Hilda Ruth Ashland

Hilda Ruth Ashland, 86, formerly of North East, MD, died Friday, December 24, 2004, in Houston, Texas. Born in DeKalb, IL, on October 6, 1918, she was the daughter of the late Jacob Osmund Lunn, M.D., and the late Ethel Selina Williamson Lunn. Mrs. Ashland was a Social Worker and Teacher. She received her B.A. in 1939 from the Colorado State College of Education and her M.S.W., in 1950, from the University of Southern California. After college, she taught biology and history. During WWII she joined the American Red Cross, from whom she received a scholarship to the University of Chicago Graduate School of Social Work. She was assigned to the Great Lakes Naval Hospital, the Percy Jones Army Hospital in Battle Creek, Michigan, and the Far Eastern Theater of Operation 10th General Hospital Fort McKinley in Manila, Philippines. She worked with the Veterans Administration from 1971 until 1986, serving at Fort Lyon, Denver, and Perry Point. Her service with the American Red Cross from 1945-1947 has been recognized and listed on the "Women in Military Service to America" memorial in Washington, D.C. Her mother and sister are recognized and listed as well. Mrs. Ashland was a member of North East United Methodist Church in North East, MD. She was awarded the Golden Eaglet in 1935 the Girl Scout's highest honor. She graduated in 1935 from the Harbor Beach Michigan High School, where she was third in her class. She was awarded the Trustee Scholarship and the History Award from the Colorado State College of Education where she was a member of the Sigma Pi Lambda Sorority later renamed the Phi Beta Kappa; she was also awarded the Phi Alpha Theta History Honorary. She enjoyed preparing Bible verse cards for overseas missionaries, gardening, camping and hiking with her family, botany and bird identification, traveling and Bible study. She was preceded in death by her husband, Stafford Ashland, who died in 1993. She is survived by two daughters, Gloria Elizabeth Ashland Niehans and husband Michael, of Minneapolis, Minnesota, and G. Joanne Ashland and husband, Michael Costello, of Webster, Texas; two grandsons, Thomas Leonard Niehans and Eric Stafford Niehans; and one sister, Margaret Ethel Lunn Shaffer Mrs. Ray Kenneth Shaffer of Altoona, Pennsylvania. Funeral services will be held 10:30 AM, Thursday, December 30, 2004, at the North East United Methodist Church, 308 South Main Street, North East, MD, where family and friends are welcome to visit one half hour before services. The Rev. Daniel Gedman will officiate. Interment will follow services in North East Methodist Cemetery, North East, MD. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to the Parkinson Disease Research Center, at The Fund for Johns Hopkins Medicine, One Charles Center, 100 N. Charles Street, Suite 408-A, Baltimore, MD 21201, or the North East United Methodist Church, P.O. Box 522 North East, MD 21901.