With her parents, seven brothers, and a sister, Ruth Weinstein, née Schierman, moved to Brooklyn from Rocky Mount, Virginia. “My grandparents insisted,” she explains. “We were the only Jewish family living there, and they wanted us to be closer to the rest of our family.” Once in Brooklyn, the Schierman family didn’t move again. “We all settled here,” Ruth notes.
    World War II was raging by the time Ruth left high school. She took a job at the Quartermaster Depot, a military supply company in Jersey City. “I thought it was my civic duty,” she says. Ruth’s fiancé, Leon, was drafted. Gone for five years, fighting Nazis in North Africa and up the boot of Italy, Captain Weinstein returned with a Bronze Star and Purple Heart, and he and Ruth married. They raised a son, David, who attended Brooklyn College, and a daughter, Ann, who became a teacher.
    Both Leon and Ruth were retired when Leon passed away. A friend advised the new widow, who had been a legal secretary for thirty years, to return to work. “She said it would be good for me,” Ruth recalls. Ruth found a job as a Brooklyn College music library assistant. Now almost fourteen years later, the energetic octogenarian and doting grandmother says, “I love it. I really do. I love dealing with the students. We have great rapport.”
    Bruce MacIntyre, professor of music, agrees. “Ruth has been incredibly helpful, dedicated, and loyal at the desk of the Walter W. Gerboth Music Library,” he says.
    Honora Raphael, associate professor and music librarian, who supervises Ruth, adds, “I can say without hesitation that she is an extraordinary and exemplary employee, a one-of-a-kind lady who has taught me more than I could ever teach her.”

March 2008 Employee of the Month

February 2008 Employee of the Month

January 2008 Employee of the Month