FLORENCE — Ruby Dean (Berryhill) Vickery, age 90, died on January 25, 2021.  She lived with cancer for many years but was unable to fight off COVID19-related viral pneumonia .

Born the eldest of five siblings in Hampton, AR on April 24,1930 to parents Archie Berryhill and Ophelia (Jeffreys) Berryhill, she graduated from Hampton High School and briefly attended nursing school before moving with her family to Hamilton, AL. There she met and married Ray Vickery, her husband of almost 52 years.

Hers was a life of chapters. The first two decades of her life were lived as a child of the depression in rural Arkansas and Alabama.  She learned to work hard and to value everything she earned.  She lived the next five decades as a working mother, homemaker, and small business owner.  Her Knit Shop was well known in the community, attracting both loyal customers and good friends who gathered to knit with and learn from her.  The last two decades of her life were spent learning to live on her own, first at home and then in an assisted living community where she continued to share her talents for gardening and needlework.

Dean was smart, feisty, and independent, with an irreverent sense of humor.

She loved big-hearted, unpretentious, and hard-laughing people. Those kinds of

people tended to love her right back.  She was an enthusiastic collector of practical objects and could put her hand on whatever anyone needed since she saved anything  that had a chance of being reused.

Her faith was not ostentatious but she loved Bible study and gospel singing with Reverend Phillips and her neighbors at The Renaissance of Florence.

She was mom to her sons Micheal Vickery (Linda Koebert) of Traverse City, MI and Patrick Vickery (Nancy) of Euclid, OH and second mom to her “just-like-daughters” Reeda Lee of Florence, AL and Geda (Lee) Watson of Chatanooga, TN.  She was Gramma Dean, Aunt Dean, Ruby Dean, Ms. Vickery, or just Dean to the grandchildren, great grandchildren, family members, knitters, cancer survivors, hospital volunteers, election co-workers, community college classmates, and untold others who inhabited her world as her family and friends.

Dean was preceded in death by her husband Ray in 2001 and her sisters Doris Jean Lee and Sue Berryhill.  She is survived by sister Sylvia Myers and brothers Max Berryhill and Allen Charles Berryhill.

Her family is grateful for the many fine professionals – especially the loving staff at The Renaissance – who provided care and support in her final years.

Interment at Colbert Memorial Gardens will be followed by a celebration of Dean’s life at a future time as determined by her family. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made in her name to the Camp Bluebird Adult Cancer Camp through the St. Vincent’s  Foundation. https://www.stvhs.com/philanthropy/give.asp

You are invited to leave condolence messages at wfunerals.com