March 19, 1957

Ruth Van Kooy is born at East Orange General Hospital in East Orange, New Jersey, to father Hank Van Kooy, a son of Dutch immigrants, and mother Sheila (née Maxwell), the daughter of Scottish immigrants.

When Ruth is a young girl, the Van Kooy family moves from Kearney, New Jersey, to Norwood.

Spring 1975

Ruth graduates high school from Northern Valley Regional High School in Old Tappan. A straight-A student who played oboe, violin and bass drum, was chosen for the All-State and All-Eastern choirs, played field hockey, and produced, directed and acted in numerous plays and musicals, Ruth wins the English department prize and graduates with honors.

Fall 1975

Ruth begins her undergraduate studies at Harvard. After a successful first year, including winning several honors, she is invited to help teach a course on cosmology the following year.

1976-1977

While serving as a TA for the course on cosmology, Ruth meets Michael Pakaluk, a fellow sophomore who is taking the class. Both Michael and Ruth regard themselves as atheists when they first meet. But both are also searching for knowledge of the truth, with an intuition that their search must take Christianity more seriously.

Together, they begin reading the Bible regularly. They pray, examine their thoughts and actions each day, and, towards the end of the year, look to join a fellowship or church with other Christians.

Summer 1978

The summer after their junior year of college, after 18 months of dating, Ruth and Michael marry. Now confirmed Christians, they continue their search for deeper knowledge of the truth.

Spring 1980

During their last semester at Harvard, Ruth and Michael are on the brink of deciding to become Catholic. They begin attending the early Mass at Saint Paul’s in Harvard Square before attending the Sunday service at their own congregation, First Church Congregational on the Cambridge Common.

In a last bid to prevent their adoption of Catholicism, the leaders of InterVaristy Christian Fellowship organize a lunch in Harvard Square. The idea was to have an InterVarsity campus minister from another city, skilled in apologetics, debate a philosophy professor and recent convert teaching at Boston College; the powerful arguments put forth by the InterVarsity minister would persuade Ruth and Michael, once and for all, to abandon any notions of becoming Catholics.

The lunch proved fateful: the invited philosophy professor was Peter Kreeft, now a renowned apologist for the Catholic faith.

Fall 1980

Ruth and Michael move to Scotland for two years, where Michael studies as a Marshall Scholar at the University of Edinburgh.

During this time, Ruth works for a time at a department store and attends seminars at the Dominican Chaplaincy.

Christmas Eve 1980

Ruth is received into the Catholic Church. Michael, who was baptized in the Catholic Church as a child, makes a general confession and resumes practice of the Catholic faith.

November 1981

Ruth and Michael welcome their first child, Michael, into the world at the Simpson Royal Maternity Pavilion in the medical center of the University of Edinburgh.

Motherhood confirms in Ruth’s mind what already began to take root with her conversion to Christianity: the unspeakable evil of abortion.

1982

Ruth and Michael, with their young son, return to Harvard where Michael begins a Ph.D. in philosophy. They live in a small two-bedroom apartment on Oxford Street. The young parents trade off caring for the baby; when Michael returns home from class, Ruth leaves to work as a bookkeeper—a joyfully welcomed job to help make ends meet.

October 1982

Ruth attends at debate, hosted by Harvard, between Jack Wilke, president of the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), and Nanette Falkenberg, executive director of the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL).

Afterwards, Ruth seeks to get involved and contacts the state pro-life organization, Massachusetts Citizens for Life (MCFL). They connect her with Paul Swope, a Harvard student in the School of Education, and together they begin holding weekly meetings on campus. Two other students, Karin Morin and Carmen Giunta, attend these first meetings and want to get involved. Together, these four found Harvard-Radcliffe Human Rights Advocates in 1983. Within a year, their organization is so large (roughly 300), that Ruth founds a branch group, which becomes the Cambridge chapter of the MCFL.

June 1983

Ruth and Michael are blessed with a second son, Maximilian.

1984

Fran Hogan, president of MCFL, recruits Ruth to the MCFL board of directors. As a member of the board, Ruth leads MCFL’s effort to pass a state constitutional amendment on abortion, limiting abortion rights. The amendment is voted down, but by a small margin.

March 1986

Ruth and Michael welcome their third son, John Henry, into the world.

1987

In 1987, Fran persuades Ruth to stand for the presidency of MCFL, a position she goes on to hold for successive two-year terms until stepping down in 1991.

As president, Ruth works with Paul Swope, now MCFL’s executive director, to update and streamline the organization’s fundraising and media efforts. Membership in MCFL grows substantially under Ruth’s leadership. Ruth founds a Massachusetts chapter of Teens for Life, and helps establish Concerned Central Massachusetts Churches, an association of Protestant churches seeking to be more involved in the pro-life movement.

Although a talented administrator, Ruth enjoys public speaking and debates more. As MCFL president, she appears on TV and radio shows, and debates on university campuses, including MIT, Wellesley College, Boston College, Columbia College, Harvard Law School, and Northeastern University. Her skill as a debater was so great that often abortion activists refused to go up against her.

October 1987

The gift of their first daughter, Maria, is joyfully received by Michael and Ruth.

Fall 1988

Michael and Ruth and their four children move to Worcester, Massachusetts, where Michael accepts as teaching position at Clark University. The family of six lives in a poor neighborhood in a home with forty-year-old carpets and no hot running water, but their days are cheerful and blessed with the abundance of life.

September 21, 1989

Their fifth child, Thomas Matthew, is born at Saint Vincent Hospital in Worcester. Seven weeks later, on November 13, he is found dead in his crib—a victim of SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome). Ruth is stricken with grief, but she embraces her cross and focuses more resolutely on heaven.

September 1990

After Thomas’ death, Ruth prayed for the consolation of another baby. Sarah Esther was born less than a year after Thomas’ death.

When pregnant with Sarah, Ruth developed a lump in her right breast. Her doctor at the time performs a needle aspiration and tells Ruth not to worry.

After giving birth, nursing becomes so difficult on the right side that she eventually stops. Ruth attributes the painful lump to a cyst, and her doctor agrees with the treatment of applying moist heat. The lump persists after weaning Sarah in July. Ruth decides to have a basal mammogram taken. The mammogram shows cancer.

October 8, 1991

A mastectomy reveals a lump of 4 centimeters, with two lymph nodes involved. Ruth begins five months of chemotherapy. Friends organize shifts to help take care of the children and household.

January 1992

While Ruth was undergoing chemotherapy, the Worcester School Committee was poised to pass a new sex education curriculum written by Planned Parenthood. Within a short period of time, Ruth and her close friend Mary Mullaney form the Committee for Responsible Sex Education (CRSE), mobilizing hundreds of Worcester citizens to express disapproval. The Worcester School Committee rejects the Planned Parenthood curriculum.

July 1992

After stepping down as president of MCFL in the summer of 1991, Ruth accepts the position of vice president in charge of pro-life education.

In light of Planned Parenthood v. Casey, Ruth commits her pro-life efforts to influencing hearts and minds through education. She develops a program under MCFL called Life Education Awareness Project, or LEAP. Through LEAP, Ruth creates paradigms for pro-life talks and develops a speaker’s bureau.

She herself takes on more and more speaking engagements, including at Harvard Divinity School, Mount Holyoke, MIT and Assumption College. She founds and leads monthly meetings of a Worcester-based chapter of the MCFL called Central Massachusetts Citizens for Life (CMCFL).

April 1993

Ruth conceives a seventh child shortly after finishing chemotherapy, and welcomes into the world the blessing of Anna Sophia (Sophie). Ruth knew the risks to her health of conceiving in her state, but did not hesitate to have another baby.

November 1993

After realizing the importance of involvement in local government, Ruth’s friend Mary Mullaney runs for school committee, and Ruth manages her campaign. Mary is elected.

A few weeks later, X-rays reveal tumors in Ruth’s lower and upper vertebrae, her right hip, and on her skull. Ruth begins hormone therapy. Her oncologists gives a life expectancy of perhaps three years. Ruth’s thoughts turn increasingly towards heaven.

May 1994

Bone and CT scans show that the tumors spread to compromise the structural integrity of Ruth’s right hip. Surgery in June is followed by radiation treatment and a different hormone treatment.

Ruth climbs Mount Washington in New Hampshire within six weeks of the surgery. She continues to live life with seemingly boundless energy.

She is involved in the successful political campaign of pro-life candidate Peter Blute for the House of Representatives for the Massachusetts third district. She appears on a weekly political talk show on local cable television, and hosts her own monthly show, Close to Home. She leads an Opus Dei monthly meeting, organizes retreats, and leads a weekly Rosary group for mothers. She sings in the St. Paul Cathedral choir, serves as director of religious education, and revamps the CCD program.

Together with Mary Mullaney, Ruth organizes weekly summer excursion for the parish families. She founds a youth group, and helps organize adult education at the parish, teaching two Lenten courses herself. She helps organize twice-a-year conferences, bringing prominent speakers to the cathedral community.

Ruth also continues running the household, cooking meals, cleaning, doing laundry, attending children’s rehearsals and sports games.

January 1998

A CT scan reveals that the cancer has spread to Ruth’s lungs and livers. Her life expectancy is now months. She begins an aggressive course of chemotherapy.

Ruth attends the March for Life in Washington, D.C., but collapses immediately after walking its length. She has bacterial pneumonia and is kept at the Suburban Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland, unit her white blood cell count is at a safe level.

A drug called 5-FU gives Ruth temporary relief, but her health continues to decline.

September 21, 1998

On the birthday of Thomas Matthew, Ruth receives the sacrament of the anointing of the sick. Ruth lapses into a state of unconscious, agonal breathing.

Wednesday, September 23, 1998

In the late afternoon, surrounded by family and friends, with her husband by her side, Ruth Pakaluk died.

Her funeral was held on the following Saturday with over a thousand in attendance at Saint Paul Cathedral in Worcester, Massachusetts.

Ruth’s body is buried in Notre Dame Cemetery in Worcester, Massachusetts.