Individual Details
Clara Ruth Wilson
(9 Nov 1919 - 7 May 2011)
The following information on Clara Ruth Wilson Briles is based on her curriculum vitae from Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois, and includes a “family history” of the family of Worthie Elwood Briles and Clara Ruth Wilson Briles handwritten by Ruth and transcribed by their daughter Susan Marie Briles Kniebes in 2003 and other information as referenced below:
She goes by “Ruth” rather than “Clara.”
Ruth was born in Riverside, Fort Worth, Texas, on November 9, 1919, to Robert Pierce Wilson I and Ida Mitchel Hightower Wilson. She was the last of their seven children. Ruth’s father died on May 16. 1922, when she was only 2 years old. For more information on Ruth’s parents, see their “Notes” elsewhere in these Family Tree Maker files.
Ruth was named for her father’s older sister Clara Eugene Wilson. In a telephone conversation on July 2, 2003, Ruth told her daughter Susan Briles Kniebes that one of the reasons she preferred to be called “Ruth” rather than “Clara” was that every time her grandmother Jessie Rodman Pierce Wilson said her name, she felt that her Grandmother Wilson was reminded of her dead daughter. Clara Eugene Wilson had died in 1890 at the age of 28.
On April 28, 1982, Anne Wilson Vanderhoof (Jesse Pierce Wilson’s granddaughter) provided the following information in a letter to Sara Briles Moriarty (a granddaughter of Robert Pierce Wilson, who was the brother of Anne’s father Jesse Rodman Wilson I, and the youngest daughter of Ruth Wilson Briles):
“I remember your mother Ruth with affection. She was the first cousin nearest my own age. We spent a few days together many years ago when she was visiting her sister Ida Krebs. We went to the New York World’s Fair together and to Jones Beach, as I remember.”
Ruth’s “Family History” follows:
High School Education
Worthie Elwood Briles: Elwood graduated from Polytechnic High School in Fort Worth in 1936. He was the Valedictorian of his class.
Clara Ruth Wilson Briles: Ruth graduated from Polytechnic High School in Fort Worth in 1938.
Undergraduate Education
Elwood: He was offered a tuition-only scholarship to Rice University. However, since the scholarship did not cover housing, books, etc., he could not afford to go to Rice. Instead he went to North Texas Agricultural College (NTAC), later Texas University, in Arlington, Texas, for 3 years. While Elwood was there, a chemistry professor hired him to help run the chemistry labs. As discussed below, he later transferred to the University of Texas in Austin.
While Elwood was at NTAC, he met Dr. Sarah Bedechek Pipkin, the daughter of an Austin naturalist and author, who was teaching there. Sarah had attended the University of Texas in Austin, where she had worked in the Drosophlea (fruit fly) genetics labs with Dr. J. T. Patterson and Dr. Wilson Stone. Their work concentrated on speciation. They wanted to collect Drosophlea from different parts of the country. Dr. Pipkin encouraged Elwood to collect Drosophlea from the Fort Worth area, which he sent to by mail in small g lass tubes to Drs. Patterson and Stone’s lab in Austin. (When Elwood and Ruth’s son David took genetics at the University of Texas in the late 1960s, he worked with strains of Drosophlea whose labels indicated that the original members of the strain had been collected by Elwood.)
Ruth thinks that it was Dr. Pipkin who brought Elwood to the attention of Drs. Patterson and Stone at the “fly lab” at the University of Texas in Austin and helped him get to the University. As note above, Elwood was at NTAC for 3 years before he transferred to the University of Texas.
Ruth: Ruth attended NTAC for just 1 year, then she too transferred to the University of Texas.
How Elwood and Ruth Met
Part of the last year that Elwood was at NTAC, Ruth was living with her brother Travis Hudson Wilson I, his second wife Maurine Wilcher Hightower Wilson, and their children by their first marriages on Donalee Street in Fort Worth. Travis’s children were Helen Ruth, June, Travis, Jr., and Jan and Maurine’s daughter was Peggy Hightower. Ruth was living with Travis and Maurine while her mother Ida Mitchel Hightower Wilson was working for Mr. and Mrs. Fred Harvey in Dallas. [As of November 11, 2003, we have not been able to find a connection between the Hightowers to whom Peggy was related (see ancestors of Peggy Jane Hightower elsewhere in these Family Tree Maker files) and the Hightower to whom Ruth’s mother was related.]
Ruth and Helen Ruth were always friends and kept in contact until Helen Ruth’s death in 1994. Peggy and Ruth became good friends and still stay in contact with each other.
Concerning the Harveys, they had a young girl that had to be closely watched because she had a thymus gland that failed to shrink as quickly as it should have, a normal boy a couple of years older, and a teenage girl, whose mother, Mr. Harvey’s first wife, had died. This daughter really resented the second Mrs. Harvey, her step-mother. Ida was able to make friends with this teenage daughter. The Harveys really appreciated Ida and kept in touch with her after she later moved to California.
Elwood and Ruth met when he was an instructor for one of her chemistry labs. However, Ruth remembers seeing him before that walking with his little sister Jeanie to downtown “Poly” (short for “Polytechnique”), which was a section of Fort Worth.
When Elwood first came to see Ruth at Travis and Maurine’s, Travis had bought some chicks that had gotten loose. Travis was very impressed by Elwood’s ability to help him catch and properly settle the new chicks.
Elwood and Ruth at the University of Texas
Elwood was able to afford to go to the University of Texas in Austin because Dr. Pipkin helped him get a job at the “fly lab.” His parents weren’t able to help him because of the need to care for his younger brothers (three) and sisters (two) at home. Also, since Elwood had received some recognition for his art work during high school and had helped his father, Worthy Harwood (Jack) Briles (known as “Pappy” to his family), with his sign-painting business during the summers, his father would have preferred that Elwood permanently join him in that business. Elwood’s mother, Leona Hays Connally Briles, once expressed a desire for Elwood to become a postman because, during the Depression, postmen and other government employees kept their jobs while others, including Pappy and some members of Leona’s extended family, were unemployed or at least under-employed. But Elwood had other ideas!
While Elwood was in high school and at NTAC, he had belonged to the National Guard, which brought him in some money, but, after he transferred to the University of Texas in Austin, he was no longer able to belong to the National Guard.
Ruth was able to afford to go to the University of Texas because her grandfather Nathaniel Wilson’s will was finally settled. (He had died on May 31, 1930.) The portion of Nathaniel’s estate that would have gone to Ruth’s father Robert Pierce Wilson I, who had died in 1922, went instead to his daughters. It wasn’t much. But since Ruth’s sister Beth Wilson had already finished her schooling, she gave her portion of the estate to Ruth. (For more information on Beth, see the Note for Sarah Elizabeth Wilson elsewhere in these Family Tree Maker files.) And, when she could spare the money, Ruth’s mother gave Ruth the income from a small home on Annis Street in Fort Worth that she rented while she was working for the Harveys and no longer needed a place to live. (Ruth’s father originally built the house with a set of outside stairs so that his sons could live upstairs and he would have room to run his metal-working business downstairs.)
One of the reasons that the portion of Nathaniel’s estate going to his descendants wasn’t more was that, first of all, he had five children in addition to Ruth’s father. A second reason was that one of Nathaniel’s daughters, Aunt Leila (Mrs. Clyde Lily), who had a big home on East Lancaster in Fort Worth, had kept her mother (Ruth’s grandmother) Jessie Rodman Pierce Wilson in her home after Nathaniel died and wanted to be repaid for her expenses before the remainder of his estate was distributed.
When Elwood and Ruth were at the University of Texas, Elwood stayed at “Little Campus Dormitory,” and Ruth and several other girls rented the upstairs of a home. Ruth remembers the girls sleeping on the sleeping porch, sometimes well after cold weather set in, so they had more room for studying, etc., in the remainder of the upstairs. In December 2003, Elwood recalled that the home in which Ruth stayed was at the south end of the 1940s University of Texas campus and across from the “flying horse” fountain.
Late one summer, after Ruth‘s brother Travis and his wife Maurine had moved from Fort Worth to Padre Island, the wife of one of Travis’ friends was driving to Padre and stopped by Austin to pick Ruth up and take her to Padre to visit her brother. Elwood later hitchhiked down. Aunt Maurine showed them both a good time. They especially remember her showing them “little organisms” on the beach.
While Elwood and Ruth were at the University of Texas, they both worked in the “fly lab” for Dr. Stone. Ruth also worked for a short while in the University’s library, recording information (title, author, publisher, etc.) from a collection of old books.
Once in awhile while Elwood and Ruth were at the University of Texas and before they were married, Ruth would loan him money so that he had enough to pay his tuition.
By the end of Ruth’s second year (1941) at the University of Texas, she was ready to graduate if she just went to one more summer school session, having already attended NTAC for a year before transferring to the University and having attended class during summer sessions as well as the fall and spring sessions the entire time she was at the University. By that time, Elwood had already graduated.
Elwood and Ruth Get Married
They told Dr. Stone that they wanted to get married and start graduate school at the University. At that time, Dr. Stone had grants from the Rockefeller Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. He told Elwood and Ruth that he could put each of them on a separate grant. Then he found that he could not do that because the University of Texas had strong anti-nepotism rules that were started in response to the “Ma and Pa Ferguson episode” to keep institutions from hiring the relatives of current employees.
Once Dr. Stone realized that he couldn’t hire both Elwood and Ruth, he remembered a conversation that he had had with Dr. Robert Irwin at the University of Wisconsin in which Dr. Irwin said he was looking for a graduate student to do research in his immunogenetics lab. Dr. Stone told Elwood about Dr. Irwin’s need for a graduate student. Elwood went to the library and read all he could find about Dr. Irwin’s research. Elwood then sent Dr. Irwin a copy of his records.
In the meantime, Elwood and Ruth got married on June 6, 1941, by the Justice of the Peace at the Austin City Hall. Ruth had told her mother Ida about their plans to get married and Ida was going to plan a wedding in Fort Worth, but Elwood and Ruth had more friends in Austin than in Fort Worth and knew that any kind of a formal wedding would cost more than they or their families could afford.
Dr. Stone arranged for a wedding lunch for them and all of the people who worked in his lab with them in a Mexican restaurant that wasn’t normally open for lunch.
Ruth described her wedding dress as “a regular dress, which I wore several more times over the next few years. It was blue and white and had what might have been sheep on it.” There is a photo of Elwood and Ruth taken either the day of their wedding or shortly thereafter in which Ruth is wearing that dress. Ruth thought that the dress that she wore to their wedding was in a trunk somewhere in the basement of their house on the farm near Sycamore, Illinois. However, we later looked in the trunk for the dress and could not find it.
After Elwood and Ruth got married, they rented a little apartment to live in while Ruth went to summer school, her last semester at the University of Texas. Ruth also applied to graduate school at the University of Wisconsin, but, of course, the University couldn‘t complete its review of her application until it receive the transcript from her final semester at the University of Texas. On her application, she signed her name “Ruth Wilson Briles” because she was not sure which last name would appear on her transcripts from the University of Texas.
As soon as Ruth finished her last semester at the University of Texas, she and Elwood went to Fort Worth, and Elwood’s parents, Pappy and Leona, drove them to the University of Wisconsin in Madison.
Elwood and Ruth at the University of Wisconsin: The First Time
Once in Madison, they found a place to stay on Johnson Street, bought a double boiler, a skillet, two “Blue Willow” plates, and, maybe, two cereal bowls. Elwood immediately started graduate school under Dr. Irwin and went to work in his lab, and Ruth took a job at Montgomery Ward’s catalog department. Soon after, they moved to a “real apartment” on Lathrop Street, nearer the University.
Their apartment on Lathrop was one of two apartments on the second floor of a big house. The house had a side entrance to the stairs to the upstairs apartments. The couple who owned the apartments was named Hilleque. They had a little girl about 10 years old.
Elwood and Ruth took advantage of Ruth’s employee discount at Montgomery Ward and bought some furniture: a living room couch and chair, kitchen table and chairs, a bed, and a chest.
When the University of Texas finally got Ruth’s final transcript to the University of Wisconsin, Dr. Irwin also took Ruth on as a graduate student. About that time, a big chemical company set up the Badger Ordinance Plant north of Madison to manufacture munitions for American’s World War II efforts. The company advertised on the University campus for people with chemistry training. The company’s ads made it clear that the work the plant was doing was crucial to the war effort. So Elwood applied and was hired right away as a munitions inspector. He was able to gets rides from Madison to the Ordinance Plant with other Madison men who worked there. At that point, he had to set his graduate studies aside until he and Ruth returned to Madison at the end of the war.
Ruth continued to work in Dr. Irwin’s lab, where he set her to blood typing doves.
Elwood, Ruth, and Family During World War II
Elwood then found out about an Army Air Forces meteorology training program, applied for it, and was accepted. The pre-meteorology portion of the training program was to last about 6 months. Those who completed the pre-meteorology training program were to receive the additional training needed to become weather officers. He was first sent to basic training at Atlantic City, New Jersey. In a telephone conversation with his daughter Susan on June 15, 2003, he recalled that the trainees did their calisthenics on what normally would have been the beach. However, since the beach sand would have been too soft for such exertions, the Army in its infinite wisdom put coal cinders over the beach sand in the area where they wanted the soldiers to do their exercising. Thus, Elwood remembers the cinders leaving indentions in the palms of his hands following exercises like push ups that required the soldiers to put their bare hands on the cinders.
Following basic training, Elwood was sent to Amherst College, an old college in Amherst, Massachusetts, for pre-meteorology training. To join Elwood, Ruth first went from Wisconsin to New York City by train. When Ruth’s sister Beth, who was working in New York City at the time, found that Ruth would be changing trains in New York City on the way to Amherst, she asked Ruth to stop and see her, which Ruth did. At the time, Beth was staying in a hotel called the New Weston. One of Beth’s friends took Beth and Ruth to eat at the Rainbow Room at the top of Rockefeller Center.
When Ruth left Madison to join Elwood on the East Coast, Dr. Irwin hired another student to replace her in this lab. That young lady took over the rent of Elwood and Ruth’s apartment and rented their furniture from them.
Before Ruth arrived in Amherst, Elwood had found her a room to rent with Ruth Donahue and her husband on Prospect Street in Amherst. (At that point, Ruth Briles didn’t know that her mother’s mother’s maiden name was Donahoe and that she and Ruth Donahue might actually have been related. “Donahoe” and “Donahue” are just two spelling of the many spellings used by Ruth Briles’ Donahoe ancestors.) Elwood had to stay in the dormitory with the other cadets and could visit Ruth only during his time off.
Following instructions that Elwood had provided her, Ruth left New York City by train for Northampton, Massachusetts, which was the nearest train stop to Amherst. Then she took a bus from Northampton to Amherst.
Some time after Ruth arrived in Amherst, she discovered that she was pregnant. She found a doctor, Dr. James Huntington, in or near Amherst. He had been practicing in Boston, but had returned to the Amherst area to live in and care for an old family place that he had inherited. He took Ruth as a patient, but she and Elwood had to pay for each visit. When the Government finally decided that it should be responsible for the medical care of the dependents of the soldiers, it started paying for Ruth’s prenatal care. (Ruth recalls, however, that the doctor did not return any money that they had already paid.)
Since Ruth was renting a room, not an apartment, she could not have cooked there. She does not remember having kitchen privileges at the Donahues. She says that she remembers eating in town some, but that she and Elwood did not have enough money for her to have eaten out on a regular basis.
Ruth recalls that the people in Amherst were very nice to her. She remembers joining other women in knitting scarves and socks for the soldiers. Ruth says she wasn’t a very good knitter and had often wondered if the ladies had to redo the items that she knitted before sending them on to the soldiers.
Robert Frost lived in Amherst and was often in town while Ruth lived there. She remembers seeing him at the library. Ruth also recalls a well-know but rather reclusive local poetess and remembers reading her poems, but can’t recall her name.
During World War II, Ruth’s brother Jesse was in the Merchant Marine. (For more information on Jesse, see the Note for Jesse Rodman Wilson, Sr., elsewhere in these Family Tree Maker files.) The day before Ruth and Elwood’s first child Susan Marie was born was Christmas Day 1943. Elwood had to spend much of the day attending the Christmas celebrations organized for his unit of Army Air Forces Pre-Meteorology trainees. So Ruth’s sister Beth and their brother Jesse, who just happened to be in New York over the holidays, took the train from New York City to Amherst to spend have Christmas dinner with Ruth in a local inn. They then had to return to New York. But Elwood was able to get leave from his unit to spend the afternoon of Christmas Day with Ruth.
Early the next morning, December 26, 1943, Ruth’s water broke, so she called her doctor, who told her to go to Cooley Dickenson Hospital in Northampton. She doesn’t remember for sure who took her, but she thinks it was one of the neighbors. Later, she thought that it might have been Mr. and Mrs. Hunter Smith who took her. Ruth recalls that she had a long wait after she got to the hospital for Susan’s actual birth, which occurred at 6:35 p.m. on the 26th. At birth, Susan weighted 10 pounds, 11 ounces, and was 2 feet 3.5 inches long. Later when a nurse brought baby Susan in for Ruth to see her, Susan was all wrapped up in blankets, as was the custom at the time. Being the youngest child in her family, Ruth had precious little previous experience with babies. Thus, when Susan only opened one eye to look at Ruth, Ruth became upset, thinking that something must be wrong with her baby daughter. So the nurse got Susan to open her other eye and unwrapped her so that Ruth could see for herself that Susan had all of her fingers and toes and could move her arms and legs.
Beth came back from New York the next day, but could only stay a day before having to return to the city to work. Ruth then hemorrhaged so severely that she needed a transfusion. One of the cadets in Elwood’s unit provided the needed blood. A nurse at the hospital who was a friend of the Donahues, Mrs. Elizabeth Baldwin, served as a private nurse for Ruth for several days until she was well enough to return to routine hospital care.
When Ruth’s doctor and the hospital finally agreed to let Ruth go home, it was with the understanding that a nurse’s aid would stay with Ruth and Susan for a few days. Ruth doesn’t recall exactly how things were worked out with Mr. and Mrs. Donahue, but after a few days, the nurse’s aid was dismissed because she thought it was OK to let Susan cry all of the time because it would make her sleep better when she finally fell asleep. Mrs. Donahue must have helped Ruth care for Susan until Ruth was strong enough to do it herself.
A short while after that, the Army Air Forces decided that they did not need any more meteorologists and send all of the cadets to Mitchell Field, Long Island, to be trained as enlisted weather observers. (For more details on this subject provided by Elwood, see the Note for Susan Marie Briles elsewhere in these Family Tree Maker files.) Elwood got permission to take some leave before reporting to Mitchell Field, so, in February 1944, he, Ruth, and Susan went to Fort Worth, Texas, to visit both Ruth’s mother and Elwood’s parents and other family members. After spending a few days with Elwood’s parents, Worthy Harwood Briles (Pappy) and Leona Hays Connally Briles, on Rosedale in Fort Worth, Elwood took the train to Mitchell Field, and Ruth and Susan spent a few days with Ruth’s mother Ida Mitchel Hightower Wilson on Annis Street in Fort Worth. (For more on the family’s visit to Fort Worth, mostly taken from Susan’s baby book, see the Note for Susan Marie Briles.)
When Elwood got to Mitchell Field, since he was so thin, they sent him for some special tests at the base hospital. While he was going through the various labs to which he was sent for tests, he decided that he could probably be the most help to the war effort there, where he could use his previous biological training. When the doctors running the laboratories found out that Elwood had been doing doctoral work on immunology at the University of Wisconsin before joining the service, they wanted to “hire” him right away because he was so much better trained than most of their staff members. They promised him an immediate promotion in rank, but, since the War appeared to be winding down, all “home front” promotions were frozen. Thus, Elwood finished his stint in the Army Air Forces with the rank of Private First Class.
Elwood found an apartment for himself, Ruth, and Susan in Hempstead, Long Island, with Al and Elsie Palmer. The apartment had a bedroom and a kitchen! Al and Elsie had no children of their own and were, thus, delighted with Susan.
When Christmas of 1944 rolled around, Al and Elsie put up a big Christmas tree in their living room with lots of silver balls on it. When Susan saw her reflection in the balls, she would say “Baby in ball.”
At some point between November 1944 (when Con returned to the U.S. from Europe) and before David’s birth in May 1945, Elwood’s brother Con, who was in the Army Air Forces during World War II (flew B-25s from Corsica over Italy and North Africa), was in New York City on leave. Military personnel got free tickets to New York plays. Con had Elwood and Ruth come to New York from Long Island to see Mary Martin in A Touch of Venus with him. While he was there, he bought Susan a black lamb stuffed toy, which she remembers playing with and loving even after the family moved to Texas in 1948. (For more information on Con, especially on his World War II experiences, see the Note for Connally Oran Briles elsewhere in these Family Tree Maker files.)
Al and Elsie were only renting the house they lived in and rented part of to Elwood and Ruth. In the spring of 1945, the estate that owned the house put it up for sale. Neighbors of the Palmers—Stanley Allen, a retired Navy man, and his wife—owned a second house out in the country near Hempstead. They rented it to Elwood and Ruth so that they and Susan would have a place to live. Ruth recalls that the house had a big fenced-in yard and long driveway leading up to the house.
Elwood bought an old 1929 Buick so that he could drive back and forth from the country house to the hospital each day. Al Palmer, who was a postman, arranged to get a “mounted” route near the country house so that, each mail delivery day, he could pick Susan up and take her on the route with him for about 2 hours, nearly always buying Susan ice cream before taking her home. Ruth especially appreciated this time after Elwood and Ruth’s second child, David Elwood Briles, was born on May 26, 1945. Ruth could use the time that Susan was “delivering mail” with Al to bathe and otherwise care for David without also having to watch out for a walking little girl.
David’s birth was more normal (no hemorrhages, etc.). Elwood and Ruth have both recalled numerous times how much of a “square package” David appeared to be when he was born. As detailed in the Note for David Elwood Briles elsewhere in these Family Tree Maker files, after first deciding to name David “Robert Connally Briles,” Elwood and Ruth ended up naming him “David Elwood” instead.
Elwood and Ruth at the University of Wisconsin: The Second Time
About half a year after David’s birth, the Army Air Forces released Elwood from service. Thus, on November 17, 1945, the family headed back to Madison, Wisconsin, so that Elwood and Ruth could finish graduate school at the University of Wisconsin. The old 1929 Buick served the family well on its trip from New York to Wisconsin. Elwood and Ruth put two crib mattresses on the back seat, with bedding, clothing, etc., between the front and back seats. They then put pillows and blankets on the mattresses to give the two babies a place to sleep—when they weren’t in the front seat with Ruth, just one at a time, of course. David sat up for the first time during the trip while riding in the back seat of the Buick.
Elwood’s brother Con was still in the Army Air Forces at the time and was stationed at Chanute Field in Illinois. Elwood, Ruth, Susan, and David spent one night at Chanute Field with Con and his wife Jewell on their way to Madison. (For information on Con, see the Note for Connally Oran Briles elsewhere in these Family Tree Maker files.)
When the family first arrived in Madison, they lived in an upstairs apartment of a home at 705 Milton Street belonging to an Italian family. Ruth remembers that the family was Italian because the wife would bring share some of her delicious sauce with them every Sunday. Ruth soon learned to have pasta ready to cook on Sundays to have with the sauce that the kind lady shared with them. The family moved to Badger Village, north of Madison, which had originally been built to house workers at the Badger Ordinance Plant, where Elwood worked right before he joined the Army Air Forces. (For more information on Badger Village, see the Note for Susan Marie Briles.)
In 1948 Ruth received her M.S. Degree in Immunogenetics from the University of Wisconsin and Elwood received his Ph.D., also in Immunogenetics.
Briles Family in College Station, Texas
From 1948 through 1951, Elwood was an Assistant Professor of Poultry Science at Texas A & M University in College Station, Texas. From 1951 through 1957, he was Associate Professor of Poultry Science, also at A & M. (See the Note for Susan Marie Briles elsewhere in these Family Tree Maker files for additional information on the family’s stay in the Bryan-College Station, Texas, area.)
It was while Ruth and her family were living in College Station that her and Elwood’s third child, Sara Jean, was born in nearby Bryan, Texas, on March 14, 1953.
While the family lived in College Station, Ruth was homeroom mother for Susan’s and David’s school rooms, was a Brownie and Girl Scout leader for Susan’s scout troops, and was a Cub Scout leader for David’s scout troops. Because Susan had to stay home most of her first grade year with an autoimmune disease, Ruth taught Susan most of Susan’s first grade lessons. Ruth obviously did a good job because Susan was able to start second grade with the rest of her classmates!
Briles Family in DeKalb, Illinois
The family moved to DeKalb, Illinois, in 1957, where Elwood was Head of Immunogenetic Research at the “DeKalb Ag” from 1957 through 1970. From 1958 through 1968, Ruth worked with Elwood at the DeKalb Ag as a Research Associate for Immunogenetics Research. Then, from 1968 through 1970, Ruth was an Instructor in Biological Sciences at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb.
From 1970 through 1987, Elwood was Professor of Biological Sciences at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Illinois, and from 1987 (when he supposedly retired) until the present he has been an Adjunct Professor of Biological Sciences at the same institution. Ruth worked with Elwood at NIU from 1970 through 2000, where she was a Research Associate in Biological Sciences.
For a time, Ruth was also volunteered as the Superintendent of the Sunday School at the First Congregational Church in DeKalb.
For some additional information on the family in DeKalb, see the Notes for Worthie Elwood Briles and Susan Marie Briles elsewhere in these Family Tree Maker files. See Elwood’s Note and David Elwood Briles’ Note for information on the family’s “farm” on North Grove Road west of Sycamore, Illinois.
During her career, Ruth coauthored 45 publications, those coauthors sometimes including her husband Worthie Elwood Briles. Of those 45 publications, two were book chapter, 45 were journal articles, and 17 were abstracts in scientific journals or in the proceedings of scientific meetings.
On October 9, 2004, Ruth and Elwood were recognized for Significant Contributions to the Knowledge of Avian Disease Resistant Genetics by the USDA’s NE-1016 Project, “Genetic Basis for Resistance and Immunity to Avian Diseases. Over 80 people attended the banquet at the Sky Rom in the Holmes Student Center at Northern Illinois University, some of them coming from as far away as Austria.
In May 2006, Janet E. Fulton, Robert L. Taylor, Jr., et al., dedicated an article titled "Molecular genotype indentification of the Gallus gallus major histocompatibility complex" in the journal "Immunogenetics" as follows: "This manuscript is dedicated to W. Elwood and Ruth W. Briles in recognition of more than five decades of research dedicated to the discovery and understanding of avian blood groups. Dr. and Mrs. Briles continue to conduct exceptional research, share their expertise, and inspire scientists to investigate the intricacies of avian immunogenetics."
She goes by “Ruth” rather than “Clara.”
Ruth was born in Riverside, Fort Worth, Texas, on November 9, 1919, to Robert Pierce Wilson I and Ida Mitchel Hightower Wilson. She was the last of their seven children. Ruth’s father died on May 16. 1922, when she was only 2 years old. For more information on Ruth’s parents, see their “Notes” elsewhere in these Family Tree Maker files.
Ruth was named for her father’s older sister Clara Eugene Wilson. In a telephone conversation on July 2, 2003, Ruth told her daughter Susan Briles Kniebes that one of the reasons she preferred to be called “Ruth” rather than “Clara” was that every time her grandmother Jessie Rodman Pierce Wilson said her name, she felt that her Grandmother Wilson was reminded of her dead daughter. Clara Eugene Wilson had died in 1890 at the age of 28.
On April 28, 1982, Anne Wilson Vanderhoof (Jesse Pierce Wilson’s granddaughter) provided the following information in a letter to Sara Briles Moriarty (a granddaughter of Robert Pierce Wilson, who was the brother of Anne’s father Jesse Rodman Wilson I, and the youngest daughter of Ruth Wilson Briles):
“I remember your mother Ruth with affection. She was the first cousin nearest my own age. We spent a few days together many years ago when she was visiting her sister Ida Krebs. We went to the New York World’s Fair together and to Jones Beach, as I remember.”
Ruth’s “Family History” follows:
High School Education
Worthie Elwood Briles: Elwood graduated from Polytechnic High School in Fort Worth in 1936. He was the Valedictorian of his class.
Clara Ruth Wilson Briles: Ruth graduated from Polytechnic High School in Fort Worth in 1938.
Undergraduate Education
Elwood: He was offered a tuition-only scholarship to Rice University. However, since the scholarship did not cover housing, books, etc., he could not afford to go to Rice. Instead he went to North Texas Agricultural College (NTAC), later Texas University, in Arlington, Texas, for 3 years. While Elwood was there, a chemistry professor hired him to help run the chemistry labs. As discussed below, he later transferred to the University of Texas in Austin.
While Elwood was at NTAC, he met Dr. Sarah Bedechek Pipkin, the daughter of an Austin naturalist and author, who was teaching there. Sarah had attended the University of Texas in Austin, where she had worked in the Drosophlea (fruit fly) genetics labs with Dr. J. T. Patterson and Dr. Wilson Stone. Their work concentrated on speciation. They wanted to collect Drosophlea from different parts of the country. Dr. Pipkin encouraged Elwood to collect Drosophlea from the Fort Worth area, which he sent to by mail in small g lass tubes to Drs. Patterson and Stone’s lab in Austin. (When Elwood and Ruth’s son David took genetics at the University of Texas in the late 1960s, he worked with strains of Drosophlea whose labels indicated that the original members of the strain had been collected by Elwood.)
Ruth thinks that it was Dr. Pipkin who brought Elwood to the attention of Drs. Patterson and Stone at the “fly lab” at the University of Texas in Austin and helped him get to the University. As note above, Elwood was at NTAC for 3 years before he transferred to the University of Texas.
Ruth: Ruth attended NTAC for just 1 year, then she too transferred to the University of Texas.
How Elwood and Ruth Met
Part of the last year that Elwood was at NTAC, Ruth was living with her brother Travis Hudson Wilson I, his second wife Maurine Wilcher Hightower Wilson, and their children by their first marriages on Donalee Street in Fort Worth. Travis’s children were Helen Ruth, June, Travis, Jr., and Jan and Maurine’s daughter was Peggy Hightower. Ruth was living with Travis and Maurine while her mother Ida Mitchel Hightower Wilson was working for Mr. and Mrs. Fred Harvey in Dallas. [As of November 11, 2003, we have not been able to find a connection between the Hightowers to whom Peggy was related (see ancestors of Peggy Jane Hightower elsewhere in these Family Tree Maker files) and the Hightower to whom Ruth’s mother was related.]
Ruth and Helen Ruth were always friends and kept in contact until Helen Ruth’s death in 1994. Peggy and Ruth became good friends and still stay in contact with each other.
Concerning the Harveys, they had a young girl that had to be closely watched because she had a thymus gland that failed to shrink as quickly as it should have, a normal boy a couple of years older, and a teenage girl, whose mother, Mr. Harvey’s first wife, had died. This daughter really resented the second Mrs. Harvey, her step-mother. Ida was able to make friends with this teenage daughter. The Harveys really appreciated Ida and kept in touch with her after she later moved to California.
Elwood and Ruth met when he was an instructor for one of her chemistry labs. However, Ruth remembers seeing him before that walking with his little sister Jeanie to downtown “Poly” (short for “Polytechnique”), which was a section of Fort Worth.
When Elwood first came to see Ruth at Travis and Maurine’s, Travis had bought some chicks that had gotten loose. Travis was very impressed by Elwood’s ability to help him catch and properly settle the new chicks.
Elwood and Ruth at the University of Texas
Elwood was able to afford to go to the University of Texas in Austin because Dr. Pipkin helped him get a job at the “fly lab.” His parents weren’t able to help him because of the need to care for his younger brothers (three) and sisters (two) at home. Also, since Elwood had received some recognition for his art work during high school and had helped his father, Worthy Harwood (Jack) Briles (known as “Pappy” to his family), with his sign-painting business during the summers, his father would have preferred that Elwood permanently join him in that business. Elwood’s mother, Leona Hays Connally Briles, once expressed a desire for Elwood to become a postman because, during the Depression, postmen and other government employees kept their jobs while others, including Pappy and some members of Leona’s extended family, were unemployed or at least under-employed. But Elwood had other ideas!
While Elwood was in high school and at NTAC, he had belonged to the National Guard, which brought him in some money, but, after he transferred to the University of Texas in Austin, he was no longer able to belong to the National Guard.
Ruth was able to afford to go to the University of Texas because her grandfather Nathaniel Wilson’s will was finally settled. (He had died on May 31, 1930.) The portion of Nathaniel’s estate that would have gone to Ruth’s father Robert Pierce Wilson I, who had died in 1922, went instead to his daughters. It wasn’t much. But since Ruth’s sister Beth Wilson had already finished her schooling, she gave her portion of the estate to Ruth. (For more information on Beth, see the Note for Sarah Elizabeth Wilson elsewhere in these Family Tree Maker files.) And, when she could spare the money, Ruth’s mother gave Ruth the income from a small home on Annis Street in Fort Worth that she rented while she was working for the Harveys and no longer needed a place to live. (Ruth’s father originally built the house with a set of outside stairs so that his sons could live upstairs and he would have room to run his metal-working business downstairs.)
One of the reasons that the portion of Nathaniel’s estate going to his descendants wasn’t more was that, first of all, he had five children in addition to Ruth’s father. A second reason was that one of Nathaniel’s daughters, Aunt Leila (Mrs. Clyde Lily), who had a big home on East Lancaster in Fort Worth, had kept her mother (Ruth’s grandmother) Jessie Rodman Pierce Wilson in her home after Nathaniel died and wanted to be repaid for her expenses before the remainder of his estate was distributed.
When Elwood and Ruth were at the University of Texas, Elwood stayed at “Little Campus Dormitory,” and Ruth and several other girls rented the upstairs of a home. Ruth remembers the girls sleeping on the sleeping porch, sometimes well after cold weather set in, so they had more room for studying, etc., in the remainder of the upstairs. In December 2003, Elwood recalled that the home in which Ruth stayed was at the south end of the 1940s University of Texas campus and across from the “flying horse” fountain.
Late one summer, after Ruth‘s brother Travis and his wife Maurine had moved from Fort Worth to Padre Island, the wife of one of Travis’ friends was driving to Padre and stopped by Austin to pick Ruth up and take her to Padre to visit her brother. Elwood later hitchhiked down. Aunt Maurine showed them both a good time. They especially remember her showing them “little organisms” on the beach.
While Elwood and Ruth were at the University of Texas, they both worked in the “fly lab” for Dr. Stone. Ruth also worked for a short while in the University’s library, recording information (title, author, publisher, etc.) from a collection of old books.
Once in awhile while Elwood and Ruth were at the University of Texas and before they were married, Ruth would loan him money so that he had enough to pay his tuition.
By the end of Ruth’s second year (1941) at the University of Texas, she was ready to graduate if she just went to one more summer school session, having already attended NTAC for a year before transferring to the University and having attended class during summer sessions as well as the fall and spring sessions the entire time she was at the University. By that time, Elwood had already graduated.
Elwood and Ruth Get Married
They told Dr. Stone that they wanted to get married and start graduate school at the University. At that time, Dr. Stone had grants from the Rockefeller Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. He told Elwood and Ruth that he could put each of them on a separate grant. Then he found that he could not do that because the University of Texas had strong anti-nepotism rules that were started in response to the “Ma and Pa Ferguson episode” to keep institutions from hiring the relatives of current employees.
Once Dr. Stone realized that he couldn’t hire both Elwood and Ruth, he remembered a conversation that he had had with Dr. Robert Irwin at the University of Wisconsin in which Dr. Irwin said he was looking for a graduate student to do research in his immunogenetics lab. Dr. Stone told Elwood about Dr. Irwin’s need for a graduate student. Elwood went to the library and read all he could find about Dr. Irwin’s research. Elwood then sent Dr. Irwin a copy of his records.
In the meantime, Elwood and Ruth got married on June 6, 1941, by the Justice of the Peace at the Austin City Hall. Ruth had told her mother Ida about their plans to get married and Ida was going to plan a wedding in Fort Worth, but Elwood and Ruth had more friends in Austin than in Fort Worth and knew that any kind of a formal wedding would cost more than they or their families could afford.
Dr. Stone arranged for a wedding lunch for them and all of the people who worked in his lab with them in a Mexican restaurant that wasn’t normally open for lunch.
Ruth described her wedding dress as “a regular dress, which I wore several more times over the next few years. It was blue and white and had what might have been sheep on it.” There is a photo of Elwood and Ruth taken either the day of their wedding or shortly thereafter in which Ruth is wearing that dress. Ruth thought that the dress that she wore to their wedding was in a trunk somewhere in the basement of their house on the farm near Sycamore, Illinois. However, we later looked in the trunk for the dress and could not find it.
After Elwood and Ruth got married, they rented a little apartment to live in while Ruth went to summer school, her last semester at the University of Texas. Ruth also applied to graduate school at the University of Wisconsin, but, of course, the University couldn‘t complete its review of her application until it receive the transcript from her final semester at the University of Texas. On her application, she signed her name “Ruth Wilson Briles” because she was not sure which last name would appear on her transcripts from the University of Texas.
As soon as Ruth finished her last semester at the University of Texas, she and Elwood went to Fort Worth, and Elwood’s parents, Pappy and Leona, drove them to the University of Wisconsin in Madison.
Elwood and Ruth at the University of Wisconsin: The First Time
Once in Madison, they found a place to stay on Johnson Street, bought a double boiler, a skillet, two “Blue Willow” plates, and, maybe, two cereal bowls. Elwood immediately started graduate school under Dr. Irwin and went to work in his lab, and Ruth took a job at Montgomery Ward’s catalog department. Soon after, they moved to a “real apartment” on Lathrop Street, nearer the University.
Their apartment on Lathrop was one of two apartments on the second floor of a big house. The house had a side entrance to the stairs to the upstairs apartments. The couple who owned the apartments was named Hilleque. They had a little girl about 10 years old.
Elwood and Ruth took advantage of Ruth’s employee discount at Montgomery Ward and bought some furniture: a living room couch and chair, kitchen table and chairs, a bed, and a chest.
When the University of Texas finally got Ruth’s final transcript to the University of Wisconsin, Dr. Irwin also took Ruth on as a graduate student. About that time, a big chemical company set up the Badger Ordinance Plant north of Madison to manufacture munitions for American’s World War II efforts. The company advertised on the University campus for people with chemistry training. The company’s ads made it clear that the work the plant was doing was crucial to the war effort. So Elwood applied and was hired right away as a munitions inspector. He was able to gets rides from Madison to the Ordinance Plant with other Madison men who worked there. At that point, he had to set his graduate studies aside until he and Ruth returned to Madison at the end of the war.
Ruth continued to work in Dr. Irwin’s lab, where he set her to blood typing doves.
Elwood, Ruth, and Family During World War II
Elwood then found out about an Army Air Forces meteorology training program, applied for it, and was accepted. The pre-meteorology portion of the training program was to last about 6 months. Those who completed the pre-meteorology training program were to receive the additional training needed to become weather officers. He was first sent to basic training at Atlantic City, New Jersey. In a telephone conversation with his daughter Susan on June 15, 2003, he recalled that the trainees did their calisthenics on what normally would have been the beach. However, since the beach sand would have been too soft for such exertions, the Army in its infinite wisdom put coal cinders over the beach sand in the area where they wanted the soldiers to do their exercising. Thus, Elwood remembers the cinders leaving indentions in the palms of his hands following exercises like push ups that required the soldiers to put their bare hands on the cinders.
Following basic training, Elwood was sent to Amherst College, an old college in Amherst, Massachusetts, for pre-meteorology training. To join Elwood, Ruth first went from Wisconsin to New York City by train. When Ruth’s sister Beth, who was working in New York City at the time, found that Ruth would be changing trains in New York City on the way to Amherst, she asked Ruth to stop and see her, which Ruth did. At the time, Beth was staying in a hotel called the New Weston. One of Beth’s friends took Beth and Ruth to eat at the Rainbow Room at the top of Rockefeller Center.
When Ruth left Madison to join Elwood on the East Coast, Dr. Irwin hired another student to replace her in this lab. That young lady took over the rent of Elwood and Ruth’s apartment and rented their furniture from them.
Before Ruth arrived in Amherst, Elwood had found her a room to rent with Ruth Donahue and her husband on Prospect Street in Amherst. (At that point, Ruth Briles didn’t know that her mother’s mother’s maiden name was Donahoe and that she and Ruth Donahue might actually have been related. “Donahoe” and “Donahue” are just two spelling of the many spellings used by Ruth Briles’ Donahoe ancestors.) Elwood had to stay in the dormitory with the other cadets and could visit Ruth only during his time off.
Following instructions that Elwood had provided her, Ruth left New York City by train for Northampton, Massachusetts, which was the nearest train stop to Amherst. Then she took a bus from Northampton to Amherst.
Some time after Ruth arrived in Amherst, she discovered that she was pregnant. She found a doctor, Dr. James Huntington, in or near Amherst. He had been practicing in Boston, but had returned to the Amherst area to live in and care for an old family place that he had inherited. He took Ruth as a patient, but she and Elwood had to pay for each visit. When the Government finally decided that it should be responsible for the medical care of the dependents of the soldiers, it started paying for Ruth’s prenatal care. (Ruth recalls, however, that the doctor did not return any money that they had already paid.)
Since Ruth was renting a room, not an apartment, she could not have cooked there. She does not remember having kitchen privileges at the Donahues. She says that she remembers eating in town some, but that she and Elwood did not have enough money for her to have eaten out on a regular basis.
Ruth recalls that the people in Amherst were very nice to her. She remembers joining other women in knitting scarves and socks for the soldiers. Ruth says she wasn’t a very good knitter and had often wondered if the ladies had to redo the items that she knitted before sending them on to the soldiers.
Robert Frost lived in Amherst and was often in town while Ruth lived there. She remembers seeing him at the library. Ruth also recalls a well-know but rather reclusive local poetess and remembers reading her poems, but can’t recall her name.
During World War II, Ruth’s brother Jesse was in the Merchant Marine. (For more information on Jesse, see the Note for Jesse Rodman Wilson, Sr., elsewhere in these Family Tree Maker files.) The day before Ruth and Elwood’s first child Susan Marie was born was Christmas Day 1943. Elwood had to spend much of the day attending the Christmas celebrations organized for his unit of Army Air Forces Pre-Meteorology trainees. So Ruth’s sister Beth and their brother Jesse, who just happened to be in New York over the holidays, took the train from New York City to Amherst to spend have Christmas dinner with Ruth in a local inn. They then had to return to New York. But Elwood was able to get leave from his unit to spend the afternoon of Christmas Day with Ruth.
Early the next morning, December 26, 1943, Ruth’s water broke, so she called her doctor, who told her to go to Cooley Dickenson Hospital in Northampton. She doesn’t remember for sure who took her, but she thinks it was one of the neighbors. Later, she thought that it might have been Mr. and Mrs. Hunter Smith who took her. Ruth recalls that she had a long wait after she got to the hospital for Susan’s actual birth, which occurred at 6:35 p.m. on the 26th. At birth, Susan weighted 10 pounds, 11 ounces, and was 2 feet 3.5 inches long. Later when a nurse brought baby Susan in for Ruth to see her, Susan was all wrapped up in blankets, as was the custom at the time. Being the youngest child in her family, Ruth had precious little previous experience with babies. Thus, when Susan only opened one eye to look at Ruth, Ruth became upset, thinking that something must be wrong with her baby daughter. So the nurse got Susan to open her other eye and unwrapped her so that Ruth could see for herself that Susan had all of her fingers and toes and could move her arms and legs.
Beth came back from New York the next day, but could only stay a day before having to return to the city to work. Ruth then hemorrhaged so severely that she needed a transfusion. One of the cadets in Elwood’s unit provided the needed blood. A nurse at the hospital who was a friend of the Donahues, Mrs. Elizabeth Baldwin, served as a private nurse for Ruth for several days until she was well enough to return to routine hospital care.
When Ruth’s doctor and the hospital finally agreed to let Ruth go home, it was with the understanding that a nurse’s aid would stay with Ruth and Susan for a few days. Ruth doesn’t recall exactly how things were worked out with Mr. and Mrs. Donahue, but after a few days, the nurse’s aid was dismissed because she thought it was OK to let Susan cry all of the time because it would make her sleep better when she finally fell asleep. Mrs. Donahue must have helped Ruth care for Susan until Ruth was strong enough to do it herself.
A short while after that, the Army Air Forces decided that they did not need any more meteorologists and send all of the cadets to Mitchell Field, Long Island, to be trained as enlisted weather observers. (For more details on this subject provided by Elwood, see the Note for Susan Marie Briles elsewhere in these Family Tree Maker files.) Elwood got permission to take some leave before reporting to Mitchell Field, so, in February 1944, he, Ruth, and Susan went to Fort Worth, Texas, to visit both Ruth’s mother and Elwood’s parents and other family members. After spending a few days with Elwood’s parents, Worthy Harwood Briles (Pappy) and Leona Hays Connally Briles, on Rosedale in Fort Worth, Elwood took the train to Mitchell Field, and Ruth and Susan spent a few days with Ruth’s mother Ida Mitchel Hightower Wilson on Annis Street in Fort Worth. (For more on the family’s visit to Fort Worth, mostly taken from Susan’s baby book, see the Note for Susan Marie Briles.)
When Elwood got to Mitchell Field, since he was so thin, they sent him for some special tests at the base hospital. While he was going through the various labs to which he was sent for tests, he decided that he could probably be the most help to the war effort there, where he could use his previous biological training. When the doctors running the laboratories found out that Elwood had been doing doctoral work on immunology at the University of Wisconsin before joining the service, they wanted to “hire” him right away because he was so much better trained than most of their staff members. They promised him an immediate promotion in rank, but, since the War appeared to be winding down, all “home front” promotions were frozen. Thus, Elwood finished his stint in the Army Air Forces with the rank of Private First Class.
Elwood found an apartment for himself, Ruth, and Susan in Hempstead, Long Island, with Al and Elsie Palmer. The apartment had a bedroom and a kitchen! Al and Elsie had no children of their own and were, thus, delighted with Susan.
When Christmas of 1944 rolled around, Al and Elsie put up a big Christmas tree in their living room with lots of silver balls on it. When Susan saw her reflection in the balls, she would say “Baby in ball.”
At some point between November 1944 (when Con returned to the U.S. from Europe) and before David’s birth in May 1945, Elwood’s brother Con, who was in the Army Air Forces during World War II (flew B-25s from Corsica over Italy and North Africa), was in New York City on leave. Military personnel got free tickets to New York plays. Con had Elwood and Ruth come to New York from Long Island to see Mary Martin in A Touch of Venus with him. While he was there, he bought Susan a black lamb stuffed toy, which she remembers playing with and loving even after the family moved to Texas in 1948. (For more information on Con, especially on his World War II experiences, see the Note for Connally Oran Briles elsewhere in these Family Tree Maker files.)
Al and Elsie were only renting the house they lived in and rented part of to Elwood and Ruth. In the spring of 1945, the estate that owned the house put it up for sale. Neighbors of the Palmers—Stanley Allen, a retired Navy man, and his wife—owned a second house out in the country near Hempstead. They rented it to Elwood and Ruth so that they and Susan would have a place to live. Ruth recalls that the house had a big fenced-in yard and long driveway leading up to the house.
Elwood bought an old 1929 Buick so that he could drive back and forth from the country house to the hospital each day. Al Palmer, who was a postman, arranged to get a “mounted” route near the country house so that, each mail delivery day, he could pick Susan up and take her on the route with him for about 2 hours, nearly always buying Susan ice cream before taking her home. Ruth especially appreciated this time after Elwood and Ruth’s second child, David Elwood Briles, was born on May 26, 1945. Ruth could use the time that Susan was “delivering mail” with Al to bathe and otherwise care for David without also having to watch out for a walking little girl.
David’s birth was more normal (no hemorrhages, etc.). Elwood and Ruth have both recalled numerous times how much of a “square package” David appeared to be when he was born. As detailed in the Note for David Elwood Briles elsewhere in these Family Tree Maker files, after first deciding to name David “Robert Connally Briles,” Elwood and Ruth ended up naming him “David Elwood” instead.
Elwood and Ruth at the University of Wisconsin: The Second Time
About half a year after David’s birth, the Army Air Forces released Elwood from service. Thus, on November 17, 1945, the family headed back to Madison, Wisconsin, so that Elwood and Ruth could finish graduate school at the University of Wisconsin. The old 1929 Buick served the family well on its trip from New York to Wisconsin. Elwood and Ruth put two crib mattresses on the back seat, with bedding, clothing, etc., between the front and back seats. They then put pillows and blankets on the mattresses to give the two babies a place to sleep—when they weren’t in the front seat with Ruth, just one at a time, of course. David sat up for the first time during the trip while riding in the back seat of the Buick.
Elwood’s brother Con was still in the Army Air Forces at the time and was stationed at Chanute Field in Illinois. Elwood, Ruth, Susan, and David spent one night at Chanute Field with Con and his wife Jewell on their way to Madison. (For information on Con, see the Note for Connally Oran Briles elsewhere in these Family Tree Maker files.)
When the family first arrived in Madison, they lived in an upstairs apartment of a home at 705 Milton Street belonging to an Italian family. Ruth remembers that the family was Italian because the wife would bring share some of her delicious sauce with them every Sunday. Ruth soon learned to have pasta ready to cook on Sundays to have with the sauce that the kind lady shared with them. The family moved to Badger Village, north of Madison, which had originally been built to house workers at the Badger Ordinance Plant, where Elwood worked right before he joined the Army Air Forces. (For more information on Badger Village, see the Note for Susan Marie Briles.)
In 1948 Ruth received her M.S. Degree in Immunogenetics from the University of Wisconsin and Elwood received his Ph.D., also in Immunogenetics.
Briles Family in College Station, Texas
From 1948 through 1951, Elwood was an Assistant Professor of Poultry Science at Texas A & M University in College Station, Texas. From 1951 through 1957, he was Associate Professor of Poultry Science, also at A & M. (See the Note for Susan Marie Briles elsewhere in these Family Tree Maker files for additional information on the family’s stay in the Bryan-College Station, Texas, area.)
It was while Ruth and her family were living in College Station that her and Elwood’s third child, Sara Jean, was born in nearby Bryan, Texas, on March 14, 1953.
While the family lived in College Station, Ruth was homeroom mother for Susan’s and David’s school rooms, was a Brownie and Girl Scout leader for Susan’s scout troops, and was a Cub Scout leader for David’s scout troops. Because Susan had to stay home most of her first grade year with an autoimmune disease, Ruth taught Susan most of Susan’s first grade lessons. Ruth obviously did a good job because Susan was able to start second grade with the rest of her classmates!
Briles Family in DeKalb, Illinois
The family moved to DeKalb, Illinois, in 1957, where Elwood was Head of Immunogenetic Research at the “DeKalb Ag” from 1957 through 1970. From 1958 through 1968, Ruth worked with Elwood at the DeKalb Ag as a Research Associate for Immunogenetics Research. Then, from 1968 through 1970, Ruth was an Instructor in Biological Sciences at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb.
From 1970 through 1987, Elwood was Professor of Biological Sciences at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Illinois, and from 1987 (when he supposedly retired) until the present he has been an Adjunct Professor of Biological Sciences at the same institution. Ruth worked with Elwood at NIU from 1970 through 2000, where she was a Research Associate in Biological Sciences.
For a time, Ruth was also volunteered as the Superintendent of the Sunday School at the First Congregational Church in DeKalb.
For some additional information on the family in DeKalb, see the Notes for Worthie Elwood Briles and Susan Marie Briles elsewhere in these Family Tree Maker files. See Elwood’s Note and David Elwood Briles’ Note for information on the family’s “farm” on North Grove Road west of Sycamore, Illinois.
During her career, Ruth coauthored 45 publications, those coauthors sometimes including her husband Worthie Elwood Briles. Of those 45 publications, two were book chapter, 45 were journal articles, and 17 were abstracts in scientific journals or in the proceedings of scientific meetings.
On October 9, 2004, Ruth and Elwood were recognized for Significant Contributions to the Knowledge of Avian Disease Resistant Genetics by the USDA’s NE-1016 Project, “Genetic Basis for Resistance and Immunity to Avian Diseases. Over 80 people attended the banquet at the Sky Rom in the Holmes Student Center at Northern Illinois University, some of them coming from as far away as Austria.
In May 2006, Janet E. Fulton, Robert L. Taylor, Jr., et al., dedicated an article titled "Molecular genotype indentification of the Gallus gallus major histocompatibility complex" in the journal "Immunogenetics" as follows: "This manuscript is dedicated to W. Elwood and Ruth W. Briles in recognition of more than five decades of research dedicated to the discovery and understanding of avian blood groups. Dr. and Mrs. Briles continue to conduct exceptional research, share their expertise, and inspire scientists to investigate the intricacies of avian immunogenetics."
Events
| Birth | 9 Nov 1919 | Riverside, Fort Worth, Tarrant County, Texas |  | ||
| Marriage | 6 Jun 1941 | Austin, Travis County, Texas - Worthie Elwood Briles | | ||
| Death | 7 May 2011 | DeKalb County Hospice at the DeKalb County Rehabilitation and Nursing Center, DeKalb |
Families
| Spouse | Worthie Elwood Briles (1918 - 2016) |
| Child | Susan Marie Briles (1943 - ) |
| Child | David Elwood Briles (1945 - ) |
| Child | Sara Jean Briles (1953 - ) |
| Father | Robert Pierce Wilson (1882 - 1922) |
| Mother | Ida Mitchell Hightower (1882 - 1977) |
| Sibling | Robert Pierce Wilson Jr. (1903 - 1990) |
| Sibling | Travis Hudson Wilson (1906 - 1970) |
| Sibling | Ida Gertrude Wilson (1909 - 1995) |
| Sibling | Charlotte Josephine Wilson (1911 - 1968) |
| Sibling | Sarah Elizabeth Wilson (1913 - 2001) |
| Sibling | Jesse Rodman Wilson Sr. (1915 - 1985) |
Endnotes
1. Ida Mitchel Hightower Wilson's "new" Bible..
2. Original Briles Family Genealogy Information Collected by Worthie Elwood Briles, Susan Marie Briles Kniebes, Sara Jean Br.