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Ruess family correspondence 1935-1941

NAU.MS.313

Biographical Note

Christopher George Ruess was born in 1878. Christopher attended Los Angeles High School, graduating around 1897. Ruess then attended the Theological Seminary of Harvard University, graduating in June 1903. He was ordained as a minister in Lowell, Massachusetts in July 1903. He spent his career as a Unitarian pastor. Christopher Ruess married Stella Knight (born 1879) in 1905 in Los Angeles, California. S The Ruesses had three children: Christella Ruess (1908-1908), Waldo Ruess (1909-2007), and Everett Ruess (1914-1934). Christopher Ruess died in 1954. Stella Knight Ruess died in 1964.

Waldo Ruess, the eldest of the Ruess children, was born September 5, 1909 in Oakland, California. attended Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio before studied at Georgetown University in Washington, DC. Waldo Ruess worked for the United States Foreign Serivce between 1935 and 1958, traveling extensively. He also served as a cryptographer during World War II, despite being a conscientious objector. Waldo then worked for Lockheed in Iceland and for the United States Forest Service at the Los Padres National Forest. He met his wife, Conchita, in Mallorca, Spain; they married when Waldo was 48. Waldo and Conchita raised four children in Santa Barbara, California. Waldo Ruess died on September 6, 2007.

Everett Ruess was a painter, writer, naturalist, and scholar. He was born March 28, 1914 in Oakland, California. Stella Knight Ruess taught her son Everett how to do linoleum block printing when he was a child. Everett Ruess first left his home in Los Angeles, California for the southwest when he was 16. He spent a semester at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) before beginning his travels with horses and burros across Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and Colorado.

In the early 1930s, Everett Ruess lived in San Francisco, California. There he met artists such as Dorothea Lange, Ansel Adams, and Maynard Dixon.

Everett Ruess financed his explorations of the four corners region and on the Colorado Plateau by selling his art and wood block prints. Archaeologist Henry Lockett remembered that Ruess would take great risks to produce his art, such as standing on the edge of a 400 foot cliff during a rainstorm. Ruess was particularly interested in Native American culture, including cliff dwellings and ruins.

In 1934, at the age of 20, Everett Ruess vanished near Davis Gulch, Utah. He is presumed to have died in 1934, though the date and cause of his death remain unknown as of 2022.

After Everett went missing in 1934, Stella, Waldo, and Christopher publicized his disappearance, traveling to Utah to search for him in cooperation with legal authorities.

Ruess's letters and journals were published posthumously as On Desert Trails (1940, edited by Hugh Lacy with support from Stella Knight Ruess), Everett Ruess: Vagabond for Beauty(1983, edited by W.L. Rusho), and The Wilderness Journals of Everett Ruess(1998, edited by W.L. Rusho). Ruess is also the subject of multiple biographies and appears in other books.

Information in this biographical note is based upon information from an article from the July 25, 1903 copy of the Los Angeles Herald titled "Takes Pastorate at San Francisco", the finding aid for the Everett Ruess family papers at the University of Utah Libraries, Special Collections, an obituary for Waldo Ruess which originally appeared in the Seattle Times on September 13, 2007, Everett Ruess's website and an October 31, 2019 article in Salt Lake Magazine by Mary Brown Malouf titled "Nowhere Man."

Scope and Content

The Ruess family correspondence (NAU.MS.313) includes ephemera discovered in a book entitled On Desert Trails with Everett Ruess published in 1950 by the Desert Magazine Press. Apparently, this book belonged to a Mr. Paul Poponoe who corresponded with Everett Ruess's father, Christopher Ruess. Materials include postcards and holiday cards featuring poetry by Everett Ruess and information about Waldo Ruess, annotated copies of articles about Everett Ruess, and an unidentified landscape photograph, all of which Christopher Ruess appears to have sent to Paul Poponoe between 1935 and 1941.

Restrictions

Conditions Governing Access

No restrictions on access and use in the Miriam Lemont Reading Room.

Conditions Governing Use

Researchers are advised that Special Collections and Archives does not hold copyright to materials in the Ruess family correspondence (NAU.MS.313).

It is the responsibility of the user to obtain permission to publish from the owner of the copyright (the institution, the creator of the record, the author or his/her transferees, heirs, legates, or literary executors). The user agrees to indemnify and hold harmless the Arizona Board of Regents for Northern Arizona University, its officers, employees, and agents from and against all claims made by any person asserting that he or she is an owner of copyright.

Related Material

Everett Ruess family papers, MS 0687, Special Collections, J. Willard Marriott Library, The University of Utah.

Controlled Access Terms

Administrative Information

Preferred Citation

[Title or brief description of file or item.] Ruess family correspondence, NAU.MS.313, Box [ ], Folder [ ]. Northern Arizona University. Cline Library. Special Collections and Archives. Flagstaff, Arizona.

Please note that the Ruess family correspondence was originally titled the Everett Ruess collection in 1998. Sam Meier changed the title in 2022 to better reflect the creatorship and content of the materials. Please see the Processing Information note for more details.

Acquisition Information

Materials in the Ruess family correspondence (NAU.MS.313) were discovered by Cline Library staff in the 1990s in a copy of On Desert Trails with Everett Ruess (re-issued 1950, Desert Magazine Press). The materials are believed to have belonged to Paul Poponoe of Pasadena, California.

Processing Information

Robert "Bob" Coody physically processed materials in the Ruess family correspondence materials in fall 1998, under the supervision of Bradford Cole. At that time, Coody and Cole titled the materials the "Everett Ruess collection" as the bulk of the materials pertain to Everett Ruess.

Peter Runge created an EAD 2002 finding aid for the materials in 2009.

In 2022, Sam(antha) Meier re-processed materials in the collection, which she retitled the "Ruess family correspondence" to better reflect the creatorship and subjects of the materials, many of which are postcards featuring poetry by Everett Ruess and handwritten messages by Christopher Ruess, or articles about Everett Ruess which appear to have been annotated by Christopher Ruess.

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