Robert Lee Ruby
Robert Lee Ruby
54 YOA
Bidwell Coal Mine
Polk Township
Wapello County
January 11, 1936
In 1936, Robert Lee Ruby was a farmer in Cass Township of Wapello County who supplemented his income working as a miner.
About noon on Saturday, January 11, 1936, 54-year-old Ruby died while working in the Bidwell Coal Mine on the Henry Oswald farm south of Christiansburg — now a ghost town — in section 27 of Wapello County’s Polk Township.
Ruby plunged 87 feet to the bottom of the mine shaft, breaking every bone in his body.
Wapello County Coroner John Drake speculated that Ruby was returning an empty cart to the cage to be lowered to the bottom of the mine and fell because the horse that hoisted the cage moved forward, exposing the shaft.
Drake, however, did not know exactly what happened and did not hold an inquest. There was no other investigation into Ruby’s death.
Years later, a great-granddaughter found a newspaper clipping about Robert Ruby’s death among her deceased mother’s belongings.
Her eye fell on one particular sentence: “Just how the accident occurred, Coroner Drake said, could not be determined since there were no witnesses.”
Curious, she asked relatives about Robert Ruby’s death.
Her father told her:
“If I am not mistaken, they think he was pushed and did not fall.”
An aunt said:
“They think he was murdered but no one ever knew why.”
With only one vague sentence and fading family memories to go on, that great-granddaughter now seeks answers to her ancestor’s death.
If you have information about the 1936 death of Robert Lee Ruby, please send it to Iowa Cold Cases through the Contact form.
Courtesy photo Linda JonesRobert Lee Ruby was born July 7, 1882 near Ollie, Iowa, to Phoebe Elvira Keasling and Charles E. Ruby.
He had 13 siblings: Caroline Ruby Weeks, Jacob W. Ruby, Elora Ruby, Jefferson Ruby, Mary M. Ruby, Jackson Ruby, Alfred Ruby, May Ruby Lemon, Jane Ruby, Nettie Ruby Cook, Inella Ruby, Genetta Ruby, and Barney Ruby.
On January 17, 1905, he married Myra Ellen Lock. They had seven children: Lota Winefred Ruby, William Mettie Ruby, Katharine Elvira Ruby Cougar, Cleo Kermit Ruby, Maxine Delores Ruby, Edna Mercedes Ruby Sammons, Bessie Fern Ruby Davis. Myra Lock Ruby died of liver cancer in 1926.
Robert Ruby’s funeral was held at the Christiansburg Church with the Rev. Orville A. Dillon officiating, and he was buried in Memorial Lawn Cemetery in Ottumwa.
Courtesy photo Linda Jones
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