Ruby (Baker) Finney as a Young Woman

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.

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.

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. 

Ruby (Baker) Finney Nursing Photos

Ruby (Baker) Finney, training as a nurse at Alta Bates Sanitorium.
Ruby was my great grandmother Nora Belle (Baker) Saunders's sister,
and my grandfather Delbert's aunt.
The photo is dated February 6, 1920 with a greeting in her own hand on the back:
"Love to all, from Ruby."

Ruby (on the right) with a nursing school classmate, Eng Daniels,
at Alta Bates Sanitorium.  This photo is dated May 1920.

Ruby in training at Alta Bates Sanitorium.
This photo is dated March 11, 1923.

Ruby's nursing school graduation photo.
Unfortunately, this photo is not dated, but it is likely from the mid-1920s.

Another of Ruby's nursing school graduation photos,
Likely from the mid-1920s.

Alta Bates Sanitorium, now called Alta Bates Summit Medical Center, in Oakland, CA, was founded  in 1905 as an eight-bed hospital for women and their infants, by Nurse Alta Alice Miner Bates.  Alta was a prominent early California Nurse Anesthetist, having been one of the first graduates of a nurse's training program out of Eureka, CA.  Alta administered over 14,000 anesthetics during a career lasting more than fifteen years.  Early in the 1900s, she opened her family's home to women and children medical needing care.  Soon after that, with about one hundred dollars, a building design from her father and credit from local merchants, she founded the eight-bed hospital that came to bear her name.  Throughout her career, Alta was active in the nurses' training program at her hospital and likely taught Ruby and her classmates during the early 1920s, while the hospital was expanding its capacity and services.