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A portrait of Ruby (Baker) Finney.
There is no date on the photo, but it is likely from around 1915,
When she would have been in her mid-teens.
There is no date on the photo, but it is likely from around 1915,
When she would have been in her mid-teens.
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Ruby (Baker) Finney, as a young woman.
This photo is undated, but judging from the clothing, her hair and age,
it is likely from around 1918.
This photo is undated, but judging from the clothing, her hair and age,
it is likely from around 1918.
Ruby was the youngest child of Fred Baker and Martha (Woodside) Baker. She married Bedford Finney with whom she had two children -- Barbara and Bedford Jr. Though I am not certain of her exact age, I estimate she was born around 1900. My grandfather, Delbert Marion Saunders, describes his Aunt Ruby as "like a sister to me." Ruby and Bedford originally lived in Long Beach, but moved to Oakland when my Delbert was in Junior High School. At the age of 14, Delbert had quit school to work in a wire factory, in order to support his family. Ruby and her husband talked him into quitting work and returning to school. They tried their best to support him. He says of her, in a letter to us the year before he died, "Ruby was so good to me, I hope that where ever she may be, that she will know how much I love and always appreciated what a fine person she was."
Ruby died early in life. She had joined a fundamentalist church that persuaded her to give up all medications. In an advanced stage of pregnancy, she was rushed to the hospital with uremic poisoning. Unfortunately, she did not survive.
