Ruby Nelson

Ruby Nelson, known to family and friends in Rainelle, West Virginia as a devoted wife, mother and homemaker, died on Saturday, November 7, 2026, at the age of 100. She was not a celebrity or public figure in the conventional sense: she was a long-lived member of a small Appalachian community whose life was marked by family, faith and a century of quiet endurance, and her death has drawn attention largely because it marks the close of a full century of life rather than because of fame or public achievement.

Ruby was born Ruby Witt on September 26, 1926, in Smoot, West Virginia, the daughter of C. E. Witt and Rena (Forren) Witt. In 1946, at the age of 19, she married F. E. "Gene" Nelson, whom her family described as the love of her life. Together they settled in Rainelle, West Virginia, and raised three children. For most of her adult life, Ruby worked as a homemaker, devoting herself to her husband, children and, later, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Ruby and Gene were longtime members of Rainelle United Methodist Church, where they attended regularly until Gene's death in April 2005. After becoming a widow, Ruby continued to live in Rainelle, remaining close to her children and extended family for another two decades. Those who knew her remembered a woman of practical determination, captured in a saying attributed to her by her family: that so long as she could walk, she could vacuum, a line her obituary singled out as capturing her no-nonsense approach to housework and to life.

She was predeceased by her parents, her husband Gene, her son-in-law Paul Raines, her granddaughter Lindsey Raines and her sister Hazel Sprouse. She is survived by her three children, Ferrell "Sonny" Nelson Jr. of Covington, Virginia, Gary Nelson of McAlester, Oklahoma, and Vicky Raines of Rainelle, West Virginia, along with two grandchildren and three great-grandchildren, including a great-granddaughter who carries her name, Ruby Nelson.

Ruby Nelson passed away peacefully at the Brian Care Center in Low Moor, Virginia. Her funeral arrangements were handled by Wallace and Wallace Inc. Funeral Chapels and Crematory of Rainelle, and her family and community are remembering her as a woman whose century of life was built around home, church and the steady care of the people she loved.