Passages
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Ready for anything

Ruby Ingram learned early in life about the importance of being prepared for anything.

Born Ruby Elsie Hoski on Aug. 1, 1934, at St. Boniface Hospital, she arrived in the world with the so-called Dirty ’30s and the Great Depression in full swing and families struggling to make ends meet. The following decade, the world’s focus shifted from economic survival to the Second World War and its aftermath.

The lessons she learned during those tumultuous times played a key role in defining the person she would become as an adult and helped her deal with every curveball that life threw her way.

“Yeah, I’ll be honest with you, mom was always very well prepared for everything,” her son Rod recalls.

Ruby Ingram died Oct. 3, 2025. She was 91. (Supplied)

Ruby Ingram died Oct. 3, 2025. She was 91. (Supplied)

Ingram started playing softball when she was 13. She was eventually recruited to join the CUAC Blues senior women’s team, which became one of the most dominant softball squads ever seen in Manitoba.

The CUAC Blues won an astounding 17 consecutive provincial championships and became the first Manitoba team to win a women’s Western Canadian Softball Championship when it did so in 1957. Ingram and the rest of her CUAC Blues teammates were inducted into the Manitoba Softball Hall of Fame in the team category in 2005.

Read more about Ruby Ingram in our weekly A Life’s Story feature.

 

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How They Lived

Read about the lives of great Winnipeggers and Manitobans on our Passages website.

Until next week, may you continue to write your own life’s story.

 

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