“She was fiercely independent, warm and generous until the very end.”

A lifelong friend has paid tribute to 104-year-old Ruth Göhler, who died on March 30.

With her life spanning two centuries, Ruth experienced family members being killed in the Second World War and her brother being captured by Russian forces, all before settling in South Oxhey, in the late 1960s.

Ruth was born in 1913 in Dresden, Germany, where she grew up in her family’s hotel. 

When she was in her 20s, Ruth trained as an opera singer and during the Second World War, she sang in a travelling troupe in the former Czechoslovakia.

During the war, her brother became a Russian prisoner of war but managed to escape unscathed. But her family hotel was bombed and destroyed, killing everyone inside, including both her parents.

Watford Observer:

Ruth's family's hotel in Dresden

In the early 1940s, Ruth gave birth to her son Peter, but when she returned from a singing performance one evening, a carer informed her Peter had died, aged three months.

In 1944, she gave birth to her daughter Ava Maria and moved to Austria. Here, she had to feign appendicitis so that she could be moved to a safe zone.

And in 1949, friends invited her to move to England. After moving, she spent some years working as a home carer in Kent and later for the German YMCA in London, before finally settling in South Oxhey, working for Heinz.

It was after moving to South Oxhey, that she met Rosie Penny, whom she knew since a baby and grew up next to since Rosie was 16.

Watford Observer:

Mrs Penny said: “Ruth was feisty and set in her ways, but such a lovely and generous woman, and so loyal to her friends.

“She wouldn’t waste a thing and kept hold of everything – scraps of paper and envelopes would be reused, and she would make me walk around five shops all to save 5p; I guess that stemmed from growing up in the 1920s and 1930s when she had nothing."

Ruth was determined to stay in her own home in Otley Way, where she looked after herself until a few days before her death.

“She was quite remarkable. Her secret to a long and healthy life was probably her independence; the fact she never gave up. She would do all her washing by hand and refused to use a wheelchair when she got older”, she said.

Watford Observer:

“She also loved herring and sauerkraut, so a healthy, balanced diet probably helped her too.”

After feeling unwell, Ruth pressed the alarm button in her home. She was taken to Watford General Hospital where she died in her sleep, four days later.

Ruth wrote in her will that she did not want a funeral and that she wanted her body to be donated to science.

Mrs Penny said: “She was adamant there was to be no funeral – unlike many people of her age, she was in no way religious. She was adamant that once you were gone, you were gone.

“But I wanted to mark her life, because there’s a whole life and legacy left here. I didn’t want to throw her life away with her body. I want to tell people all about her.”

Ruth leaves her 72-year-old daughter, Ava Maria.