Obituary of Ruby Dahlia Norwood

A Long and Fruitful Life: A Tribute to Ruby D. Norwood

Ruby Dahlia Norwood (nee Riddick), youngest daughter of the late Caleb Amos Riddick and Sarah Elizabeth Wiggins Riddick, was born on March 28, 1933 in Virginia Beach, VA. Known to her friends and family as R.D. or Ruby D., Ruby left this life to meet her Lord and Savior on January 26, 2018 at the Juniper Village at Brookline in State College, PA after battling a range of health challenges including kidney impairment, a stroke, and vascular dementia for the past several years. Ruby confronted her health problems the way she often faced adversity–by doing her absolute best to overcome the limitations created by her illness through careful research, exemplary care, and true grit. Ruby was an accomplished seamstress, successful model, and respected Executive Secretary who was known for her love for fashion and home design; cooking, music, and bowling; fabulous parties and card games; and watching figure skating and baseball along with her favorite shows Young and the Restless and Wheel of Fortune.

Rudy D. and her 14 siblings grew up on a farm that her father, who originally worked this land as a sharecropper, eventually owned while her mother died when Ruby was only 3 years old. Ruby and her siblings graduated from the Princess Anne County Training School, the only public school in the county open for colored children. Despite the racial discrimination they faced, she learned the value and importance of education to a fulfilled life. Upon graduation from high school, she married her high school sweetheart, the late Lt. Col. William Hamilton Jarvis, Sr. with whom she had three daughters and two sons. Ruby was fiercely devoted to her family and embraced her role as an Army wife and mother. When her youngest child was ready for school, she pursued her dreams of more education when she obtained her Executive Secretary training in 1961 at the Temple Business School in Washington, DC and eventually went on to work for AT&T, the Kansas Civil Rights Commission, the Military Intelligence Agency at Ft. Meade, MD and the Military Police at Ft. Eustis, Va.

As an Army wife, she helped her family adjust to the constant relocations and made her presence felt through her contributions to the military community in each of the military bases where the family was posted. She experienced success when she began her modeling career in Germany and continued this work in Virginia. During the early 1970’s her marriage to William Jarvis, Sr. ended in divorce; Ruby found love a second time when she married CMSgt. Albert L. Norwood in 1972 in Topeka. They relocated to the East Coast, settling first in Ft. Meade, MD, and ultimately in Newport News, VA near Ft. Eustis. Ruby had to retire from the Federal government on disability in the mid-1980’s. During this time, all of her children attended college and eventually became a business executive for Nestle, a medical student who worked for pharmaceutical companies, an attorney and professor of public policy, an engineer with GM, and an accountant and church secretary.

Ruby lost two of her daughters, Jaiver Lovelace Jarvis of Richmond, VA and Cleopatra Jarvis of Blue Springs, MO, much too soon in 1991 and 2001. Her husband Albert’s death followed in 2006. She is survived immediately by her sons and their wives: Bill, Jr. and Janice Jarvis of Arlington, TX and Robert, Sr. and Loraine Flattery Jarvis of Bellefonte, PA; her daughter Sonia R. Jarvis of Washington, DC, and her beloved sister Evelyn V. Riddick-Roett of Cliffside Park, NJ. Ruby’s extended family include her cherished six grandchildren-William H. Jarvis, III of TX; Robert D. Jarvis, Jr. (wife Anya Jarvis) of Portland, OR; Danielle N. Jarvis of Virginia Beach, VA; Paige E. Jarvis of Arlington, TX; Jason W. Jarvis of Bellefonte, PA; and Keenan H. Jarvis of Bellefonte, PA—and two precious great-granddaughters: Isabella and Josephine, of Portland, OR. Other family members include her sister-in-law Geraldine Nelson of Upper Marlboro, MD, and numerous nieces and nephews, cousins, and countless dear friends. The bright light and energy that Ruby D. shared with all who were blessed to know her will now be directed by those who survive her in a different manner.

Her memorial service will be held at the Greater Buffalo Run Valley United Methodist Church, Pastor Calvin Miller presiding, in Bellefonte, PA on February 3, 2018 from 2:00 to 4:00 pm followed by a repast. Ruby believed in supporting groups devoted to research to combat lupus, cancer and dementia; assisting the poor both at home and abroad; education for minority students; and women’s rights and global hunger. If any of these causes resonant with you, the family requests that in lieu of flowers you would make a contribution to the Lupus Foundation in the name of Ruby D. Norwood or to groups confronting the causes she championed and let us know. This would be a most fitting memorial to our mother, sister, grandmother, cousin, and dear friend.