Ruthie’s Family

Update: May 24, 2019:

New details have been made known to IIT since original publication of this article:

Thomas and Eleanor are married, and Isa and Jordan may or may not actually be part of Ruth’s family

As our source continued, “it’s a mystery I suppose”, as to how Thomas, Eleanor, Isa, and Jordan fit into this “family”. Perhaps Ruth’s family is more of a metaphorical construct as opposed to the usual sense. But, it doesn’t really matter that much, because, “moms always adopting new kids”.

Above also is a picture taken right before the “posse” left. Not all above are family per se, but it shows a nice combination at least of some family members, the posse, and some nice “friends of Ruth”.

Also, here’s the song they made about her and her family:

While Ruth’s “Possee” may have returned last week to their homes near the Eastern shores fair, new questions are emerging about the purpose for their visit and have kept them, and Ruth herself in the spotlight. 

Read our first report on their visit: “Ruth’s Posse” Swoops Into Lander: Who Are They Really?

Even before the Possee returned they sent a recorded song to members of a “family of Ruth”. A little had been disclosed on this social unit during their visit, but we never realized until after they left just how much of a “family” she has, assuming the family, like the visitors, is real in some sense, and not just another set of hired actors.

Of course, Ruth has a family, which visited at Thanksgiving, last year, so any assumption that one is real in the traditional sense would likely then preclude that the other from being real. What then is it that they mean by “family”? After large public interest in Ruth’s “Possee” IIT decided to look closer into this question, and after having interviewed numerous claimed members of this family,  we decided to actually talk to Ruth herself, her side of the story sorely lacking from out last “hot take”, that being an analysis of her “posse” from the viewpoint of her posse.

Our interview on the sidelines of the graduation of the WCC Class of 2022 was brief, but by no means was lacking in substance, as Ruth confirmed that “there is a family” as claimed by the song, and that it’s take on her family situation is “mostly true”.

Some of her children were part of the aforementioned visiting “posse” but on her overall offspring: “I’m not sure how many children I currently have,” she said. She was able to recount individual members and told us many interesting anecdotes, but in this answer, we found the first discrepancy between her claims and those of the “posse”, both in their song and our interviews with them. “The posse are some of my children and some of the posse are my children, though I’m not sure exactly which,” she said about the visitors of two weeks past. But this claim contradicts the conclusion of the song the posse sent, that “now our love we send to Ruthie’s family”. This seems to show the posse as outsiders in direct contradiction to her claim that they are her children. Why would someone within a family address those whom Ruth claims would be their siblings as “Ruth’s family”? If the “posse” were simply elder siblings who just happened to visit the rest of Ruth’s family, wouldn’t their concluding salutation be somewhat different, like “our love we send to our brothers and sisters” or “to our Westerpeople”?

We did not take this question up with Ruth, but this dichotomy seems to suggest that if the posse persons are truly part of Ruth’s family, there must either have been a misunderstanding in their writing of the song or there is more than there seems going on with them. Assuming, however, then, that the “posse” are Ruth’s children as she claims, we proceeded to question Ruth about the rest of her family.

Bla-zea, reportedly a child from several IIT sources is actually a drunk uncle of hers and not a child. “I don’t like the influence he has on my children,” she said, “but he’s family, and we respect family. I allow him to speak with my children on occasion” As the posse’s song claimed, “Matthew IS a goof,” she concluded, but later added, that as he is often called Matt, “Matt is a brat.” On John, who follows his sibling Matthew often around she said he was quite similar to Matt: “John is almost as much of a goof, and he was described well in the song.” Now John was described as an exception, one that has us somewhat confused, however, from this so-called good description. As they said, “Most of us are Caucasian, except for John the Asian, who came through immigration, to Ruthie’s family”. Ruth gave no explanation other than this aforementioned “he was described well” for this discrepancy about John.

She remembered next a pair of twins she had, Thomas the Sponseller, whom she sometimes calls “the blue sweat-shirt kid” and William the Albers, often known as Omnisciens. “They get along very well together,” she commented, “and they want to lead C.O.R., the WCC Freshman Expedition in two years.” But although they get along well, Thomas And William are quite different. “William, he managed to get most of the brains between the two of them. Thomas, sadly, he didn’t get – much of that, but seems to have some of the same goof as Matthew and John inherited.”

Here as she mentioned “inherited” we were interested in the question of who they inherited from. Of course, Ruth is the mother of the children of her family, but who is the father? This, she definitely did not answer, saying “we don’t talk about dad” as we have often before heard mention as her wish. However, she did describe the challenges of “a single parent household” making us think the “dad” is out of the picture in at least some way. “I’m doing the best I can to raise all my children Christian. Some need help more than others, but don’t we all,” she sighed. “I have high hopes for all of them. Having to raise them singlehandedly makes it harder, especially when I have to deal with the bad influences all around. Sometimes then I’m embarrassed with them, but most of the time they make me proud.”

“They’re quite bad when I drive them to horsemanship. That’s when we have most of our family time together. Often they fight loudly and get annoying, even becoming a danger to safe driving. Thus, I just turn up the music those times with country music they all hate. It usually works, and I get peace and noise.”

Because her children often misbehave, especially also so at dances, she often has to be an even tougher mother. “Dancing shows I’m bad at following because I’ve had to raise them. There I’m the most forceful and blunt with them, but I do it because I have to be.” 

But with her forcefulness of her children conversely claim to be embarrassed with her, something which she claims is the reason some of the posse members claimed to be but hired actors rather than actually her children. And why would they thus be embarrassed we asked? “The kids don’t like the way mom dresses,” she said, “but that’s – their problem,” she concluded bluntly. “That’s where the phrase of the song came from, ‘She makes us walk together, no matter what the weather. If we stray she yanks our tether’. They see my discipline as hard, but its really necessary. I don’t use a tether in a literal sense, yet, but I’m thinking about if things continue as they have been going

But, beyond the misbehaved children in her family, the goofballs, and the bad influences, Ruth has a “very proper aunt”, Olivia. “She very sophisticated, very proper and polite, but she understandably can’t handle much of the craziness I have to deal with. She doesn’t want to associate with us that much, but tries not to show it. Again, she’s very proper.