Ruth Elin Hall Ost
Ruth Elin Ost
1886 – 1953
Achievement in: Missionary and Community Work
An American-born daughter of Swedish immigrants, Ruth Elin Hall grew up in the Midwest. She married the Reverend Ludvig Evald Ost July 18, 1910, in Ashland, Wis., and the newlyweds arrived in Nome August 1st to work as missionaries for the Swedish Covenant Church.
From Nome, the Osts traveled to Golovin to run the Swedish Covenant Mission and Children’s Home. Three years later, a major storm destroyed most of the mission station and they relocated and helped found the town of Elim. With her husband’s help, Ruth persisted in keeping Elim quarantined from the outside world to prevent the deadly influenza from infecting the people of Elim in 1918.
During her years in Northwest Alaska (Golovin, Unalakleet, White Mountain, Council and Nome), Ruth ably assisted her husband in running and managing missions and children’s homes. She was a gifted musician who taught music, instruments and voice to many of the children in the children’s homes and the villages. She was a Sunday school director, a storekeeper, and a postmistress while raising her own eight children and one adopted daughter. Ruth provided midwifery services and lost only one baby, a remarkable record considering the many times she was the only medical person available.
Ruth served as correspondent and bookkeeper for the mission, and conducted a correspondence school for the Sunday school and Bible school teachers in the entire Alaska district for the Covenant Church. Tay Thomas wrote in Cry in the Wilderness: “Mrs. Ost was a remarkable woman who was credited with much of the success of the Covenant Church Mission in Northwest Alaska.” From an early age, Ruth had crippling arthritis. Upon her death, the executive secretary of the Covenant World Missions wrote, “Her wheelchair was an altar where those who came found salvation, restoration, healing and comfort.”
She and her husband owned and operated several businesses, including a reindeer herd and gold mine. They had a store and river-freighting and transportation service on the Niukluk River.
Ruth helped establish sound educational facilities and good health-care practices in regions of Alaska that had none. Her efforts to get territorial schools opened in rural Alaska communities have had lasting benefits for generations of Alaskans.