Ruby

Ruby is one of Anne Shirley’s friends in Lucy Maud Montgomery’s 1908 novel, Anne of Green Gables, and its sequels. She is a very pretty girl, quite boy-crazy, and intent on having lots of beaus. As one of many sisters, Ruby has learned a lot about life, and enjoys sharing her wisdom with her friends. She eventually becomes a teacher and she does find true love, but dies of consumption before she is able to marry.

Ruby is a friend of Ada Monroe, one of the two main protagonists in the 1997 book by Charles Frazier, Cold Mountain, also made into a very successful film. When Ada inherits her father’s farm during the Civil War, she is ill-equipped to handle it, having been raised to be a delicate Southern belle. Ruby to the rescue – while uneducated and illiterate, she is quite at home in the natural setting and not afraid of hard work. She tackles all tasks presented, and succeeds in whipping the farm into shape, while becoming a confidante to the love-lorn Ada. She is buoyant and colorful, having already overcome many obstacles in her young life, including a drunken and abusive father – she even takes him in after he deserts the war. Her sterling character is well rewarded by marriage and motherhood.