Ruth L. Harkin
The Harkin family will receive friends on Friday from 4 to 7:30 PM.
A funeral service will be held Saturday 11 AM at the Hurley Reformed Church.
Burial will follow in Hurley Cemetery.
Ruth L. DeGroat Harkin of Hurley died Monday September 30, 2019 at home. Born in Kingston on May 16, 1932 to Walter and Naomi DeGroat growing up in Kingston, Fleischmans and Saugerties. After graduating from Saugerties High School in 1950, she worked as a secretary at Cantine Paper Mill (now the site of Diamond Mills).
Her first husband Charles Vermilyea died in an auto accident shortly after marriage. While working as a secretary at IBM Kingston she met and later married Thomas J. Harkin Jr. She left IBM to become a stay at home mom raising two sons, a luxury by today's standards.
In her fifties she returned to college and to achieve a life-long desire to become a nurse. She graduated in 1985 from Ulster County Community College as an RN and worked at Kingston Hospital following in the footsteps of her mother and later worked ...[more]
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various Doctors offices.
After retirement she, along with her husband, helped care for two grandsons prior to pre-school which afforded many pleasant memories. She and her husband then traveled by motorhome over a fourteen year period throughout the US and Canada visiting the West Coast family and almost all National Monuments and Parks, truly a highlight of retirement.
Ruth was a longtime member of the Hurley Reformed Church where she sang in the choir. She was also a past member of PEO and served for eleven years on the Board of Managers at the Hudson Valley Senior Residence.
Survived by her husband of sixty two years, sons Steven and his wife Dayleen of Vancouver, Washington, William and his wife Connie of Cottekill, NY, four grandchildren, Amanda, Jennifer, Kyle and Daniel. She was a loving caring wife, mother and grandmother who will be greatly missed.
In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Hurley Reformed Church, Alzheimers Association, Hudson Valley Senior Residence, Hudson Valley Hospice or a charity of your choice.
