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RICHARD (DICK) IRWIN RUGGLES
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RUGGLES, Dr. Richard (Dick) Irwin
- June 27, 1923 to January 9, 2008 - (Professor Emeritus at Queen's
University, Kingston, Ontario) - Died gently at his home at Duncan,
B.C. on January 9, 2008, in his 85th year. Beloved husband of Mildred
E. (Duncan) Ruggles and dear father of Myles A. Ruggles of Toronto
and Margaret Arlene Ruggles-Eby of Wheatley, Ontario. Will also
be very much missed by his sister, Norine R. Atack of Orangeville,
Ontario and his nieces and nephews, Bev, Gay, Ray, Bob, and Tim.
Also dearly loved by his grandchildren (Maya, Sara, Justin, Johanna
and Diana), his great-grand-daughter (Kayla), and greatly missed
by his many friends, former colleagues, and students. Dick was a
man admired by all who knew him for his kindness, gentleness, humility,
fairness, commitment, creativity and integrity, and these qualities
were expressed throughout his professional, public and personal
life. Obituary from the Kingston Whig Standard - Friday January 18, 2008 Remarks spoken at the Memorial
Service for Dick Ruggles
It is a special privilege, as one of Dick Ruggles's many friends, to express my appreciation of and gratitude for his presence in my life over more than thirty years. I met him in the summer of 1974 just as I arrived at Queen's University to begin teaching in the Department he had established. He and Mildred extended a warm welcome to this stranger whom they had just met; since then I have enjoyed the special warmth of their companionship from near and far. Dick had a pioneering spirit. He was fascinated by the trans-continental wanderings of his ancestors; he was a happy traveler as he "ruggled," his special word for his search for ancestral traces in many corners of this continent. He was among the first graduates of the new program in honours geography at the University of Toronto. He left his teaching position at the University of British Columbia, still a young man, to accept the challenge of founding the Department of Geography here at Queen's. In his research he likewise revealed his taste for pioneering ventures. From the time he undertook his doctoral research at the University of London to his post-retirement years he pursued the study of the mapping of northern and western Canada by the Hudson's Bay Company; he presented this work in a seminal volume, A Country so Interesting, published in 1991. To read the publications he contributed from this research is to confront the imaginative world of exploration. For Dick was fascinated to discover not only the grand strategy of the Company but also the experiences of young apprentices, in their early teens, who were hired from so-called "Hospitals" where they had been trained in arts useful to the navy as well as to the HBC as it sought to establish a fur trading empire in lands unknown to Europeans. Our friend, Dick, was a man of wide horizons. He sought a broad education, studying in some of the finest Departments of Geography that existed after 1945. This took him to universities in three countries and to two continents. He never allowed himself to put on the disciplinary blinkers which so many of us often wear. As an undergraduate student he studied the German language; as an adult he became fluent in Russian, the better to understand a vast region which captured his imagination. He traveled independently on several occasions in the Soviet Union, finding the opportunity for contact with ordinary people especially rewarding. That he was permitted to do so even as the Cold War raged testifies to his knowledge of that country, his diplomacy, and his tenacity. He taught the geography of the Soviet Union for many years at Queen's University, expressing, as only a dedicated teacher can, his understanding that education should be a liberating and broadening opportunity. He exemplified in his geography teaching a fine example of the rewards of cultivating broad horizons, and he left a mark that will not be forgotten. Finally, to speak a word of Dick's capacity for friendship is to remember his sense of fun. A few years ago he returned to Kingston to celebrate the fortieth anniversary of the Department which he had founded. He was the most senior member present and probably the oldest. None of the many students who joined faculty and staff for the party knew him, for he had lived in British Columbia for some years by then. Undeterred, he had invented a skit which he single-handedly performed on this occasion, showing himself to have the youngest spirit in the place. There wasn't a person, of whatever age, who did not delight in his imaginative and light-hearted tribute to an enterprise which remained close to his heart. His enjoyment of life, his gentleness of spirit, his smile—these were qualities which enfolded us all. And it was a welcome which he and Mildred offered together throughout their married life. Peter G. Goheen RICHARD IRWIN RUGGLES (1923-2008):
KINGSTON CITIZEN, QUEEN’S SCHOLAR, GENTLEMAN On 9 January 2008, Professor Richard Irwin Ruggles died at his home in Duncan, Vancouver Island, at the age of 84. He leaves his wife of 53 years (the former Mildred Duncan), a sister, a son, a daughter, five grandchildren, a great-granddaughter, and many admiring friends and colleagues. The richness of Dick’s warm and strong family connections was to the fore in the Memorial Service at the Morgan Chapel in Queen’s Theological College on Friday, 25 January. What emerged was a committed family-man remembered and revered for his constant devotion and support – accompanied by an often outrageous sense of humour! The service was also attended by those who remembered him as an important presence at Queen’s. Professor Ruggles was the founder and first Head of the Department of Geography, an active member in the Kingston community, and a highly regarded scholar in the field of historical cartography. Richard Irwin Ruggles was born in Toronto on 27 June 1923. Educated at the University of Toronto (B.A. 1945) and Syracuse University (M.A. 1947), Professor Ruggles’ first academic position was in McMaster University (1947-50). Following doctoral studies at the London School of Economics (Ph.D. 1958), he took up a post at the University of British Columbia’s Department of Geography and Slavonic Studies (1953-1960). In 1960, he was appointed to the Headship of the new department of Geography at Queen’s, a position he held until 1969, and as Acting Head for two subsequent years. He retired in 1988 with the rank of Professor Emeritus. By this date, the department he had founded had grown from his original corporal’s guard of half a dozen dedicated pioneer geographers into one of Canada’s top departments with a complement of 20 or so faculty, a highly regarded graduate programme, and an established international reputation.
For those undergraduates, graduate students, staff, and faculty who remember those years, “Dick” was the paterfamilias of a close community. It was characterised by the warm gatherings he and Mildred hosted at their home, daily morning and afternoon coffee/tea gatherings of faculty and staff, and annual departmental parties. Indeed, Dick’s gentlemanly mien, his sense of fairness, and his overall good taste had a very positive effect on the atmosphere within the department. Of considerable importance was Dick's sense of the cohesive nature of our discipline and recognition of the interconnections between the subspecialties within human and physical geography. This was especially important at the undergraduate level in the early years, and increasingly at the graduate and research levels more recently. The product of all of this was a strong, cohesive department and a coterie of loyal alumni. But Dick Ruggles did not stay inside the safe confines of the ivory tower: he was truly a public scholar engaged in his home community. Active in the United Fund Campaign (1961-64), he also directed his skills and energies to urban planning matters as Kingston began to adjust to its changing fortunes. To this end, he served as Chair of the Mayor’s Committee on Downtown and Waterfront Redevelopment (1962-64), and authored its subsequent report. He also chaired the Kingston Area Planning Board (1962-65) and served on the Advisory Board on Conservation Education of the Cataraqui Conservation Authority (1967-69). Throughout these years, Richard Ruggles was also an active professor. He sustained a life-long interest in the economic and political geography of Russia and the Soviet Union, but it was as a leading scholar in the field of historical cartography that he was best known. While the author of numerous monographs, articles, and reviews, two of his works were particularly well received. In 1970, the centenary of Manitoba’s establishment as a province, Ruggles, together with his close friend and colleague, John Warkentin, co-authored the Historical Atlas of Manitoba. For one reviewer, its 300-plus maps rendered an “elucidation of the historical and geographical development of Manitoba” and constituted “a unique achievement both in atlas-making and in historical geographical writing on the continent.” Two decades later in 1991, he produced what was his magnum opus, a thorough examination of Canada’s “first mapping agency” the Hudson’s Bay Company. A Country So Interesting: The Hudson’s Bay Company and two Centuries of Mapping, 1670-1870 was the product of Ruggles’ early doctoral research in London in the 1950s and his subsequent investigations in the archives at Winnipeg. As one reviewer commented, it was a study “unparalleled in Canada in its analysis of cartographic documents themselves, and the context of their creation, their role, and their present-day significance.” It was a measure of the man that, in retirement, he took time off from his painting, photography, and travel to apply his expertise to what he called “my last involvement in publication”: reading and commenting on Samuel Bawlf’s pre-publication manuscript of his provocative volume, The Secret Voyage of Sir Francis Drake 1577-1580 (2003). On publication, the author thanked “Professor Richard Ruggles for his wonderful insights into the mapping of discovery and the secrecy aspect.” As Dick put it later, probably with a twinkle in his eye, “I was glad to oblige.” This distinguished record of scholarship earned Professor Ruggles honours and awards from several agencies: the Canadian Association of Geographers; the Canadian Cartographic Association; the National Archives of Canada; the Canadian Historical Association; the University of Toronto; the American Association for State and Local History. But, apart from his prestigious academic career, Professor Richard Irwin Ruggles has also left his personal mark on the communities of Queen’s and Kingston. On the occasion of his retirement, the “Richard Ruggles Research Room” was established in the university’s Map Library which now continues as the “Richard Ruggles Historical Cartography Collection.” Further, in line with his commitment to the department and its students, Dick Ruggles funded the “Ruggles Scholarship” to recognize aspiring young academics with strong academic records who have also played a leadership role in the Department: that is, fulfilling his model of a combination of scholarship and community service. Finally, in 2005, in another generous gesture, the “Richard and Mildred Ruggles Fund for Enhanced Education in Geography” was established to nurture field studies in the discipline, or the incorporation of the arts into geographic education at Queen’s. It is fitting, therefore, that Dick ensured that after his death he be returned to Kingston to be buried in Cataraqui Cemetery. Professor Emeritus Brian Osborne has been a colleague and friend
of Richard Ruggles since 1967 |
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