Tributes pour in for Ruth Chase: Friends honor political life, death of tireless activist

USA Today

29-01-2025

Tributes pour in for Ruth Chase: Friends honor political life, death of tireless activist
Ruth Chase will be remembered as a creative and tireless activist in the cause of 'liberation, equality, and democracy" – a fight continued even into her death, her close friends say.
The 76-year-old former restaurateur and landscaper was among the early group of residents 50 years ago to build their lives at the Miccosukee Land Co-Op, a 90-acre development in rural Leon County owned by about 300 residents. Chase was also a well-known community organizer and co-founder of one of the city's legacy restaurants, Food Glorious Food, which boasted a menu of recipes she collected from her travels in Europe.
More recently, Chase was the driving force behind the Masked Marvels, a group of knitters that stitched together more than 28,000 masks for hospital workers during the COVID pandemic. She also played the leading role in the Stone Soup Street Action Committee's street theater protests when she would dress in a giant Donald Trump head.
'Ruth was a fountain of good trouble, bringing smiles and humor to hard and important political work. Her perspective was unique. And inspiring. She made friends and community everywhere she went,' a statement from Indivisible Big Bend Florida said. She was a champion of the group devoted to resisting the "radical right agenda" and policies of President Donald Trump.
Much as she lived, Chase's final act was also colored by politics.
Her body was found Saturday afternoon at Sunrise and McClelland roads near the Miccosukee Co-Op.
She chose the time and place of her death. And mailed personalized letters to a score of people to explain why.
'Oh, it's connected to politics,' both Norine Cardea and Vicky Peace said while discussing their friend's death with the Tallahassee Democrat on Tuesday.
'Those of us closest to her know she wanted this out there. She wanted people to know why she was choosing this and this is a humane way for people to end their life,' said Cardea, who had known Chase for nearly 50 years.
A batch of final letters sought to explain 'Why Now?'
Peace's husband, Paul Peacock, found Chase's body. Chase had timed delivery of a text message to Peacock about where her body would be for two hours after she sent it.
Peacock, Peace and Cardea were among a small circle of friends who received letters afterward from Chase titled 'Why Leave Now?'
'There isn't a satisfactory way to word my explanation,' Chase wrote. 'The next four years (and possibly the next four decades) will be historically ignorant, depraved and cruel.'
'Had Harris won, I would have worked gladly towards policies which would have favored crushing global warming, racial and financial equity,' Chase explained.
The first batch of letters that went out had a personalized preamble, colored with personal references and nicknames. Peace's letter included Chase's wishes, and a second batch of letters to be mailed.
Chase compared the current political environment to a bullfight she witnessed as a child in Spain for why she changed her plans to move up her death.
'Although leaving the arena leaves me in an unknown and unfamiliar space, it feels better than the forthcoming arena of cruelty, injustice and the Quisling cheering crowds."
In the letter, Chase apologizes to the friends for misleading them about her end-of-life plans. While she told them she planned to move to Panama, she was quietly gifting, donating, or destroying her writings and art.
"I am NOT recommending my path to you at all, ever. You can be active, saintly, apathetic, air conditioned or whatever you choose to be. Your body, your choice. My body, my choice," Chase said in her goodbye letter, while instructing that her body be donated to a medical school to train doctors.
She concluded her letter with a checklist of all the ways her "life is enough," ranging from never having to wear high heels to having been "loved and adored" and loving and adoring right back.
"I'm opting out of this coming creep show not because life has been miserable to me," she wrote. "It has been unbelievable. It has been beautiful. I love it."
'She had a huge heart and just wanted to make life better for other people'
To those who knew and loved Chase, she was one of a kind.
"I will tell you this, almost everyone complains about problems, but Ruthie, unlike anyone I've ever known, consistently and relentlessly took action, day after day, to solve problems and help other people," Chase's brother Walter Moore wrote in a text message to the Tallahassee Democrat Monday.
"She didn't do it for fame, or money, or to obtain a political office. She did it because she had a huge heart and just wanted to make life better for other people," the Pasadena, California, attorney continued. "You could disagree with her politics, but you could not question her compassion, sincerity and commitment. Plus, she was hilarious and the best cook ever."
The 2016 election of President Donald Trump prompted Chase to organize a Stone Soup Street Action Committee in Tallahassee to call attention to the president's policies.
A half dozen men and women would gather on a Tallahassee street corner once a week during the morning commute and wave signs decrying a "sellout to Russia" and budgets cuts to environment and health programs.
Chase would don a giant papier-mâché Trump head, dress in prison stripes and wave a '4 Sale 'n' chief' sign to drivers. The sight gag was so popular when she attended a University of Florida protest in 2019 students lined up to take selfies with Chase.
Marty Monroe, a retired public school teacher, was among the Masked Marvels, a group of 200 volunteers Chase organized in 2020 after the University of Florida Medical Center announced it had found that material used to ship surgical equipment could be repurposed into facial masks for hospital workers during a pandemic-induced mask shortage.
The group worked out of the backs of pickup trucks, a wood shop and their dining room tables to stitch together the first batch of 500 masks.
After Leon County Schools offered up the Cobb Middle School Library as space, the group began to turn out 1,000 masks a week – and by the end of the pandemic had made 28,433 masks for Tallahassee Memorial Healthcare.
Chase's goodbye letter to Monroe was addressed to 'Smarty Marty.'
'We had had some conversations about being an old war horse and how you just get tired,' Monroe said. 'It was a beautiful letter.'
Monroe and Rep. Allison Tant, D-Tallahassee, remember Chase as an intensely passionate loving person with the relentless qualities of a bulldog once she sank her teeth into a cause.
"Ruth was a changemaker," Tant said. "She made a difference for others and leaves a legacy of walking the walk and having a deep commitment to her neighborhood, friends, family, and of course the candidates and causes she supported."
Leon County Commissioner David O'Keefe called Chase a political activist with a backbone and the heartbeat of community activism.
'She was a bulldog for people who needed a bulldog. This was not some person who could ever just turn off the news and take a break and sit out for a little while. This is someone who just couldn't let go of this incredible compassion that she had,' O'Keefe said.
O'Keefe recalled in his first campaign in 2022 Chase loaded up a red wagon with yard signs and walked neighborhoods on his behalf.
'It is no small part that I am where I am today because when I met her, she decided to help me,' O'Keefe said. 'She spent every day for the most of that year with a wagon that she pulled from door to door with road signs.'
'Joyous and heartbroken'
Those closest to her said they knew the 76-year-old Chase planned to end her life at the age of 80 because, with no children, Chase didn't want to be a burden to others.
Cardea was among the friends who enjoyed many long walks and deep conversations with Chase dating to when the two were in their early 20s. She said once Chase's mind was set, no one could talk her out of her plans.
'Ruthie kept her own counsel on this. Was she depressed? No. She was joyous and heartbroken; it comes through in the letter,' Cardea said.
Still, friends were shocked by the news.
Jewelry artist Quincie Hamby worked with Chase at the now closed Chez Pierre restaurant in 1996. She called Chase a vibrant spirit and the purest person she had ever met – a physically fit vegetarian who didn't drink alcohol.
Chase once lived for six months with Hamby and her husband. The two often would argue about Chase's plans to choose when to end her life.
'I would say, 'Why are you eating so well, drinking so well, taking care of your body if you want to die before 80? It doesn't make any sense.' And she goes, 'Well, I want to live well while I'm alive.' That's my Ruthie in a nutshell. And she was a force to be reckoned with," Hamby said, while admitting she finds herself grieving, because she thought she had four more years with her.
As they reflect on Chase's life, Peace and Cardea are helping to pack up her possessions and mementos for her family. They are planning a memorial service sometime in March.
"I feel like we have to keep her on our shoulder as a reminder of the power of taking on a task and staying with it,' Peace said.
Chase is survived by four siblings: Beverly Graddy of Tallahassee, Barbara Harrison of Monticello, Walter Moore of California and George Moore of Texas.
In her final letter, Chase wrote, "Don't send flowers, please." Instead she directed people to the Robert Chase Memorial Fund, which empowers people with disabilities, at macdonaldcenter.org/ways-to-give/.
Need help and looking for resources? While close friends say there's no indication Ruth Chase was in crisis, navigating a mental health issue for yourself or a loved one can be a difficult experience. You can call or text 988 to connect with a trained counselor.
James Call is a member of the USA TODAY NETWORK-Florida Capital Bureau. He can be reached at [e-mail] and is on X as @CallTallahassee.