VOLUME 13, NO. 3     June 2001

Miriam Rutman dies

Trustee Emerita Miriam Rutman, 91, who generously supported WPI students for nearly 20 years, died Jan. 20 in Providence, R.I. Rutman began her association with the University in 1983 when she established the Walter and Miriam Rutman Scholarships with a $1.5 million bequest from her husband, a member of the Class of 1930. To date, more than 100 WPI students have been designated Rutman Scholars. In 1985, Mrs. Rutman created a similar scholarship at Brown University with another $1.5 million gift.

During his years at WPI, Walter Rutman held several part-time jobs including student correspondent for Worcester’s Evening Gazette. One of the few graduates to find a professional position at the start of the Great Depression, he was hired as a research chemist at a company in Waterbury, Conn. When that job ended in 1932 he moved to Providence, R.I., where he had relatives, and where he worked at odd jobs until 1935, when he and a partner took over the nearly defunct Rhode Island Jewish Herald. Rutman built the weekly into The Herald Press in Pawtucket, R.I., a printer and publisher of many community newspapers.

The couple had been married nearly 45 years when Walter died in 1982. At her death, Miriam was the owner and president of the newspaper and the press and of Ondine and Post and Star publishing companies.

The third woman to be elected to the WPI Board of Trustees, Miriam Rutman served from 1987 to 1992. In April 1998 she was honored at the first dinner for scholarship recipients and donors. For many years she made it a practice to meet the newest Rutman scholars in the fall and to return for Commencement, when she often wished new graduates well, by telling them, "I hope the time will come when you will be able to help students as Walter and I have."