Alma Margaret Galway SWEET

   Other names for Alma were Mrs. Alma Margaret Galway RUSLING and Mrs. Stanley Sheldon RUSLING.

   User ID: P00049895.

  General Notes:

Alma M. Rusling Alma Margaret Sweet Rusling, was a lifelong Point resident and a communicant of St. John the Evangelist Church on Washington Street for 65 years. She died at St. Clare’s Home on May 30 at the age of 90. Describing her as a frequent correspondent, Reverend Jonathan Ostman of St. John said that she would send him clippings and quotations she thought would interest him. He also described her as being devoted to the church. She was a student of the Bible. While living on Second Street, Mrs. Rusling was an avid amateur photographer who captured Point neighborhood scenes with various small cameras. She was especially fond of photographing the waterfront, including driftways, seawalls and shipbuilding on Washington Street. "She learned to swim at the Willow Street driftway," said her daughter Ruth Kiker, an event that prompted a visit from her Boston relatives. Described as "quiet," and as having "an old-fashioned kind of life," Mrs. Rusling lived during a time when everybody knew everyone else on the Point. In her later years, Mrs. Rusling was asked what she thought the biggest change on the Point had been. She answered, "Nobody knows my name." Mrs. Rusling’s paternal ancestors came to this country in the 17th century, and she could trace her lineage to colonists who fought in the Revolutionary War. She was born in Newport on April 5, 1911 to the late Maryanne Galway Sweet and Elmer Forrest Sweet, also of the Point. Her father was a stone cutter, whose shop Elmer F. Sweet Monuments, (later inherited by his son-in-law John Lord), stood next to Braman Cemetery at the corner of Farewell Street and what is now America’s Cup Avenue. She was the sister of the late Ruth Archer Sweet Vevera, Esther Evans Sweet Norton and Vera Sweet. Mrs. Rusling was the wife of the late Sheldon Stanley Rusling, who served with the Seabees in the South Pacific during World War II. A former Girl Scout leader, Mrs. Rusling was a member of the Point Association and of Friends of the Waterfront. She was a former member of the Civic League, the Mosaic Club and the Ladies Auxiliary of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. She is survived by her brother Bowen Forrest Sweet of Providence; daughter, Ruth Rusling Kiker of Newport and son Robert Best Rusling of China Spring, Texas; three grandchildren, Ann Galway Kiker and James Benson Kiker of Newport and Michael Rusling of Bellingham, Wash.; and four great-grandchildren. Her funeral was held at St. John the Evangelist on June 2. She was buried in Braman Cemetery on Farewell Street, Newport. Donations may be made in her memory to St. John’s Church Discretionary Fund, 61 Poplar St., Newport, RI 02840.

Alma married Stanley Sheldon RUSLING, son of Thomas RUSLING and Nellie STANILAND. (Stanley Sheldon RUSLING was born on 11 May 1906 in Ellensville, New York and died on 10 Mar 1959 in Newport, Rhode Island, USA.)