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perhaps it was their mutual love for Texas that transformed their acquaintance into romance. After receiving the blessing of John Lomax's two adult children, Shirley and John Jr., they announced their engagement at a grand fête in Austin on March 31, 1934. As "an event of statewide interest," it was reported in all of the major Texas newspapers the next day.
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In 1937, she exchanged the academic pursuits and frenetic schedule of her life in Austin for the intellectual pursuits and equally frenetic pace of life on the road with a ballad hunter. The
Lomaxes moved to the "House in the Woods" outside Dallas as their permanent residence, then drove away in her
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on a scouting tour of the
Southern states. It was Ruby Lomax's first trip in the capacity of "chauffeur, valet, buffer, machine operator, disk-jockey, body-guard, doctor and nurse, wife and companion," a role she would reprise on later occasions, including the 1939 Southern States Recording Trip.
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in the West, then resettled in Austin, where she resumed her duties at the university and assumed the new duties of parenting the Lomax teenagers, Bess and Alan, who affectionately called their stepmother "Deanie." She managed to teach and administer at the university, remain involved in myriad
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toured the
Southern states collecting folksongs, John courted Ruby Terrill by mail, engaging her interest while simultaneously describing to her his life's work. Perhaps she saw an aspect of her passion for the classics in his passion for preserving near-extinguished American folk expressions;
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Ruby
Terrill Lomax's role in the success of the 1939 Southern States Recording Trip cannot be overemphasized. Nearly all written documentation relating to the collection was composed by her. Read her notes on the records’ dust jackets, her transcriptions of song texts, and her
216:"In nearly every instance Miss Terrill is including typed copies of the words contained on each record; also the slang of the song and the singers. This will be a big saving for the Library. Writing down the words from the record playing is a long, tedious job."
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The twelve founders risked their hard-earned professional positions to create the society. It was frowned upon by their male and even some of their female colleagues, who felt that women's organizations smacked of
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long after her retirement from the university, and she left a gift to the society in her will. To this day, the boardroom at the society's headquarters in Austin is named the Ruby
Terrill Lomax Boardroom.
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After John Lomax's death in 1948, Ruby Lomax remained at the "House in the Woods" for many years. She died at the age of seventy-five on
December 28, 1961, at the Christian Home for the Aged in
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in 1934. "Miss
Terrill," as John Lomax called her even during their fourteen years of marriage, first met her future husband in 1921. She was dean of women and classical languages instructor at
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organizations, oversee the home and family, and take care of a number of duties for her husband's research, while he resumed collecting, lecturing, and meeting with publishers and funders.
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high schools and colleges in her home state, supporting herself while continuing her own studies. She worked toward a doctorate in classical languages by garnering a fellowship in
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264:"About this Collection - Southern Mosaic: The John and Ruby Lomax 1939 Southern States Recording Trip | Digital Collections | Library of Congress"
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As her education and career indicate, Ruby
Terrill was an accomplished and progressive woman in her time. In 1929, she joined with eleven other
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for the highest grade average yet achieved by a woman at the university. Recognizing that education was her calling, she taught in
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at the
University of Texas for the year 1914–1915 and taking summer courses for four years at the
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While her husband possessed the contacts, the title of
Honorary Consultant and Curator of the
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highlights his wife's volunteer contributions to the Library's Archive of American Folk Song:
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to collect American folk songs, campaigned for women's education, and was Dean of Women at
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in classical languages from Columbia University, with a major in Latin and a minor in
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Over a decade later, the widowed John Lomax met Miss Terrill again, at the
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John Lomax's May 12, 1939 letter to Music Division chief
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a tour of Commerce, he enlisted her as a babysitter.
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181:John and Ruby Lomax married on July 21, 1934, in
318:Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA
367:American academic administrator and folkloist
288:"The Delta Kappa Gamma Society International"
140:East Texas State Teachers College in Commerce
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460:Learn how and when to remove this message
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111:Delta Kappa Gamma Society International
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314:"Ruby Terrill Lomax (1886-1961)"
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64:University of Texas at Austin
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236:Grove Hill Memorial Park
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31:and Ruby Lomax (1939).
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409:"Ruby Terrill Lomax"
394:improve this article
492:People from Houston
362:Library of Congress
350:Library of Congress
294:on October 14, 2007
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234:, and is buried in
155:University of Texas
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273:2016-06-22
250:References
226:Later life
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