DATE: Wednesday, November 5, 1997           TAG: 9711050374

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B8   EDITION: FINAL 

DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH                    LENGTH:   40 lines

JEANNIE B. RUFFIN

Jeannie Brooke Ruffin died Nov. 3, 1997, at the Windermere Nursing Home in Virginia Beach after a long illness. She was 97.

Mrs. Ruffin was born July 17, 1900, on Boush Street in Norfolk, the daughter of William Throckmorton Brooke, Norfolk City Engineer from 1882 to 1915, who played a leading role in designing the streets, bridges and parks of old Norfolk, and Mary Urguhart Goode, who was instrumental in founding Norfolk's kindergartens.

Mrs. Ruffin grew up in Norfolk and attended Maury High School, then Wheelock College in Boston where she was president of the student body during her senior year. She married Norfolk attorney, Edmund Sumter Ruffin Jr. and moved with her husband to Pittsburgh in 1929. Among her many interests and volunteer activities in Pittsburgh were the St. Anne's Guild of Calvary Church, the Pittsburgh Symphony and St. Margaret's Hospital where she organized and ran a program for hospital volunteers.

After her husband retired, they returned to Virginia and built a home on Crystal Lake at Virginia Beach. She became active in the Virginia Beach Hospital Auxiliary and helped organize an anti-litter campaign for which she designed a large papier-mache mascot, the ``Good Habit Rabbit'' now buried in Mount Trashmore.

She was a member of the Virginia Beach Garden Club, the Princess Anne Club, the Colonial Dames and an active member of the Eastern Shore Chapel Episcopal Church. Mrs. Ruffin is survived by her three children, Jean R. Lilly of Silverthorne, Colo., Cordelia R. Richards, of Annapolis, Md., and Edmund S. Ruffin, III, of Pittsburgh, Pa.; three grandchildren; and one great-grandchild.

A funeral service will be conducted 11 a.m. Friday, Nov. 7, 1997, at the Eastern Shore Chapel Episcopal Church by the Rev. Andrew MacBeth. Burial will be private. In lieu of flowers memorial donations may be made to the Eastern Shore Chapel Episcopal Church, 2020 Laskin Road, Virginia Beach, Va. 23454 or to a charity of choice. H.D. Oliver Funeral Apartments Laskin Road Chapel is handling arrangements. KEYWORDS: DEATH OBITUARY

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