Graveside services will be 3:00 P.M. Wednesday, December 17 at Dreamland Cemetery in Canyon with Rev. John McClean, pastor of the First United Methodist Church, officiating. Ruby E. Guthrie was born June 24, 1918, the fourth of six children of Edna Lou Wallace Guthrie and John Archibald Guthrie, Sr., and the great-granddaughter of Alice Louise Wells Wallace and John Andrew Wallace. The Wallace family moved to Canyon from Erath County, Texas in 1898. In Canyon John Wallace became a stock farmer and a lay minister for the Methodist Episcopal Church. Ruby"s father, John Guthrie, arrived in Canyon in 1903 from Erath County, Texas. He managed the first telephone exchange in Canyon, and in 1911 opened Canyon"s first Ford agency, garage and service station. In 1919 he launched an insurance and real estate agency; his office was on the second floor of the old First National Bank building on the west side of the courthouse square. Jack and Ruby Guthrie Jennings were high school sweethearts. They graduated from Canyon High School in 1936 and attended West Texas State College briefly, Jack majoring in business administration, and Ruby in fine arts. Their marriage on April 30, 1938 was described by Canyon"s newspaper as uniting two pioneer families. Jack attended Ruby"s six-year birthday party at the Guthrie house built in 1918 at 1010 4th Avenue. Jack and Ruby celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary in 2008. Jack was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1942, training at Camp Hood, Texas. In 1944 he was assigned to the Golden Lion 106th Infantry Division. Jack and Ruby"s war-time experiences living in Texas, Indiana, and Georgia, were adventures in war-time shortages and cramped living conditions, but nevertheless they formed life-long friendships. However, after Jack"s unit was shipped overseas, they both endured hardships. Jack was among the 4,700 infantry captured during the Battle of the Bulge. Shortly after Ruby read in the newspapers that the 106th Infantry Division was "wiped out", "losing two regiments in the Ardennes", she received a telegram that Jack had been Missing in Action since December 11. Another month passed before another telegram informed her that he was a Prisoner of War. Jack was liberated on March 30, 1945. A year from his liberation date, Ruby gave birth to their only child, Jan. That same day, Jack, and his brother Worth Alston Jennings, Jr., opened Jennings Men"s Store in Canyon. In 1952 Jack and Ruby opened Jennings" women"s clothing store located at 1609 4th Avenue until January 1957 when it moved to 1505 4th Avenue. The Jennings" store remained a fixture on the north side of the courthouse square until June 15, 1975 when Jack and Ruby sold the store and retired. In 1948 Ruby began studying painting with Miss Pearl Black. In 1955 Miss Black suggested that she try china painting, and it became Ruby"s lifelong interest. She taught china painting for many years, held membership in the International Porcelain Artists Teaches and the Palo Duro Porcelain Art Club of Canyon. She exhibited her work in several venues. Ruby was preceded in death by sisters Louise Guthrie Brown and Carrie Guthrie Oldham, and a brother John Archibald Guthrie, Jr., and a nephew, John Daniel Goddard. She is survived by husband Jack Neil Jennings, daughter Jan Jennings, son-in-law Herbert Gottfried, sister Betty Guthrie Goddard, brother James William Guthrie, sisters-in-law, Irma Guthrie and Virginia Guthrie, as well as nieces and nephews. The family requests that memorials be made to Dreamland Cemetery, P.O. Box 38, Canyon, TX 79015. Please sign our online guest registry at www.brooksfuneral.com.