Ruth Rodeheaver

American soprano, born January 13, 1898 in Jellicoe, Tennessee; died February 7, 1979 in Winona Lake, Indiana. Ruth Rodeheaver was a younger sister of singer and gospel music publisher Homer Rodeheaver. Growing up in Jellicoe, she was best friends with another aspiring soprano, Grace Moore, and both were enamored of soprano Amelita Galli-Curci, who often sang as a featured performer in religious revival meetings. Ruth made her first recordings in the form of test records made at Victor in June 1920, but all were rejected, and her recording debut was on the first release of her broher Homer Rodeheaver's Rainbow Records label singing "Safe in the Arms of Jesus," though she was not credited. She continued to record for Rainbow and Gennett through 1925 while attending to voice lessons in New York City; Grace Moore was her roomate there. In 1926, Ruth returned to Winona Lake and married Jim Thomas, the manager of the Rodeheaver Company's manufacturing plant. For some time in the 1930s, she was estranged from her husband, moving to Florida where she taught music to elementary school children and hosted a radio show. However, the couple eventually reconciled. After Grace Moore's death in an airplane crash in 1947, Ruth Rodeheaver resumed recording under her married name of Ruth Rodeheaver Thomas with her brother's revitalized Rainbow label. Her last commerical recordings were made for International Sacred in 1955, though still later ones exist on tape at the Winona History Center in Winona Lake, Indiana.