PLAINS — Ruthelaine Winslow is know as the “hat lady” by her friends at Sumter County Retirement Village. The soft-spoken Winslow is somewhat new to Georgia, moving to Sumter County five years ago from California to be near her daughter, Carole Franks.

Winslow is the youngest of six children, born Oct. 13, 1923. She was the only one of her siblings to be born in California. Her father was a dairy farmer who moved his family to California in the 1920s from Missouri. She said that because she was the youngest child and her brothers and sisters were teenagers by the time she came along, she never had much responsibility on the farm.

“I was pretty pampered,” she said.  

She grew up in the small town or Corcoran, Calif., near Fresno in the San Joaquin Valley, and was a small child during the Depression.

“I don’t know if hit us at all,” Winslow said.

She was married in 1946 to Harold Winslow, who was also from Corcoran. They both attended Corcoran High School, where Winslow recalls watching Harold play football and basketball when they began dating.

Harold’s career would take the couple north to Yuba City, Calif., where he would manage a hog ranch. Harold attended California Polytechnic University, where he earned a degree in horticulture. After managing the hog ranch for a few years, he told the owner he was leaving because the ranch was not turning a profit.

“Harold told the old man it wasn’t feasible,” Ruthelaine said.

The man decided to get out of the hog business altogether and gave Harold  an opportunity to start a nursery, growing fruit and nut trees from seedlings and selling them. The operation was called Sierra Gold Nursery.

Ruthelaine remembers fondly the ideal and quiet country life. The young couple lived in a house in a walnut orchard on the ranch.

“We had prune, almond and peach trees and Harold kept a nice yard with flowers,” she said.  “I would advise any young people to raise their children in the country,” she added.

The two lived on the ranch for nearly 40 years until Harold retired.

During those years, on the ranch outside of Yuba City, Calif., Ruthelaine stayed at home and raised her family. For a while before her children were born, she worked as a nurse, but she would not go back to work until all three of her children, Carole, Margaret and Hal, were all in school. Her second career would be as a stenographer and secretary, but she said she preferred nursing and the opportunity it gave her to help others.

The Winslows would drive south into central California to spend two weeks at Pismo Beach near Corcoran every year. The family stayed at the same hotel every year, relaxed on the beach and dug for clams, a Winslow family tradition. Ruthelaine recalls one year, her husband fried clams, cooked chowder and attracted passers-by with the smell of the fresh clams cooking.

“They came in right off the street,” she said.

When Harold retired, the couple moved off of the ranch, bought a house  in Yuba City and soon began traveling. They went to the Grand Canyon and began frequently traveling to Georgia to visit their daughter, Carole. During the winter months, they would often stay in Panama City, Fla. to be near their daughter. Ruthelaine says that while in Florida, that she and Harold made friends with the “snow birds” and began traveling to Canada to visit their new friends.

“Canada was very clean and the people there seemed to love us,” Winslow said.

Also during retirement, Winslow took on a hobby familiar to a lot of retirees. She began crocheting and doing needlework.

“I made baby things,” she said.

Now, she has 10 grandchildren and 11 great grandchildren from “San Diego, California to Massachusetts, Portland, Ore. to Georgia.”

She enjoys her new home at the retirement village and being near Carole. She is an avid reader, reading mostly mystery novels  by her favorite author, Robert Parker. And she wears a different hat to lunch every day, earning her the name “the hat lady.” She recalls her formative years, and the milliners of hat makers that were common in 1940s.

“You could take a suit in and a lady would make a hat to match. I just love hats,” she said.