January 24, 1898: Ruth Glover Hill is born in Germantown, Pennsylvania to the Reverend Thomas Guthrie Franklin ("Frank") Hill (a Presbyterian minister) and Grace Livingston Hill (an author). Ruth was their second child. She had an older sister named Margaret, born in 1893.
Summer of 1899: Ruth's father, Frank becomes ill with appendicitis, but his doctor discourages surgery due to the dangerous risks.
November 22, 1899: Ruth's father, Frank dies from appendicitis, after a surgical attempt to save his life.
1899: Ruth, her sister Margaret and their mother, Grace move to Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. They have to find a new home, because the home they lived in belonged to the church. Her mother rents a small brick house on Harvard Avenue in Swarthmore.
Early 1900's: Ruth's grandfather, Rev. Charles Livingston dies, and her grandmother, Marcia Macdonald Livingston (aka Mrs. C. M. Livingston) moves to Swarthmore to live with Ruth, Margaret and Grace. As a young child, Ruth and Margaret were taught at home by their mother. Their grandmother helped Grace with teaching and raising the girls also. Ruth's mother spent a lot of time writing, partly because she needed a job (writing) where she could be home with her children. When the girls were growing up, Grace was always busy, cooking, cleaning, tending the lawn and working in her garden, and she made all of the girls clothing.
1903: Ruth begins piano lessons at age five... later she learns to play the violin.
1904: Ruth and her family move again into a modest house her mother had built on Cornell Avenue in Swarthmore...at first it was a small stone house, but over time it was remodeled and grew to be 14 rooms.
1904: Ruth's mother, Grace marries Flavius Josephus Lutz. During his marriage to Grace, Flavius was often unkind and abusive with words to the whole family. Life became strained... the marriage later ends in an annullment.
1906: Ruth is enrolled in school and begins 2nd grade.
1910's: Ruth enjoyed music, playing the violin, tennis, (Grace had their backyard made into a clay tennis court.) standing behind her mother as Grace typed when she and Margaret returned home from school, so they could read as the story was written, etc. As she got older, Ruth sometimes assisted her mother in a secretarial capacity, answering letters, reading first drafts of novels and helping to proofread final drafts. Ruth was involved in several churches nearby growing up, including the Swarthmore Presbyterian Church, Third Presbyterian in Chester, Pennsylvania, the Leiperville Church in Leiperville, Pennsylvania and the Blue Church in Swarthmore. She sometimes taught Sunday School and was involved in the music of some of the churches. Occasionally she played violin solos at Vespers. Ruth and Margaret were busy with the music school (in their home) they had both been involved in since their early teens and both were studying music privately. Ruth earned a quarter for overseeing children practicing music for an hour. She also traveled by train to New York City every 2 weeks to study violin with Theodore Spiering who was considered at the time to be the finest violin teacher in America. She also studied music theory, under Ralph Kinder and violin under Sol Marcosson. The music school was eventually moved out of the house and into it's own building at Haverford and Harvard Avenues. Margaret was the director and Ruth was head of the violin department.
May 1914: Ruth's step-father, Flavius Josephus Lutz leaves.
1914: Ruth graduates from high school.
Mid to late 1910's: Ruth attends Swarthmore College. She becomes close friends with Thaddeus Rich "Gordon" Munce at Swarthmore College and the relationship develops into a romance over a period of several years. (Gordon's family lived a few blocks away and he had known Ruth since their days in Christian Endeavor Society.) During the summers of 1914-1916 between college terms Gordon traveled with the Chautauqua Circuit, a religious and cultural extension of the main Chautauqua Conference in New York. Later Gordon is sent to the French front to fight the Germans.
1920's: Gordon Munce returns home in 1920 after completing his courses at his last year of college in France. He decided to stay in France to finish because he discovered his outfit wasn't scheduled to return home for several months. He was unable to find employment when returning home so he and Ruth decided to wait to get married until he found a job.
October 19, 1923: Ruth and Gordon marry. They move away to a house a few miles away, although Grace wants everyone to live with her. A year later Ruth becomes ill and needs nursing care. At Grace's urging Gordon and Ruth move back into Grace's home. The same year Ruth's grandmother, Marcia dies at the age of 93. Ruth wanted their own home, but Gordon felt they should stay with Grace - that she needed them. The following year Margaret marries Wendell H. Walker and they also live with Grace. Two years later the Walkers decide to move into their own home. After several years Gordon who worked for a large oil company was transferred to Virginia. The transfer lasted for 2 years. When he and Ruth returned they lived with Grace for the rest of her life.
1933: Matched Pearls by Grace Livingston Hill is published. This book was considered by Ruth to be the best novel written by her mother.
April 21, 1940: Gordon Macdonald Munce is born. Ruth and her husband Gordon adopted 2 children. Gordon was the first son they adopted. Gordon grew up to became an accountant and was active in his church.
December 18, 1941: Robert Livingston Munce is born. Robert who was adopted at two weeks old, was a missionary in Africa for a number of years, then developed a Christian literature distribution system to supply inexpensive Bibles and Christian books to the poorer countries of the world. He also wrote Grace Livingston Hill, a biography about his grandmother, Grace.
February 23, 1947: Ruth's mother, Grace dies at age 82.
1948: Mary Arden is published. Ruth finishes writing her mother's last book after Grace's death. This was her first book, and she wrote under the pen name, Ruth Livingston Hill.
Late 1940's: Ruth moves with her two sons to Florida after the recent death of her husband (some sources say Gordon died in 1948, others say 1949). At this point Ruth's main interest is teaching... Since Ruth was close to 50 years old, widowed and the mother of two young sons, she had dreamed of opening a private school where "God would be the sum of the equation, the Bible a textbook." Inspired by that dream, she believed that God wanted her to build the school. She spent summers studying for a bachelor of arts degree from Wheaton College in Illinois. She bought a 13-acre former chicken farm on 54th Avenue North St. Petersburg, Florida, so the school could be built there, then got a bank loan and supervised the construction of four classrooms.
1949: Morning is for Joy is published.
1950: John Nielson Had a Daughter is published. This book was later republished under the title The Homecoming.
1951: Bright Conquest is published.
1953 (some sources list 1955): The Grace Livingston Hill Memorial School is founded by Ruth. The school provided Christ-centered education for as many as 200 students a year. At first it was named after her mother, but later the name was changed to Keswick Christian School. She often used her literary earnings to meet the school's payroll during the early, difficult days. She was the school's principal for 15 years.
1955: Jeweled Sword is published.
1959: The South Wind Blew Softly is published.
1961: Ruth turned the school over to Bill Caldwell, who also operated Christian radio stations WGNB-AM and WKES-AM and the Southern Keswick Bible Conference at the same site.
1962: This Side of Tomorrow is published.
Late 1960's: At age 70, Ruth teaches for 8 years at the Nairobi Bible Institute in Kenya.
1986: Grace Livingston Hill by Robert Munce is published.
1980's-1990's: Ruth spent many years teaching Bible classes well into her 90s. Around 1988 she was teaching 5 Bible classes a week in the Tampa Bay area.
May 23, 2001: Ruth Livingston Hill Munce dies at the age of 103 at Mariner Health of Belleair. For many years she lived at Pinecrest Place, Largo. A memorial service was held at 3 p.m. Tuesday, May 29th. at Suncoast Bible Church, in Largo, where she was a member.
