By Leigh Paul
Community Relations Representative
Westwood Nursing Center
It was the late 1940s and Ruth Clay was working at the soda fountain at Kreisler’s Drug Store on the north side of the Clinton Square. She was 16. Ruth went directly to work after school, and stayed until 11 p.m. She and the other “soda fountain girls” made 25 cents an hour.
Marvin Hicks was 22 and lived with his parents, Beaty and Melissa Hicks, one mile east of the Quarles Store in northwest Henry County.
Marvin hadn’t been dealt the best cards in his young life. He had married, had a new baby and lost his wife to heart problems in the course of a year.
Marvin’s family helped with the baby girl while he worked at the Windsor Shoe Factory.
Marvin had several jobs at the factory, including attaching heels to the shoes. “We’d put tacks in our mouth, spit them out and nail the sole to the shoe. I carried lots of tacks in my mouth, but never swallowed a one,” Marvin said.
Often after a long day’s work, Marvin would stop at Kreisler’s to get a Coke. That’s where he met Ruth Clay.
“I’d visit with the three girls who worked at the soda fountain,” said Marvin, “and often give them a ride home from work.”
Marvin had plenty of room for the group in his teal blue ’36 Chevrolet he traded for at Mac Irvin’s in Windsor.
After several visits to the soda fountain, Marvin worked up enough courage to ask Ruth for a date. For the next year, they went to movies, had picnics and spent a lot of time together at the home of Ruth’s parents, Jim and Georgia Clay, on West Jefferson Street in Clinton.
“He was at my house a lot,” said Ruth, “even when I wasn’t home. I think he liked my mother’s cooking more than anything,” she said with a grin.
In 1949, Marvin was drafted to serve in World War II. When he broke the news to Ruth, he told her that because she was young, and he was not sure he’d even make it back home, he wanted her to feel free to date other people.
Marvin joined the Marines and was sent to Tokyo, Japan. Ruth wrote him nearly every day for eight months. One day a letter came saying Ruth had met a young man who was a cousin of her best friend. She told Marvin she had been dating him and they were speaking of marriage.
Marvin wished her the best, as always, and immersed himself in his job in the quartermaster corps, taking care of 7,000 different service-related items in a large warehouse in Tokyo.
In the meantime, Ruth married Andrew Gutridge and they moved to St. Louis, where they raised five children and had a happy life.
Andy Gutridge died in 1996 of a respiratory illness, and Ruth moved back to the Clinton area about a year and a half ago to be near her son.
After serving two years in Japan, Marvin joined his family in Henry County and went back to work at the Windsor Shoe Factory. He never remarried, but went on to be a contract painter for Skelly Oil Co., working in several states.
After struggling with illness, Marvin made his home at Westwood Nursing Center in November of 2003. His only daughter visits nearly every day. One can imagine how the soft-spoken, blue-eyed gent could have wooed a young lady back in 1948.
In January of this year, Ruth also made Westwood her home. She was reading the resident directory one day, and wondered about the M. Hicks listed there. The Mr. Hicks on the directory lived on another level of the building, and Ruth looked him up. Indeed it was the Marvin she had known so long ago.
Although they have no plans to become sweethearts again, Ruth and Marvin hope their friendship can continue in the golden years of their lives.
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