the Southern states. It was Ruby Lomax's first trip in the capacity of "chauffeur, valet, buffer, machine operator, disk-jockey, body-guard, doctor and nurse, wife and companion," a role she would reprise on later occasions, including the 1939 Southern States Recording Trip. Ruby Terrill Lomax's role in the success of the 1939 Southern States Recording Trip cannot be overemphasized. Nearly all written documentation relating to the collection was composed by her. Read her notes on the records’ dust jackets, her transcriptions of song texts, and her fieldnotes. In addition, her voice can be heard on a number of the recordings, carefully announcing the performer's name and the date and location of the recording. John Lomax's May 12, 1939 letter to Music Division chief Harold Spivacke highlights his wife's volunteer contributions to the Library's Archive of American Folk Song: "In nearly every instance Miss Terrill is including typed copies of the words contained on each record; also the slang of the song and the singers. This will be a big saving for the Library. Writing down the words from the record playing is a long, tedious job." While her husband possessed the contacts, the title of Honorary Consultant and Curator of the Archive of American Folk Song, and the expert knowledge of the material he was seeking and collecting, Ruby Lomax possessed the organizational and archival skills of a longtime administrator and instructor, the wide-eyed wonder of a lifelong learner uncovering a whole new world of studies, and the social skills of a parliamentarian who was a key player on many teams. Later life After John Lomax's death in 1948, Ruby Lomax remained at the "House in the Woods" for many years. She died at the age of seventy-five on December 28, 1961, at the Christian Home for the Aged in Houston, Texas, and is buried in Grove Hill Memorial Park in Dallas. Her legacy lives on in the Delta Kappa Gamma Society International, and other progressive organizations, to which she contributed, as well as in the Library of Congress, where reside the thousands of songs and stories that she collected and documented alongside her eminent husband. References External links Library of Congress American women musicologists People from Dallas People from Houston 1886 births 1961 deaths 20th-century American musicologists 20th-century American women musicians