Ruth McBride Jordan, subject of celebrated book, dies

RUTH McBRIDE Jordan's final days were among the happiest of her life.

First, there was Christmas. All of her 11 surviving children and their families arrived at her home in Ewing, N.J. - some even having to sleep on the floor.

"She was just overwhelmed with joy at Christmas," said her son James McBride who had made his mother internationally famous with his 1996 book about her life, "The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother."

Then, on Friday, James' daughter, Azure McBride, arrived to inform her grandmother that she had been accepted by a college.

"She was so tickled," her son said. "She asked all kinds of questions and gave typically grandmotherly advice: 'Take the bus, it's cheaper.'"

After Azure came another son, Hunter, back from his honeymoon. Then came other children.

Several hours later, at 5:55 a.m. Saturday, the long, eventful and fascinating life of Ruth McBride Jordan ended. She was 88 and had been in failing health.

"She was very happy at the end of her life," said James McBride, whose book about his mother has sold millions of copies worldwide.

It was chosen for the "One Book, One Philadelphia" citywide reading collaborative in 2004.

Ruth was born an Orthodox Jew in Poland, but when she came to America she married the Rev. Andrew McBride, a black man, and, after his death, another black man, Hunter Jordan, giving birth to a total of 12 children.

The children, growing up first in Brooklyn and then in the St. Albans section of Queens, didn't know for years that their mother was Jewish, even though she spoke Yiddish.

James McBride wrote that he always knew that his mother was different, but when he would ask her about it, she would say only, "I'm light-skinned," and volunteered no further information.

When he asked her if he was white or black, she replied,

"You're a human being."

When he asked what color God was, she said: "God is the color of water."

While she never sought to capitalize on the fame engendered by the best-selling book, she got to meet a number of prominent people, including former President George H.W. Bush and his wife, Barbara.

Ruth and her son James spent a couple of days with the Bushes at their Houston home and the Bush Library in 1990, and the two families exchanged notes for years afterward.

When she and her son left Houston, Barbara Bush told James, "Your mother is my hero."

James, who is the author of other books, is a well- regarded musician, bandleader, composer and screenwriter.

Another son, Dr. Andrew Dennis McBride, director of health for the city of Milford, Conn., told a story that reflected his mother's down-to-earth nature: When the Bushes showed off their indoor swimming pool and bragged that Barbara used it every day, Ruth asked, "What do you do about your hair?"

"Oh, that is a problem," Barbara Bush acknowledged.

"To the end, she continued to surprise me," said Dennis, as he is known to the family. "I was in awe of this lady from the first time I met her when I was born until the end of her life.

"It's hard to explain what a fantastic and brilliant woman she was. I was so fortunate to have a mother like her."

When her son Hunter was married Jan. 2, Ruth was able to attend the wedding dinner at the Gospel Uptown Restaurant, in Harlem, where she made a short speech.

"She told them always to put God first, never go to bed angry and always be kind to each other," James McBride said.

Ruth, who formerly lived with several of her children on Greene Street, in Germantown, had open-heart surgery 14 years ago, but she was "intent on living," James said.

"She planned to see 'Avatar' on Thursday," he said. "She wanted her car taken for an oil change on Tuesday. She would go shopping at Walmart and K-Mart. She drove her car until two years ago."

Ruth was a staunch advocate of religion and education. All of her children went to college. Later, she enrolled at Temple University and graduated at age 65 with a bachelor's degree in social work in 1986.

An interracial marriage was not acceptable in much of American society in the 1940s and '50s, but Ruth didn't seem to notice the verbal abuse and snide comments to which she often was subjected, James wrote.

"Whenever she stepped out of the house with us, she went into a sort of mental zone where her attention span went no farther than the five kids trailing her and the tightly balled fist in which she held her small amount of money...," James wrote.

"She had absolutely no interest in a world that seemed incredibly agitated by our presence. The stares and remarks, the glances and cackles that we heard as we walked about the world went right over her head...."

Ruth was born Ruchel Zylska, on April 1, 1921, in a small town near what is now Gdansk, Poland. The family changed its name to Shilsky after arriving in America, settling in Suffolk, Va. Ruchel became Rachel, and then Ruth.

After graduating from high school, she moved to New York, where she met and married Andrew McBride. He became a minister and Ruth converted to Christianity.

The couple lived in Harlem for a time, then moved to the Red Hook Housing Project, in Brooklyn. She and her husband and other couples founded the New Brown Memorial Baptist Church, which is still in operation.

When her husband died in 1957, Ruth was a widow with seven kids and pregnant with James. She then met and married Hunter Jordan, and they moved to Queens. They had four children of their own. He died of a stroke in 1972.

Ruth lived for a time in Wilmington, Del., then in Germantown for 15 years before settling in Ewing in 1990.

Over the years, Ruth worked as a secretary at the Metropolitan Baptist Church, in New York, made test tubes in a glass factory in Manhattan's Soho district, served as overnight typist for Chase Bank, in Manhattan, and as a social worker at Parents Preparing for Parenthood in Philadelphia. She was a volunteer with the Philadelphia Emergency Center, a shelter for homeless teenage mothers.

Her favorite saying to her children was: "We are blessed. Blessed beyond measure."

Besides James and Dennis, she is survived by four other sons, David, Richard, Hunter and Henry; five daughters, Rosetta McBride, Helen McBride-Richter, Dorothy McBride-Wesley, Kathy Jordan-McElroy and Judy Jordan; 23 grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. She was predeceased by her second son, Dr. William McBride.

Services: Will be private.

Donations may be made to New Brown Memorial Baptist Church, 609 Clinton St., Brooklyn, NY 11231.