Ruth Ellen Sylvester died peacefully at her home in Norwich, Vermont on February 26, 2020. After a year and a half in which the struggle with cancer slowly sapped her energy, her time of leaving was surrounded by family and friends.

Ruth was born in New York City in 1952, in springtime, to Mike and Betsy Sylvester.  She graduated from the Brearley School and Bryn Mawr College.  Her degree in classical Greek and Latin led directly to a job on a vegetable farm in Franconia, New Hampshire, where she lived and worked for several years after college.

After leaving the farm, she moved to the Upper Valley, where she explored a variety of work possibilities, including stints at the Kiewit computer center, Peter Christian's tavern, Countryman Press and substitute teaching.  In time, she settled into her career niche as a freelance writer and editor.  She edited a number of books by local authors and wrote regularly for the Norwich Times, Quechee Times and Lebanon Times. She also engaged in volunteer work of various kinds, serving on the board of the Hanover Consumer Coop and driving for Meals on Wheels.

Ruth's parents had met at a dance camp and Ruth was introduced to folk dance and music at an early age.  Throughout her life, she would enjoy many kinds of dancing, from English country dance and contradance to Morris dancing and ballroom. She met two of her closest friends, Tom and Tracey Sherry, at a dance class. In her twenties, while still living on the farm in New Hampshire, she found herself at a dance that lacked a caller and volunteered to give calling a try.  That insouciant leap would launch a lifelong avocation as a dance caller.

She was adventurous and had a cheerful confidence that things would work out.  On a break from college she traveled alone around the western United States and then, a few years later, through Europe and Africa.  Her friend Steve Maker introduced her to backcountry ski touring and for many years they took trips to ski in remote areas of British Columbia, making tracks in fresh powder and keeping an avalanche beacon in their packs.

Ruth loved words and books and encouraged others, especially children, to share her enthusiasm.  She had a vast storehouse of memorized poetry and doggerel that she could summon to suit the moment.  Fittingly, it was at a reading group that she met her future spouse Elfie Forbes in 2001.  They celebrated their civil union in 2004 and added a legal marriage in 2009.  In moving to Elfie's farm in Thetford, she returned to a smaller scale version of her early love, tending plants and animals. Among other things, the farm gave her hundreds of feet of new frontage for a favorite pastime, planting roadside daffodils.

Entering her fifties, she dusted off the cello she had abandoned after college and playing music became a joyful passion for the rest of her life. In addition to playing with several ensembles, including a string quartet, a folk dance jam group, the Bach study group and the Upper Valley Chamber orchestra, she devoted many volunteer hours serving on the board of the Upper Valley Music Center.

Ruth delighted in bringing people together to have fun, whether at a feast of strawberries, a games party or a contradance. Her gift for being fully involved in the present moment made her wonderful company, although it also occasionally made her late for appointments. She was quick to notice other people's needs and liked helping in ways large and small.  Thanks to her generosity, joyfulness and multiplicity of interests, she had a wide and warm circle of friends.

She is survived by her spouse Edith (Elfie) Forbes of Norwich, her brother George Sylvester of Burlington VT, an extended family of cousins and in-laws and many friends and chosen family, including Tom, Tracey, Jenna and Jacob Sherry, and Paul, Marcia, Peter and David Cassidy-Horak.

A remembrance and celebration of Ruth's life is planned for July 22, 2023 at the Unitarian Universalist Church in Norwich at 2pm. Memorial contributions may be sent to the Upper Valley Music Center, P. O. Box 826, Lebanon NH 03766, the Children's Literacy Fund, 1536 Loomis Hill Road, Waterbury Center VT 05677, or the Hand to Heart Project, P. O. Box 248, Cornish Flat NH 03746.