Couple dedicated to community
ByEducation, community service and career have defined the lives of Clarence and Ruth Lewis, a Manteo couple who traveled and lived around the world while Clarence was in the military, coming back to Manteo to live after Clarence’s retirement from the military, in part to provide family support for Ruth’s aged mother. Once here, they found many outlets for their talents and community concern.
Clarence and Ruth Lewis met in 1974 when Ruth was attending the relatively new College of the Albemarle, then located in the vacated Albemarle Hospital facility in Elizabeth City and Clarence was working there. “I was outside on a scaffold. I saw Ruth coming down the parking lot, so I came down to talk to her,“ he said. Ruth, a Manteo native, was driving COA students from Manteo to and from the college on a school bus at the same time she was attending COA to get a certificate in nursing technology. Later, she got a degree in social work. “I was so determined (to get a higher education) even though I had to drop out, I’d pick it back up,“ Ruth said..
Clarence had left the military some time before and decided to re-enlist in April of 1974, and they married the following December. Ruth joined him at his Fort Bragg duty station. In all, Clarence spent 23 years in the military. In the service, they lived in Germany, Japan and Hawaii, in addition to a number of stations in the United States. For much of his military career, Clarence was a telecommunicator, and he served at a Nike missile site in Fliegerhorst , Germany. Ruth ran a day care for military children so she could keep her six-month-old daughter Anjelica with her. Ruth said when she took over the operation, it was running in the red, but when she left , it was making money.
The language barrier actually led to more understanding in one instance, Ruth said. One day the couple went to a store together to buy their daughter some shoes. They found a pair, but were having trouble communicating with the clerks, so they left to go to another nearby store to get an English to German dictionary. As soon as the clerks saw they were trying to speak their language, they were much more cooperative. “Then they spoke English,“ Clarence said, smiling.
After Germany, they were transferred to the United States, and lived in Texas and Kentucky as well as other places. One year, they had three changes of station. The twins Michael and Michelle were born prematurely while they were in Kentucky. Michael weighed just over three pounds and Michelle, just under. Theirs was a great success story. Michael is now 6-5 or 6-6 and Michelle has seen a similar healthy life. Michael joined the Army after graduating from Elizabeth City State University, went to Iraq before leaving the Army, finally settling in Texas. Michelle worked with with the National Park Service after graduating from ECSU, and is now a student at Yale University pursuing a double major. Michelle earned a law degree at Regent University and lives in Manteo. While their children were growing up, Ruth said, she and Clarence would line them up on the couch and talk to them about getting as much education as they could. Part of that education was nonformal. When they lived in Long Island, N.Y. a Puerto Rican family lived above them. The children became friends and as a result, became fluent in Spanish.
Clarence had always wanted to go to Hawaii but didn’t really expect to ever have a duty station there. When he found out he was going and his family was going with him, on the same flight, he was ecstatic. This was the crown jewel of their careers, but it came with a bit of culture shock, the prices being the first. When they arrived in Hawaii , they were billeted in a nice hotel. A few days after their arrival, they decided to shop for some food, going to a small market nearby. “We started looking at prices,“ Clarence said, but we didn’t shop that day.“ They discovered that watermelon was sold by the pound rather than the whole fruit, among other things.
Eventually they got an on-base apartment and made friends with a number of other couple with whom they socialized, cooking outdoors on the beach on weekends. They also discovered that Hawaii wasn’t overlooked by Manteo locals. Clarence said James and Betty Carol McClease honeymooned there and others came through occasionally.
Surprisingly, depression is a major problem with service members there. It is so far from the mainland that once service people get there, they face an expensive flight to get back, so they are stuck for a long period of time. To make it worse, many times families cannot come with them, and suicide attempts are not unusual. Ruth was employed in her chosen profession of social work while the family lived there. In Hawaii, Ruth continued her career as a social worker, working with military families, helping them adjust and helping them plan meals. She said she could create a meal plan for two weeks for $50. She said she once visited a family, and the husband said he had just taken a bottle of pills. She went to the mental health facility and reported it. They pumped his stomach, and he lived. “If I hadn’t reported it, I would have been held responsible,“ she said.
But, Hawaii has its rewards. Ruth said poinsettias are grown there, and they had six or seven poinsettia trees in their yard. You can pick your own pineapples, using heavy gloves because of the fruit’s roughness, and sugar cane is also a growin there. “I’d like to go back for two weeks and see everything,“ Ruth said.
Clarence said it rained during the winter, a real fine mist in one place and torrents in another. They almost lost Angelica while they were there. Clarence said he was fishing on a pier as some ships were arriving. Anjelica decided to go to the rest room at the end of the pier, and as she was coming back up the pier, she fell overboard. He realized she was missing and discovered her under the pier, hanging on to a piling. He was able to grab her leg and pull her up. She had been resisting learning how to swim, but after, that she learned, along with the twins.
After moving back to Manteo, the couple became active in many aspects of community life. Ruth was youth director in her church, a Sunday school teacher there, a member of the choir and more. Clarence served the town of Manteo on the board of adjustment and police advisory board and was in the latter position when Chief D’ambra was chosen to lead the Manteo police department. He is also a member of Prince Hall Masonic Lodge, worked with Little League and was a scout master. After his military retirement, he worked with the National Park Service and at the airport in Manteo.
Perhaps the service they are best known for, though, is the Martin Luther King Day celebration which Ruth has led for many years. A large undertaking, this event has always included a lunch and a speaker. In 2009, their daughter, Michelle, spoke on her work with the National Park Service’s Martin Luther King memorial. Lining up a speaker, finding a place for the event, usually a school, and getting the dinner together is a big job, but a satisfying one. In the early days, the churches donated meat and people bought dessert and vegetables. As it became bigger, more food was needed, so she asked the churches to donate food or money. She always had money left over to donate to the speaker, she said.
With their three children grown and having completed college, and for Ruth, her two children from her first marriage also grown, you might think they would take it easy in retirement, but no both are active . Ruth is employed part-time at Wal-Mart in Kitty Hawk where she has been named employee of the month twice in the past two years. Clarence nursed her after she had a hip replacement and now would like to operate his own paint business. Both can now look back on their llives of hard work and community service with satisfaction that they have done their part and more to make life better for themselves and others, wherever they were.