Obituary of Ruth H. Blum Landini

Ruth H. Blum Landini, 90, passed away peacefully with her son by her side on July 15, 2018, at Cedar Hill Health Care Center, Windsor, VT. Ruth was born in Paterson, NJ, on June 3, 1928, to Peter and Elizabeth (Lapsley) Halsted, grew up in East Paterson and graduated from Lodi H.S. She earned a degree in English from Paterson State Teacher's College during the war years and met her future husband Russell Blum, a native of Wyckoff. They married in 1951, lived for a short time in Mississippi, where she worked as a parole officer and adoption worker, then returned to Wyckoff to raise two sons. A mother by day and Wyckoff reporter for the Ridgewood News by night, she also earned an M.A. degree in School Social Work from Montclair State. As a Guidance Counselor, School Social Worker and finally as Director of Student Personnel Services for the Wyckoff School System, she helped guide students and parents through increasing educational opportunities and complexities, retiring in 1992 after 23 years of service. She was an active member of the Wyckoff Reformed Church, First Presbyterian Church of Pompano Beach, Junior Women's Club and Juvenile Conference Committee. She used her skills as a writer and editor on a variety of formal and informal publications throughout her life. Her husband Russell, whose efforts as a father and volunteer fireman she supported, passed away in 1980, and her son Douglas passed in 1992. In 1994, she started over again, marrying Anthony Landini, of Long Island and Florida, with whom she traveled the world and enjoyed a whirlwind of activity centered on his four sons, her son and many grandchildren, nieces and nephews. Upon Tony’s death in 2016, she moved to Vermont to be close to her son Kenneth Blum of Weathersfield, VT, his wife Kathleen and their two children Jonah and Carol. Ruth is also survived by sisters Nancy Bryant of Virginia and Elizabeth (Trygve) Myhre of Tennessee. A funeral service will be held at Wyckoff Reformed Church, 580 Wyckoff Ave., Wyckoff, NJ 07481 on Saturday, July 28th at 11:00 AM, followed by burial at the Wyckoff Reformed Church Cemetery.  Arrangements by the Vander Plaat Funeral Home, www.vpfh.com.