Ruth Wilson Hurley
Ruth Wilson Hurley
As a girl she traveled extensively in Europe, the Philippines, China and Japan, attending school in many cities, whose name and languages were foreign to her own, wherever the demands of her father’s career took them.”
Biography
Ruth Wilson Hurley came to Oklahoma after her marriage to Patrick J. Hurley in 1919. She lived in Oklahoma until the couple returned to Washington, D.C. when Patrick was named Secretary of War in the cabinet of U.S. President Herbert Hoover. Mrs. Hurley was the president of the Tulsa Junior League in 1928 when that organization built the Convalescent Home for Crippled Children and she later joined her husband in building the Mary Hurley Hospital and the Ruth Wilson Hurley Manor at Coalgate, Oklahoma. She was also a member of the board which organized the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, D.C. and served as president of the Guild of the Rio Grande Symphony in New Mexico.
Fun fact
On April 22, 1959, Mrs. Hurley was the sponsor for the launching of the first guided missile destroyer, the USS Henry B. Wilson, named in honor of her father, Admiral Wilson.
Oklahoma connections
Hurley came to Oklahoma when she married her husband, Patrick Hurley, in 1919.
Relevant Exhibits
Green Country: From Lenapah to Prague
