Ruth NaomiCobb

William Pinkey's youngest daughter, Ruth Naomi Cobb, (my mother), was born in 1910. Ruth's mother, Sarah Jane Huffstickler Cobb, died in 1913, when Ruth was only three. Her father, William Pinckney Cobb, later married Anner L. Quinn.

Ruth Cobb did well in school and graduated from Kings Mountain High School in 1928. She could not afford to go to college and instead got a job in one of the numerous cotton mills that came to the area after the railway passed through Kings Mountain. Nearby Gaston County had more cotton mills than any other county in the United States.

In the late 1930s, Ruth Cobb met Guy Henderson, my father. They were married by 1940, when their daughter, GuyAnne Henderson, was born. Harold Douglas Henderson was born in 1942 and Ray M. Henderson in 1949. All three of their children were born in Kings Mountain.

When Ruth's father, William Pinckney Cobb, was ill near the end of his life, she cared for him in their home on Gold Street. She was an active member of the First Baptist Church in Kings Mountain, where she taught Sunday School and worked with youth groups. Those, who knew Ruth Cobb, said they never once heard her raise her voice in anger.

Ruth was both thrifty and creative. In 1959, when GuyAnne was married to Robert Hullender, Ruth sowed all the bride's maids dresses for the wedding. She sometimes baked cookies for Ray's elementary school class.

In the late 1950s, Ruth was diagnosed with lung cancer. This was the possible result of having worked in the cotton mills before the development of modern air filtering systems. Ruth Naomi Cobb Henderson died in Charlotte Memorial Hospital in 1961 at the age of fifty-one.

--Cobb Family History, Ray Henderson