When ‘History’ Becomes ‘Her Story’ Part II

Ruth Neumeyer

Ruth was married in 1951, and her son, Tim, kindly donated Ruth’s dress to Tuesday’s Bride. When I visited Tim to see his mother’s dress, I was enchanted by not only the dress, but also the life stories that Tim shared of his mother, Ruth. He was kind enough to extend some of that insight into Ruth’s life and stories of her wedding here. You can read about the dress and its gentle restoration in Part I of this series as well.

Ruth’s Story, words by her son, Tim Locke

“

It’s a huge pleasure to be able to pass on my mother Ruth’s homemade wedding dress to Amy.

The dress has been in the same box since Ruth last used it in 1951. Amazingly it is in pristine condition, and even the floral garland has survived, dried up but just about intact. On the cover of that box is her address at 25 Blackfriars Street, Canterbury, where she lodged when a student at the college of art.

When she died in 2012 I rescued a box of letters from her wardrobe – which were all from my father Ron, written in their courting days, 1950 and early 1951, and in his desk I found the letters she had sent him over the same period. My wife Anne and I spent some fascinating weeks piecing their story together and were transported back to the austerity days of those years.

Neither of my parents had money: Ron was a newly qualified teacher in Kentish Town, she was a penniless student doing what she loved – art. In one letter Ron totted up his weekly budget, including rent, fares, food, beer and cigarettes set against his earnings, and said that once the two of them could scrape together £100 they could get married. So it was that by summer 1951 they everything was in place – except neither of them had a job starting the following term, and they didn’t have anywhere to live either.

Then came the question of the wedding dress – there was no money to buy one, so Ruth purchased some very light material – possibly curtain material – and made it herself. In Canterbury she shared a house with two women, Margot and Audrey, who disapproved of Ron, so the wedding plans were kept secret. Ruth made her dress without her housemates’ knowledge, and lowered it out of an upstairs bedroom window into the street without them seeing it. 

My parents wedding day was on 1 August 1951. It was a simple, very low budget affair, held in a church in Eltham, followed by a modest reception for which Ruth provided the catering.

Ron’s parents, brother Peter and his fiancée Janet were there, along with Ruth’s brother Raymond. But Ruth’s parents had perished in the Holocaust, for Ruth was a refugee from Nazi Germany, having fled with Raymond on a Kindertransport from Munich in May 1939. A wonderfully kind English family took in the two children and gave them a new life in England. Ruth moved up to Cambridge and during the war years made lifelong friends, including many from the refugee community – some of whom came to the wedding. Despite her Jewish origins, Ruth was a dedicated Lutheran Christian; in Cambridge she met the famous German theologian Pastor Franz Hildebrandt, who himself had fled from the Nazis. She asked him to conduct her wedding ceremony with Ron, and to her delight he said yes.

On her wedding photos, Ruth can be seen wearing an item of jewellery: this was a gold locket which we discovered after clearing my parents’ house in London after her death. On the back is a photograph of her maternal grandmother, Hildegard Ephraim, who died in 1933. This gorgeously ornate item of jewellery was smuggled out of Nazi Germany by a Jewish family friend, who managed to get to Sweden – and safety – in 1943.

After the wedding, my parents splurged on a short honeymoon in Lymington in Hampshire and returned to London – to move into a spare room in Ron’s parents’ house in Eltham, southeast London – with just 3 shillings and fourpence (17p!) between them.

Ruth and Ron on honeymoon to Lymington in 1951

They went on to have three sons – I’m the youngest – and after winning a cheese recipe competition in 1955 had just enough money to buy a lovely old house in Sydenham. Ron carried on teaching and became a headmaster of a comprehensive school in Beckenham.

The huge archive of Ruth’s family history is being donated to the Imperial War Museum in London, where the teddy bear who accompanied her on the Kindertransport in 1939 is on display along with other items in the Holocaust Galleries. You can read about her family story on my blog: https://ephraimneumeyer.wordpress.com

“

words by Tim Locke, Lewes.

If you would like to know more about Ruth’s dress, see pictures and learn about its restoration, you can read about it here in Part I of the series

Get in touch if you would like to arrange a studio visit to Tuesday’s Bride, to try Ruth’s dress or another beautiful dress from our vintage and antique bridal studio near Lewes, East Sussex.

If you have an heirloom to offer into the collection, to be loved once again, please do get in touch.

Thanks for reading!

Amy x