RUTH RANKIN RUTHERFORD
Taught piano 30 years at SMU
by KATHRYN YEGGE
Staff Writer – Dallas Morning News
Ruth Rankin Rutherford spent more than 50 years in Dallas teaching piano, 30 of them at Southern Methodist University. Mrs. Rutherford died Wednesday at her Denton home from natural causes. She was 99. Services were Saturday.
"She taught by encouraging success," said her son Paris M. Rutherford III of Denton. She pointed out the positives and encouraged the highest standards possible, but never criticized if the student didn’t reach those standards." Mr. Rutherford said his mother's teaching style was what encouraged him to also teach music.
Born in Cleveland, N.C., Mrs. Rutherford grew up in several cities in North Carolina. She earned a bachelor's degree in music from Winthrop College in South Carolina in 1925 and a certificate of performance from the Juilliard School of Music in 1930. It was at Juilliard that she earned a scholarship to study in Europe for a year.
She married Paris M. Rutherford Jr. in 1929, and the two moved to Dallas in 1934. Mrs. Rutherford began her career as a teacher at The Hockaday School in 1938. In 1942, she joined the music faculty at SMU, where she became a professor of piano performance; she retired in the mid 1970s. While teaching, Mrs. Rutherford was the ensemble pianist of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra during the tenure of Walter Hendl. As a concert pianist, she performed in New York, North Carolina, Tennessee and Texas. Mrs. Rutherford spent several summers volunteering at the Philmont Volunteer Training Center in New Mexico, the national training center for the Boy Scouts of America.
She also held private lessons in her home after retirement until the early 1990s.
Frances Stuart, a piano teacher who participated with Mrs. Rutherford in several educational organizations, said Mrs. Rutherford imparted her love of music to all these she came into contact with. “She had a wonderful hand and a very powerful technique," she said. `[Her students] showed such special care in their playing because of her.”
Mrs. Rutherford was a member of Mu Phi Epsilon, the Van Katwijk Club, the Musical Arts Club of Dallas and the Dallas Music Teachers Association.
In addition to her son, Mrs. Rutherford is survived by another son, Gene Rankin Rutherford of New Braunfels, Texas; a brother, Winton Blair Rankin of Zebulon, N. C.; nine grandchildren; 15 great-grandchildren; and three great-great-grandchildren.
Memorials can be made to the Highland Park United Methodist Church, 3300 Mockingbird Lane, Dallas, Texas 75206, or to the Circle Ten Council of the Boy Scouts of America, 8605 Harry Hines Blvd., P.O. Box 35726, Dallas, Texas 75235-0726.
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