HOMELAKE— Graveside services with military honors will be held for Ruth C. McGee at Homelake Cemetery, Monte Vista on April 15, 2019 at 10 a.m.
Ruth passed away one year ago on April 15, 2018 at age 96. A memorial service was held at Temple Roeh Israel in Denver at that time. In the Jewish tradition, the ceremony will be held at the cemetery on the first anniversary of her death.
Ruth and her husband Ray McGee owned and operated Wolf Creek Ranch Dude Ranch on Wolf Creek Pass from 1950 to 1983. Ruth also taught during the winters, starting her teaching career in the San Luis Valley in 1950 and finishing with approximately 10 years in Creede.
Ruth Cohen was raised in an orthodox Jewish home in Wilimington, Mass. She was 20 when her father had a serious heart attack and both Ruth and her sister Bella, knowing they would have to find a way to pay for college themselves, joined the Women’s Army Corp during WWII. Ruth was stationed at bases in the US and then shipped to Allied Headquarters in Caserta, Italy. There, she met Ray McGee, a tailgunner in the Army Air Corp on the Italian Isle of Capri.
Ruth and Ray married shortly after they shipped home and were discharged at the end of the war. Both attended Adams State College and graduated with degrees in education in 1950.  They bought 100 acres of wilderness on Wolf Creek Pass and turned it into a dude ranch. Ruth and Ray taught in the winters and with children Bill, Raylene and Jim worked the ranch in the summers  
After their youngest son, Jim died at age 22 in a motorcycle accident, Ruth and Ray retired from school work and sold the business part of the ranch. They spent summers in South Fork and winters in Mesa, Ariz. until 2010, moving to Denver to live near their daughter Raylene and grandchildren David and Leslie.  
Ruth is proceeded in death by her husband Ray, sister Bella, children Bill and Jim, and grandson David.
She is survived by daughter Raylene, grandchildren Leslie, Christopher and Katherine and great-grandchildren Krista, Kacey, James, Tanner, Mason and Wesley.