Ruth Carolyn Hadlock

May 29, 1930- October 29, 2020

Ruth Carolyn Hadlock, 90, succumbed to lung failure on October 29, 2020, at Kaiser Hospital Oakland.

Ruth was born in Boston to Mignon and William Grossman. She was raised in Manhattan, New York City, where she attended Hunter ( College) Elementary and High schools. She also studied at the University of Brazil, Barnard College and Columbia University. She become a lifetime librarian starting out in Brooklyn and the Bronx before moving to the Bay Area in 1958.

Ruth married Richard Hadlock in 1957. Richard was a musician and when he joined Turk Murphy’s San Francisco Jazz Band he and Ruth found a new home in California. As head children’s librarian, Ruth served at Frederic Burk Demonstration School in San Francisco and she spent many years running the library at Marin Country Day School.

While working with Richard at the Kashaya Reservation School in Sonoma County, Ruth started, organized and directed a preschool which became a fully credited Head Start Center. While setting up a new school in the mid- 60’ s, Ruth helped bring telephones to the Reservation for the first time.

Ruth loved poetry; she counted among her personal friends poets Kenneth Rexroth and Amiri Baraka.

After retiring from MCDS, Ruth taught children’s literature at UC Berkeley and spent much time volunteering at Berkeley’s Jewish Community Center and UC’s Native American Studies library. She also reviewed children’s books for librarian journals.

She lived 49 years in Berkeley. Ruth is survived by her husband, Richard Hadlock, a guardianship son, Jason Wilder, and nieces Dominique Reed, Jennifer Ashby and Vanessa Kenney, plus grand nieces and nephews.