Ruth Corinne (Newey) Sesser (1917 - 2013)

Born 4 Sep 1917 in Newton, Middlesex, Massachusetts, United States

Died 15 Jul 2013 at age 95 in Sacramento, Sacramento, California, United States

Biography

Obituary

Ruth Corinne (Newey) (Raymond) Sesser, 95, died Monday, July 15 in Sacramento.

She was born in Needham, Mass. to Minnie and Arthur Newey. She grew up in Newton Upper Falls.

She married the Reverend Fern Eldridge Raymond, and served in church life with her husband in the Methodist Episcopal Church in Blodgett Mills, N.Y.; Methodist Church California circuits of Point Arena-Gualala-Elk-Manchester and Forestville-Occidental-Windsor; and Methodist Episcopal churches in Santa Clara, Oakdale, and Ukiah. In Oakdale, her husband was the pastor of the Methodist Episcopal Church, then the stone church on the corner of Church and F Streets, from 1950 to 1956. She served as church secretary and “girl Friday.”

After her husband’s death in 1956, she served as Director of Religious Education and Education Assistant, respectively, at Santa Rosa’s First Methodist Church and Modesto’s Centenary Methodist Church; worked in religious education in Sebastopol; and served the Northern California-Nevada Conference of the Methodist Church as a District Director of Children’s Work.

After earning a BA in history at UCSC in 1968 and taking additional religion courses in three schools, she moved to Modesto, where she founded the Modesto Inter-Faith Ministries in 1975 – including a food bank, clothes closet, and education program for the poor. She attended the World Food Conference in Rome in 1974. In 1979, she founded the Modesto Center for Senior Employment; and co-founded with her second husband, Charles Sesser, the Stanislaus Habitat for Humanity in 1989. She worked with Habitat for Humanity Stanislaus from 1989 until 1995 serving as President of Habitat Stanislaus in 1990.

As a result of her active life in the community, she received a number of awards and recognitions, including recognition as one of “Ten Outstanding Women of Stanislaus County” in 1981, AAUW Education Foundation Scholarship Award in 1981, Honorary Mention in Pillsbury’s “Best Against Hunger” Award in 1989, the U.S. Conference of Mayors Award in 1989, and the 1996 Habitat for Humanity Stanislaus Founder’s Award.

She is survived by three children; grandchildren; great-grandchildren; and a great-great grandchild.

She was preceded in death by her two former husbands, the Rev. Fern E. Raymond and Charles Sesser; children, Earl Raymond, Mark Raymond; and five brothers and sisters, including Paul Newey of Modesto. ^[1]

Sources

1. ↑ "Ruth Sesser." The Oakdale Leader (Oakdale, California) 24 Jul 2013. Print.

• "Massachusetts State Vital Records, 1841-1920," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:23YG-RBH : 4 December 2014), Ruth Corinne Newey, 04 Sep 1917; citing Birth, Newton, Middlesex, Massachusetts, United States, certificate number 988, page 851, State Archives, Boston.
• "United States Census, 1930," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XQPV-79Y : accessed 17 March 2017), Ruth C Newey in household of Arthur F Newey, Newton, Middlesex, Massachusetts, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) ED 382, sheet 14B, line 84, family 300, NARA microfilm publication T626 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 2002), roll 926; FHL microfilm 2,340,661.
• "United States Census, 1940," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:K9WB-ZDV : accessed 17 March 2017), Ruth Raymond in household of Fern E Raymond, Point Arena, Arena Judicial Township, Mendocino, California, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) 23-2, sheet 3A, line 18, family 70, Sixteenth Census of the United States, 1940, NARA digital publication T627. Records of the Bureau of the Census, 1790 - 2007, RG 29. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 2012, roll 263.