Ruby Cunningham spent time in an orphanage as a child. Ruby was born to Catherine and James Logan in South Australia. Catherine died when Ruby was a tiny girl, and James put Ruby into the Goodwood Orphanage when he remarried.

Ruby was sent out to work at age fourteen. She met her husband to be, Leo Cunningham, at her first work placement on a property in South Australia’s mid-north. The couple had seven children.

In 1948 Ruby and Leo moved to Wallaroo on the Yorke Peninsula, and Ruby was active in her community until her death at the age of ninety-five. Ruby was honoured for her community service by the Cornish Association of South Australia during the 2017 Dressing of the Graves.

References:

“St Vincent de Paul Orphanage (1866 – 1975).” Find & Connect, 2011. https://www.findandconnect.gov.au/guide/sa/SE00049

Knight, Robyn and Briggs, Trevor. Dressing the Graves. A collection of citations of the district’s early settlers buried in Greens Plains West, Kadina, Moonta and Wallaroo Cemetries. Myrtle Bank, SA: Cornish Associations of South Australia, 2017.