News-Info-Alerts

Re: Ruth Gutterson Passes

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci

(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Date: July 31, 2002

"Obituary: Ruth Guttersen, singer, wife of ex-POW

DAVE PETRUSKA Tucson Citizen

Former Vietnam POW and Air Force Col. Laird Guttersen lost his singing partner, his lecture aide, and the "woman who enhanced my life" when his wife, Ruth E. Guttersen, died Friday.

A memorial service was held today for Mrs. Guttersen at St. Odilia's Catholic Church.

Mrs. Guttersen, who was 65, died of complications of head injuries suffered in a fall July 17 in the bathroom at the couple's home.

"Ruth was a very strong-willed woman," Laird Guttersen said. "She was the first woman I had met who didn't want or need something from me. She was complete. Ruth was very independent. It startled me to find such an independent woman, so we eventually got together."

The couple met in 1979, a year after Virginia Guttersen, Laird's first wife, died.

Laird and Ruth Guttersen were taking singing lessons from noted University of Arizona voice coach Igor Gorin.

Laird Guttersen said, "Igor told her he had a tenor for her, and she said, 'What do you mean? A short, fat 18-year-old freshman in college?' Igor didn't mention my name. He told Ruth my age and that I didn't have a wife, and she said, 'Well, that's good.'

"And when she came down for her lesson, he introduced me to her as her new singing partner."

Laird Guttersen said their act was "sort of like Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald.

"We'd sing songs from 'Oklahoma!' and other musicals," he recalled. "Ruth loved to sing, but she had hurt her back while she had been a nurse in Wisconsin and had to stop performing in public. She was a big help to me during my lecture tours, working closely on all my speeches."

When they met, Mrs. Guttersen had no idea her future husband was a retired Air Force colonel who had been a POW in North Vietnam for more than five years.

Laird Guttersen was shot down twice in Vietnam. In December 1967, he was rescued by American forces, but on Feb. 23, 1968, he was shot down and captured.

He spent 27 of his 60 months in captivity in solitary confinement. He was released in March 1973.

Mrs. Guttersen was born in El Paso, Texas, and grew up in Oklahoma. She graduated from nursing school in 1958 and worked as a registered nurse in Green Bay and Marinette, Wis.

Her first husband, Andrew Anderson, died in 1975 in an automobile accident. She and her three children moved to Tucson later that same year.

"We were like the Brady Bunch when we got together," Laird Guttersen said. "She had three kids, and I had three kids. She loved being around kids."

Mrs. Guttersen also is survived by a son, Mark Anderson; daughters Karen Anderson and Susan Rosenberg; stepsons Alan Guttersen and L. Galvin Gutterson; stepdaughter Karen "Kayci" Guttersen; two sisters, Thelma Darby and Betty Williams; a brother, George Burns; and 14 grandchildren. The family asked that donations in Mrs. Guttersen's memory be made to the donor's favorite charity.

Copyright © 2002 Tucson Citizen"