Ruth Buchanan was a prominent staff member of the University of Michigan during both WWII and the Korean War. She worked as a museum assistant and wasn’t very well known across campus, performing her duties as assistant dutifully and quietly (1). During her career she became the University of Michigan’s first housemother of a cooperative house named the Socialist House. She once told the Detroit News that she always had an interest in the boys “who work their way through college” (2). And thus spurred her remarkable dedication to the boys who went to war.

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        Buchanan became known for sending letters, greeting cards, birthday notes, and clippings of The Michigan Daily to University of Michigan students, faculty, staff, and alumni who were serving in the military. In the end, she sent around 17,800 letters, almost 7,000 birthday cards, and over 7,000 get-well cards (2). Buchanan went from being an everyday museum assistant to a critical support system for thousands of men and women fighting in the war. And Ruth absolutely adored being a pen pal to so many. In 1944, she told The Michigan Daily that “every night [she had] several fellows waiting at home to talk to” and she would diligently respond to every single one (2). As time went on, and Buchanan began to gain more mass media attention, students in the military and at home began to call her “Aunt Ruth.” In addition, greeting card companies provided her new cards in order to continue her letter-writing campaign (2). It was Ruth’s care and compassion for the University of Michigan men and women serving her country that made her one remarkable U-M Aunt.