews Brian Doerfler (Deanna) and Doug Doerfler (Debbie), and many great nieces and nephews.
She was proceeded in death by her parents, her sister Marilyn Doerfler, her brothers-in-law Alex Doerfler and Troy McAfee, and two nephews John Doerfler and Carl McAfee.
Funeral services are pending and will be announced by Hays Memorial Chapel Funeral Home. Private family inurnment will be in Mount Allen Cemetery. Memorials are suggested to American Overseas Schools Historical Society (AOSHS) Operating Fund, 704 W. Douglas Ave. Wichita, KS 67203. Condolences and memories of Ruth may be left for her family at www.haysmemorial.com