RUTH MARY LOWE

Ruth Lowe’s dance career might have been nipped in the bud before it bloomed.

Her father, James Adams, was West Berlin’s fire chief, no doubt used to alarms and other noises in the town where the family lived. But he didn’t always care for the sound his daughter’s tap shoes made at home. 

So he once hid them inside some drywall.

“I think he figured she would stop,” recounted Suzanne Steinbach, Ruth’s daughter. “But he ended up having to buy another pair.”

It wasn’t the last time Ruth would have her way. 

She was determined enough to decide by age 9 – when she took her first class – that she wanted to eventually run her own dance school. Ruth had regularly traveled by bus to Camden for classes at 50 cents a week.   

“I knew right then and there,” Suzanne recalled her mother saying, “that I was going to open my own school.”  

Now Lowe Dance Studio in Voorhees is mourning the loss of Miss Ruth, a woman who guided generations of students on the dance floor.

She started the studio at 18 years old with five pupils, relying on word of mouth and free spaces like church basements. She was known to jot lesson plans on napkins. 

In 1966, Ruth and her husband Charles bought a one-bedroom house on Haddonfield-Berlin Road that was expanded more than once over the decades to accommodate her growing school.

It’s still there, with Suzanne now running the place where she and her two siblings spent a lot of their childhoods.

Besides tap, Ruth taught ballet, jazz, acrobatics, modern dance, hip-hop and even acting – and her own kids learned along with the students. 

“I thought everybody danced,” Suzanne recalled. “It was just our way of life.”

She and her sister Pam also taught classes to help Ruth keep up with managing the studio.  

“She was there whenever it was open,” Suzanne noted of her mother. “She basically did everything.”

Everything included folding laundry, sweeping the floors and weeding the studio garden. Ruth often joined her students on the dance floor – she liked to show off her tap skills, her obituary notes – and planned recitals that ended with the same musical advice: “Put On a Happy Face.” 

“We can’t not do that song,” Suzanne said of the studio’s recitals.

Ruth occasionally had students who couldn’t afford their lessons: They danced  anyway.

“She thought everybody should learn,” Suzanne said. “And if they couldn’t afford it, she made it so they could.”

Brian Ebersole was among dozens of people who posted memories of Ruth on the dance studio’s Facebook page. He recalled telling his daughter when he dropped her off for lessons to “do good, be good,” a phrase of Ruth’s he says is now tattooed on his daughter’s arm.

“She had a hand in shaping three-fifths of my family,” Ebersole added. “I am so glad to have met her, known her and talked to her.”

Linda D’Orazio was in awe of Ruth’s skills.

“She could play a record, feel the music and choreograph the steps as we waited to learn them,” D’Orazio posted.  

But even when dementia crept into her life, Ruth’s mind still had room for a dance floor.

“Dementia did steal a large amount of her memory,” her obituary notes, “but it wasn’t able to take her knowledge to tap dance. She always remembered her time steps.”

Just like the little girl whose determination to dance once cost her her shoes.   

Ruth was 87. 

Sources: Constantino-Primo Funeral Home, Echovita.com

Inside the obits 
A taste for life

Cooking and eating are prominent subjects in the obituaries. Here are some South Jerseyans who made life a banquet. 

Barbara Murphy’s home in Marlton Lakes was described as a “workshop of wonder” in her obituary. For more than five decades, she made cakes and other confections for celebrations that included her daughters’ weddings. “Her hands, always busy mixing and molding,” the obituary adds, “baked love into every creation.” Barbara was 79.

J. Daniel Knerr was a nationally known and respected chef, his obituary notes. He worked at restaurants like Le Bec-Fin in Philadelphia and earned a three-star review from the New York Times at the Black Bass Hotel in Burlington County. He loved to cook for family and friends, the obituary adds, and co-workers knew him as a generous man of integrity. Chef Daniel was 76.

Edith Alessi had a history with food. She was employed at Campbell Soup after high school and contributed to the Cathedral Kitchen pantry there, her obituary notes. At home, she loved to make big Italian meals and desserts. In an online memorial, Mary Czerniawski recalled how “Mom Ruth” showed up on her doorstep at a difficult time – armed with a pie. Edith was 101.

The Honorable Dean Joseph Buono was the judge of administrative law in New Jersey and trained others in the law, his obituary states. Also highly regarded for special education cases, the judge “made people feel comfortable, supported and genuinely cared for,” the obit adds. His meatballs and chicken cutlets likely helped with that. Dean was 57.

Sources: Moore Funeral Home, Bradley Funeral Home, Bocco Funeral Home, Cranston-Murphy Funeral Home, Legacy.com.    

The Good Life appears twice a month. To suggest someone who recently passed away for a tribute, email Christina Mitchell at cmitchell@donnelly.media. Please describe in a few words something about the person’s life.