Ruth Wood LaBounty Davis

MISSOULA, Mont. – Ruth Wood LaBounty Davis was born July 29, 1924, in Keremeos, British Columbia, and died Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2012, in Missoula, Mont.

Ruth’s father, Robert LaBounty, was a rancher, and her mother, Hilda Wood LaBounty, was an English horse breeder for the British Royal Cavalry. Ruth’s mother passed away when Ruth was 3 weeks old and her grandfather, a member of Lloyd’s of London insurance company and the inventor of burglary insurance, sent for her to live with him in England. When the Second World War threatened, Ruth’s great-aunt, Ada Longbottom, whom she called mother, and her husband, Naval Commander Charles R. Longbottom, took Ruth to the United States in 1933.

Ruth attended high school on Long Island and studied dance in New York City and at the Noyes School of Rhythm creative arts camp in Connecticut. Ruth immersed herself in the arts at Noyes Camp every summer until 2007. Following high school, Ruth enrolled at the School of the Stage in New York City. In 1945, she produced five plays at the Provinceton Playhouse in Greenwich Village and acted in works by Cocteau, Garcia-Lorca, Saroyan and Synge. Ruth performed on radio as well as on stage. She was a member of the WOR Junior Players and later a contract radio actress for the Mutual Broadcasting System. Through her work in radio, Ruth was introduced to Thomas Lindsay Davis, a radio executive.

Ruth and Tom were married in 1947, and moved to Wheaton. Tom Davis worked in Chicago radio and TV for 25 years. In 1969, they moved to the village of Grand Detour. They owned and operated WSDR Radio in Sterling, Dixon, and Rock Falls, and stations located in Iowa, Indiana, Florida, Wisconsin and the Virgin Islands. Ruth had her own radio show, focusing on travel, on WSDR for 11 years. Ruth continued her dancing and took art courses at Sauk Valley College. In Dixon, she was a member of the Phidian arts organization. Ruth also bred and showed champion Irish wolfhounds.

After Tom’s death, in 1992, Ruth moved to Florida and began seriously and intensively pursuing her interest in painting. She traveled to Russia, Italy, South Africa and Greece, among other countries, to participate in workshops to expand her skills and knowledge of art. Dance, which had guided Ruth her entire life, was incorporated into many of her personal works of art.