OXFORD – Ruth Pearl Capaccio was born to Katherine and Amasa Rickard in Northfield, in 1916. She grew up on a farm with two sisters and two brothers. After graduating from Walton Central School, she attended Oneonta Normal School. Her teaching career began in a one room schoolhouse near Walton. She went in early each morning to start the fire and cook all the school lunches herself. Her stories of these Depression years about students without enough to eat showed the compassion and purpose with which she led her life. Ruth’s future husband, Vincent Capaccio, worked with Ruth’s sister-in-law Vera in a barber and beauty shop; he met Ruth when he took Vera to visit her in the hospital while she was in a coma following a terrible car accident. Ruth married Vincent on Jan. 11, 1942, a day so cold that our family remembers is as, “the day the wine froze.” Ruth returned to the farm and tended her young children while Vincent served in England during World War II. After the war, they settled in Sidney where she continued to nurture her five children while her husband attended college under the GI Bill. When her children were older, Ruth returned to teaching English at Sidney Central School. She attended SUNY Oneonta at night to become permanently certified. After many rewarding years, she retired to life as a Snow Bird, migrating annually to Rotunda, Fla. with Vincent. She and Vincent also enjoyed many European trips. Home in Sidney over the summers, she presided over Sunday dinners with the family, always topped off by her famous bread pudding. She also spent weeks with her gradnchildren that they will always treasure. With advancing age, Ruth, always a great reader and crossword puzzle solver,suffered keenly from the loss of her eyesight due to the ravages of macular degeneration. She and Vincent lived with their daughter, Alicia, for several years and then at the NYS Veterans’ Home, Oxford. Vincent passed away in 2002, and Ruth has finally joined him.
Ruth is survived by her five children and their spouses: Mary Ann and Michael Prucnal of Pasadena, Md.; Vincent and Cynthia Capaccio of Raphine, Va.; Anthony and Helen Capaccio of Norwich; Alicia and Thomas Pritchard of Albany and Theresa and Robert Petrocelli of Pasadena, Md. She is also survived by ten grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren along with her brother, Arthur Rickard of Fla.
Her family and all those who were touched by Ruth will always remember her as a loving mother and faithful spouse with a wise, gentle and generous spirit. For more information about Ruth you may go to http://capaccio.name/family.htm.
Memorial contributions may be made in her name to:
National Eye Institute
Building 31, Room 6A16
31 Center Drive MSC 2510
Bethesda, Md. 20892-2510
Please enclose a letter with your memorial requesting that the donation be used for research at the NEI for macular degeneration.
Friends may call Sunday from 4 to 7 p.m. at C.H. Landers Funeral Chapel, Sidney. A Mass will be celebrated by Father Douglas Cunningham at St.Paul’s Church, Norwich on Monday at 11 a.m. Funeral services and committal will be held at a later date.
Arrangements by C.H. Landers Funeral Chapel, 21 Main St., Sidney.