Bigfork Eagle reporter, pilot and adventurer passes away
Ruth Nace Steel’s life was filled with adventure, from the wild west setting of early 20th century Browning to flying around the country and ultimately to being one of the first Bigfork Eagle reporters. Ruth passed away on New Year’s Eve, but from beginning to the end, her life’s story was far from ordinary.
Childhood
Ruth’s father, Albert “Spike” Shannon, her mother, Aline, and brother, McClellan, tore up roots in Minneapolis and moved west to settle in Browning in 1917. Ruth was born six years later on June 29, 1923.
Early 20th century Browning was the wild west in transition, cars zigzagged on the dirt roads between men on horseback as young Ruth danced to “Lucky Lindy” on a victrola and her father operated the local movie theater. Much of her childhood was spent on horseback and working as a ranch hand.
World War II
Ruth’s plans as a young woman were changed forever on Dec. 7, 1941 with the attack on Pearl Harbor.
“A date none of us would ever forget,” she wrote in her memoir. “A date that completely changed all of our lives.”
As the country entered the war, Ruth went to work for the Douglas Aircraft Company, building DC3s as troop carriers before returning to Montana to train horses for the military. She eventually entered the Navy and worked as an air traffic controller in Rhode Island while pursuing her pilot’s license.
Taking flight
As the war ended, Ruth was the first female pilot to fly into Browning at the Star Meadows airstrip. She once told her son, Shannon, a windsock made out of an old pair of long underwear was put up at the airstrip.
In the early post-war years she worked on earning her commercial pilot’s license in Studio City, Calif. and frequently flew over the famous “Happy Bottom Riding Club” owned and operated by the infamous female pilot Pancho Barnes.
But her piloting experiences weren’t always relaxing or glamorous. Ruth survived a plane crash while attempting to land at a small airstrip in southern California, her plane veered into the ground while banking against a howling wind that suddenly gave away.
Her thin cloth and leather helmet offered little protection. She once said her brother cried upon seeing her bruised and swollen face.
Investigators at the scene of the crash said that if she had been taller she could have lost her head and that being 5’3” may have saved her life.
Finding love
Once Ruth recovered from the plane crash, she worked in a restaurant frequented by film stars. It was there that she met ex-actor turned psychologist, Anthony Nace. Anthony was seeking a pilot, but found a wife as well.
They married and sought adventures in the southwest before settling in Santa Barbara, Calif. where their two sons, Shannon and Anthony, were born in 1953 and 54.
Homecoming
Anthony died in 1964 and Ruth took her two sons to live in Montana the following year, where she taught them to hunt, ski at Big Mountain, and appreciate the outdoors. The family spent the next 20 years living between Lakeside, Bigfork, Kalispell and Missoula.
Ruth would often fly from Kalispell’s airport into the Bob Marshall and Martin City areas.
“She took me flying when I was 15 and let me co-pilot and she said, ‘honey, I’m going to take over the controls because we’re going down pretty fast,’” Ruth’s son, Shannon Nace, said. “It was great, you look back and count the years and it wasn’t so many years. I am nearly 60, but it was the formative years and an interesting time because it was the 60s.”
Ruth found love once again while selling advertisements for the Daily Inter Lake when she met Frank Steel, owner of Frank’s Bi-Rite in Kalispell. The couple married on the shore of Flathead Lake in 1972.
Ruth the journalist
The Bigfork Eagle started in 1976 and Ruth wasn’t far behind as one of the original editorial staff members. She was hired by Dale Singer and mostly wrote feature articles on local residents and would print childhood photos of adult residents for locals to guess who it was.
“I think she just did it for her own enjoyment,” L.D. Gross, Bigfork Eagle staff member from 1976 through 1999, said. “She always wrote good stories and everyone enjoyed her column. Boy, I don’t think I can’t ever remember her coming in cross about anything, very friendly and outgoing, a really people type of person.”
While living in the Flathead, Ruth also worked for KCFW-Television and The Missoulian.
“She wasn’t afraid to go out and do whatever necessary to get a story as far as physical challenges and things like that,” Gross said.
Hitting the trails again
Ruth and Frank moved to El Paso, Texas in 1986, where Ruth took “Micro Light” flying lessons at the age of 62. She only lost interest when she realized they didn’t hold enough fuel for long distance flights.
“She really had that frontier spirit about her,” Jody Collins, Ruth’s step-daughter and Somers resident, said. “That was just the way she was, never any glorification or anything, it was just what happened.”
Ruth and Frank moved to Sierra Vista, Ariz. in 1990 where Frank preceded Ruth in death by exactly 20 years.
Ruth died at the age of 89 in her home in Phoenix, Ariz. on Monday, Dec. 31 of heart failure while in the company of her son and daughter-in-law, Anthony and Terry Nace.
Legacy
Ruth is survived by her sons, Shannon and Anthony, her daughter Connie Orud, her grandsons Kyle Nace and Cody Orud, her granddaughter Kodi (Nace) Sohl and four great-grandchildren as well as her stepdaughters Brenda Sorm and Jody Collins and Jody’s daughters Abbey Collins, Erin Watkiss and two grandchildren.
Celebration of life services are planned for February in the Phoenix area and this coming summer in the Flathead Valley. In lieu of flowers, the family suggests donating to Ruth and Frank’s favorite charity, Habitat for Humanity.