Ruth Ellen Okafor, 91, kept the valley’s weather log for sixty years
Every morning at seven, from 1964 to 2024, she read the gauge behind the feed store and wrote the numbers down.
Ruth Ellen Okafor, who recorded the rain, snow and temperature in Alder Valley every morning for sixty years as a volunteer observer for the weather service, died November 1 at home. She was 91.
She took over the gauge behind Okafor Feed & Seed in 1964 from her father-in-law and missed, by her own count, nine mornings: three for the births of her children and six for a broken hip in 2011, when a neighbour read it for her.
Her notebooks, 61 of them, are now at the county historical society. Researchers at the state university have used them to study the valley’s changing snowfall.
She is survived by her children Grace, Daniel and Ruth Ann, eight grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. A memorial will be held at Cedar Grange Hall on November 15 at 2 p.m.