About Ruth Nelson
Ruth Nelson (1935–2023) was a prominent social activist and philanthropist deeply dedicated to her home state of Oklahoma, and particularly Tulsa County. Ruth Nelson was born Ruth Kaiser in 1935 in London, England, where her mother had traveled so her first child would not be born a Jew in what was then Nazi Germany. Her parents emigrated to Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1941. The mother of four children who now serve on the Foundation’s board, Ruth applied the same devotion to family that she did to activism and philanthropy.
1985
Foundation established as a private 501(c)(3)
$160M+
Directed to Tulsa nonprofit partners from 1995-2024
2038
All Foundation assets allocated to the community
Ruth served as Chairwoman of the Tulsa Housing Authority, as well as Board Chair of Planned Parenthood for Eastern Oklahoma and Northwestern Arkansas (now Great Plains). A member of the Tulsa Historical Society’s Hall of Fame and the Tulsa Library Hall of Fame, she was awarded the Key to the City of Tulsa in 2016 in recognition for her work with housing, women, and the poor. Earlier, in 1996, she received the Hannah G. Solomon Award from the Tulsa Chapter of the National Conference of Jewish Women.
Ruth approached the world with curiosity and courage. She graduated Magna Cum Laude from Bryn Mawr with a degree in Philosophy in 1958. A lifelong learner with a deep love for English literature, especially William Faulkner, Ruth was an avid reader who believed books opened doors to empathy and understanding. She scuba-dived among whales, sharks, turtles, and rays, often on “liveaboard” vessels. She visited remote environs from Africa to India to Asia, “while we can still do it, and before it all changes,” as she would tell her children and friends. She traversed rivers in dugouts, slept in huts in far-flung villages, and bathed in streams, well into her seventies.
Avowedly aware of her good fortune, given where and how she was born, Ruth vowed to leave the world a better place. Much of her work occurred anonymously. In a nod to the Jewish mission of ‘Tikkun Olam,’ her gravestone reads, “She Lived to Know and Repair the World.”
Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion against injustice and lying and greed. If people all over the world…would do this, it would change the earth.”
— William Faulkner
