THE JOURNEY OF RUTH BEAM
by Christine Crane
D uring the Great Depression, a young, college-educated divorcee emerged from the hills of North Carolina to one day take the Po- meranian breed to a high that no one has since been able to match—aWest- minster Best in Show. To say that Ruth Lowery Beam was ahead of her time would be an understatement. Born April 2, 1913, Ruth was a self- described “tom boy” growing up. She enjoyed the outdoors, dabbled in car- pentry, and aspired to become a Phys- ical Education Teacher. A 1937 gradu- ate of what is now UNC Greensboro, Ruth Lowery attempted to pursue her first passion of becoming a teacher. However, she was unable to find a job due to the limited opportunities. She married for a brief period (sixmonths, to be exact), but chose electricity and running water over Bobby Beam’s idea of married life. (I wonder if this had anything to do with the name of her three-legged dog, Great Elms Bobby Beam?) Shortly after her father died, Ruth moved in with her mother and helped to run the family general store. She also began breeding dogs as a hobby. Among her list of breeds were Boston Terriers, Pekingese, and one Cocker Spaniel. But her love for Pomeranians came about after being introduced to the breed through her brother. On a visit to New York, he’d caught sight of one of the original Timstop- per dogs. When he returned home, he enlightened Ruth with the story
of the beautiful dog he had seen. She had never set eyes on a Pomeranian before. Pomeranians, however, were to become her new hobby breed, and later, her life’s passion. In 1950, Ruth registered her ken- nel under the name of Great Elms (named after the 10 Elm Trees in her backyard) and started producing her own show dogs. She finished her first two champions that year. As a breed- er/owner-handler, Ruth achieved Group placements and handled one of her favorite all-time Pomeranians, Great Elms Little Timstopper. Her mentor was Gladys Schoenberg of Aristic Poms. Mrs. Schoenberg her- self was not the typical breeder of her time. Unlike others, she was willing to share her lines with breeders who were not upper-class. When Ruth first ventured into breed- ing, email and cell phones were yet to be invented. Communication was done via letter, magazine ads, and late-night calls. Her typical day was rising at noon and working until 4:00 a.m. in order to make herself avail- able for those telephone calls, which were considered to be quite pricey. The shipping of dogs was limited to train. Via train was the means by which Ruth received her first Pomer- anian. It was because of this limited access to non-local dogs that breed- ers were more inclined to breed to their own dogs. This resulted in lead- ing Ruth down the road that would define her breeding philosophies,
and later, produce a line that would have a strong and lasting impact on the Pomeranian breed. Ruth was a strong believer in line- breeding. She was keen on breeding daughter to father and niece to uncle, but her favorite was granddaughter to grandsire. When it came time for
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