(2010)
Ruth Sylva Watson (1918-2010).
Opposite the Winthrop Street Cemetery is a compound that’s been in one family’s hands since its days as the Simmons Farm, beginning in 1901. The property passed from Rosa and Manuel Simmons; to their daughter, Minnie (Simmons) Sylva (also spelled “Silva); to her daughter, Ruth (Sylva) Watson, who ran Shankpainter Village, a cottage colony on Winthrop; to her daughter, Ruth (Watson) Dutra, who lives on an abutting parcel. Ruth Watson’s granddaughter, RuthAnne (Dutra) Cowing, lives on an abutting parcel at 35 Shank Painter with her husband, Brian Cowing, whose ancestors are buried across the street. Ruth Watson loved dogs, horses, ducks, and geese. For a time, the Shankpainter Children’s Zoo was operated on her property by her daughter. Ruth Watson and her husband, Horace Kilbourne Watson, were married 73 years, before his death in 2009 — one year before hers. “Every night they would drive their white Cadillac the length of Commercial Street, stopping at MacMillan Wharf before savoring the magical sunsets at Herring Cove Beach,” her obituary recalled. (The temporary marker shown above in a 2010 photograph has since been replaced by a permanent stone with the Dürer Praying Hands and the inscription “Forever in Our Hearts.”)
¶ Last updated on 18 November 2017.
Find a Grave Memorial No. 54163148.