(Reprinted from the “Salt Lake Tribune,” February 13, 2001.)
Ruth W. Haglund Craig, 83, passed away Saturday, February 10, 2001, at home after extended hospital treatment. She was born March 14, 1917, in Salt Lake City to Hakon H. Haglund and Eva Forsberg Haglund, the third of five children. She was given the middle name of Wainee because her father had been a missionary in Hawaii.
At the age of four, she moved with her family to New York City where she graduated from Roosevelt High as valedictorian at age 15. Her younger sister, Jeanne, was born blind, and Ruth learned to read Braille along with her sister. At nineteen she graduated from Hunter College and began teaching at The New York Institute for the Education of the Blind. At the same time, she began attending Teachers College at Columbia University where she earned a master’s degree in the education of the blind.
While teaching at the Institute, she and two colleagues wrote and published the first reading series written specifically to help blind children learn to read Braille.
She married Ensign Marshall R. Craig on March 20, 1944, in the Salt Lake LDS Temple. During World War II while Marshall was at sea, Ruth supervised and trained the non-military instructors of blinded veterans in Menlo Park, California.
After the war, Ruth and Marshall lived in the New York City area while Marshall pursued his graduate studies at Columbia. Ruth designed and sewed sleeper pajamas to sell to supplement their income. She also taught kindergarten and bore four of their six children while living in various communities around metropolitan New York.
In 1953, Ruth and Marshall moved their family to Provo where Marshall took a position in the English department at BYU. At the request of the Superintendent of the Utah School for the Blind in Ogden, Ruth taught a Braille class in Ogden and later developed a program at BYU to train teachers of the blind and visually handicapped. Her long association with people in handicapped education led to a string of visitors to the Craig home from around the country and the world (many of whom were blind themselves). Ruth was acknowledged by her colleagues in blind education by positions of responsibility in national professional organizations and was well known for her innovative techniques and for her leadership in using new technologies and approaches.
During the mid-‘70s, she painstakingly created the only textbook for use in training teachers in the complex Nemeth code for Braille mathematics. She did this work with such care that despite having no background in mathematics, the textbook is still the only work on the subject, used by all who teach Braille mathematics or transcribe printed mathematical materials into Braille.
After her retirement from BYU, she and Marshall spent three years teaching English at two different universities in China. In 1994, she was presented with the inaugural award for Meritorious Service and Lifetime Contributions to the Field of Blindness by the Utah chapter of the Association for Education and Rehabilitation of the Blind and Visually Impaired. The following year, the award itself was named in her honor.
In lieu of flowers, the family suggests that donations be made in Ruth’s name to the Utah State Library for the Blind at 250 N 1950 W, Suite A, Salt Lake City, UT 84116-7901.