Graveside service for Ruth E. (Bower) Montoya, 92, Oklahoma City, will be at 10:00am Saturday in the Mountain Park Cemetery, Mountain Park, Oklahoma with Joe McKinney, Yukon, OK officiating. Her Lord and Savior Jesus Christ came and took Ruth to Heaven on Tuesday, May 15, 2012. Burial will be in the Mountain Park Cemetery, Mountain Park, Oklahoma, under the direction of Becker Funeral Home & Cremation Service of Snyder. The family will greet friends Friday evening from 5pm until 7pm at the funeral home. She was born Ruth Ethel Bower, May 29, 1919 on her Grandparents farm Southwest of Snyder, Oklahoma. Her parents were Verne and Eunice (King) Bower. She was the oldest of seven children. Ruth attended first grade at a one room country school close to the farm. She attended second grade in Cashion, OK. She also attended schools at Snyder and Mountain Park. She graduated from Mountain Park High School in 1937, where she was football queen and class valedictorian. After high school she attended Draughan's Business School in Oklahoma City, and then moved to California in 1941, where she found work at Langley Corporation at a defense plant in WW II. She married John R. Montoya on April 5, 1942 in Yuma, AZ. She and John moved to Springer, NM in 1945. They divorced in 1948, and Ruth moved back to Snyder. In 1949 she began a career with Southwestern Bell Telephone Co. as an operator. When dial phones came to Snyder in 1959, she transferred to Altus, OK. She retired in 1979. She then went to work for Jackson County Memorial Hospital as switchboard operator for ten years, before working as a Pink Lady Volunteer for almost 6,000 hours. She moved to Lawton in May of 2000, and then to Oklahoma City in 2008. Ruth loved Southwest Oklahoma, and her favorite places were the lodge at Lake Altus and the Wichita Wildlife Refuge near Lawton. Ruth treasured her family, loved to write poetry, read, and had a talent for drawing. Her generosity, kindness, compassion and caring was felt by all who knew her. She is survived by her son John Verne Montoya of McKinney, TX, two daughters, Teresa Dill of Cookson, OK, Mary Beth Starling of Tulare, CA, a sister Mary Agnes Ward, two brothers, George Bower and Jon Milton Bower, and five grandchildren and six great grandchildren. She is preceded in death by her parents and three brothers, Joe Verne Bower, Jim Bower and Bob Bower.