Ruth Hart: “Baby Ruth from Duluth”
The recent PDD posting about the 1960s song “Ruth from Duluth” has led to a potentially related historical sidebar. It turns out that in the 1940s there was a carnival performer promoted as the 750-pound “Ruth from Duluth.”
Very few details are available in the five periodical clippings unearthed so far.
The Billboard, June 30, 1945:
Argus Leader (Sioux Falls, S.D.), Sept. 10, 1945:
The Billboard, March 26, 1949:
Star Tribune (Minneapolis), March 30, 1949:
The Billboard, Apr 9, 1949:
I would bet dollars to donuts that either A. She wasn’t from Duluth. or B. Her name wasn’t actually Ruth. I find no Ruth Hart anywhere in the public record from Duluth. Saying “Ruth from Duluth” was a thing marketing people liked to do periodically for obvious reasons.
I do find a Ruth Mildred Hart dying on March 28, 1949 in Hennepin County, aged 49, mother Fanny Hart, buried in Anoka, MN. however.
Ruth Mildred Hart might be a match. The “Monday morning” of Ruth from Duluth’s death referred to in the Star Tribune article would have been March 29. If she died on the March 28, someone calling the paper and unofficially reporting it could easily have thought she died Monday morning, having learned the news on Monday or Tuesday.
And then the report in The Billboard could have easily been a mistake, giving the date as March 8 instead of 28.