HOUGHTON - Inside or outside, for her own family or strangers, Ruth Best always kept busy.
The Chassell resident, who taught generations of Copper Country children about household skills and became the namesake of the Houghton County Fair's Homemaker of the Year award, died Nov. 12 at Portage Health at 91.
Best spent many years as a 4-H leader, and was also active with the Home Extension and the Association for Family and Community Education. Other groups in which she was involved were Little Brothers Friends of the Elderly and Habitat for Humanity, the Houghton County Historical Society and the Houghton County Fair Board.
Agnes Ahola knew Best through decades of collaboration and competition at the Extension Homemakers program, potato shows, 4-H and the fair.
"She was always very precise, did beautiful, finished products and taught the 4-H kids how to do that, stay with it and finish it," Ahola said. "Her things would look good inside and outside, when she sewed and did handiwork. Beautiful workmanship."
A winner of multiple Homemaker awards herself, Ahola said the two urged each other on with projects.
"She loved flowers," Ahola said. "We swapped some perennials. She plant some of mine, and I'd plant some of hers."
Best's daughter, Bobbie Dalquist of Hancock, said her daughter Kari remembered Best making her a dress with puffy sleeves, which she had wanted after reading "Anne of Green Gables." Best also knit her granddaughter mittens with a string on them so she wouldn't lose them, Dalquist said.
"She's the person I would call when I needed to know how to do something, because she was a very practical, hands-on kinds of person that would do just about anything," Dalquist said.
Best was a fixture at the Houghton County Fair, which renamed the Homemaker of the Year award after her in 2004.
She first won the fair's Homemaker of the Year award in 1975, picking it up four more times in 1976, 1996, 2005 and 2007.
"She was at the fair a lot, and she also helped with workshops to teach other people how to display items," said fair office manager Carol Saari. "I think everybody that came to the fair or went into the exhibit buildings knew who Ruth Best was."
Best was born on Jan. 18, 1918 in Walhalla, N.D. She moved to Lake Linden as a young adult, marrying Lawrence Best in 1942. They lived in Lake Linden until moving in 1961 to Chassell, where Best would live the rest of her life.
Best worked at the food service department at Michigan Technological University, retiring after 10 years.
Best was always physically active, Dalquist said, shoveling her own driveway until her late 80s.
Saari said Little Brothers would often call Best and ask her to give rides.
"More often than not, the people she was giving rides to were younger than she was," she said.
Even when her health declined last year, Dalquist said, Best stayed positive. After Best went to the Bluffs to visit her friends or get her hair done, Dalquist said, she'd say, 'Some of those people look so sour. If they'd just smile, they'd look so much younger.'"
"She struggled with her health over the last year, but she always put on a good face," Dalquist said. "It probably made people think she was healthier and more vibrant than she actually was."
Ahola remembered her as an all-around talent.
"She lived life to the fullest," she said. "She had many years to do it. Great lady."
Garrett Neese can be reached at gneese @mininggazette.com.
