Ruth “Bernard” Ella
“I was taught for eight years by the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur. They were my inspiration, and I wanted to follow in their footsteps.” – Sister Ruth, on her 80th Jubilee in 2026
Sister Ruth Frances Ella, SNDdeN was born to an Austrian father and English mother who were new to the United States. Living through the Great Depression, the family learned to improvise and to make the most of what they had.
“The art of sewing weaves a thread throughout my life,” she said. “At the age of three, I was already designing clothes for my dolls. By the time I was five years old, I was using a needle and thread. For my 12th birthday, my parents gave me an electric sewing machine. I made my eighth-grade graduation dress.”
Her creativity in childhood grew through improvisation, a capacity that has served her well in ministry through the years as she worked in 26 different assignments!
Sister Ruth was inspired to become a Sister of Notre Dame de Namur by her elementary school teachers at Dolores School in Santa Barbara, Calif. In 1946, she entered the convent and as a novitiate, she was quickly put to work sewing habits and serving as the “clothes keeper.”
“As a young Sister, I was sent to study home economics,” she remembers. “This is where I got my science background, also.”
Sister Ruth became a versatile educator who soon learned to be “easily adaptable” to new or challenging situations. With degrees in home economics, general science and science education, she enjoyed teaching and leadership positions in elementary and high schools primarily throughout California: Sacred Heart (San Jose); Mt. Carmel (Redwood City); Notre Dame High School (Marysville), and St. Francis High School (Sacramento). She was also a home economics teacher at the then-College of Notre Dame in Belmont, Calif.
“I enjoyed working with children of all ages. As a science teacher, it was my joy to guide students to the wonder of the beauties of nature coming from the hands of God,” Sister Ruth says. “Today, I wonder where the advancement of scientific knowledge is taking us as we look into the wonders of cellular life today!”
In 1979, Sister Ruth was invited to join a mission in Kenya, sending her on a global adventure that she has never forgotten. At Egoji Teacher Training College, she served as an instructor in Home and General Science. Her early skills in improvisation came in handy for lab work in her science classes: “We created ‘beakers’ and ‘funnels’ from soda bottles,” she wrote. “The caps of these bottles functioned as ‘petri dishes.’ Bougainvillea flowers became our ‘litmus paper.'”
“From there, I was invited to mission at Pandipieri Catholic Centre to create programs that help young girls and mothers to better their lives,” Sister Ruth said. “Perhaps this was the most memorable and loving of all my missions.”
She joined two Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur who were already working there with very poor girls. Spurred on by public enthusiasm, Sister Ruth established three centers, drawing on her home economics and science backgrounds to teach about personal growth, childcare and development, disease prevention and first aid, dressmaking and tailoring, nutrition and even how to start a small business!
She recalls, “In introducing the program by telling the story of Saint Julie teaching in the fields under the trees, as we were so doing, I passed out medals of Julie. These medals — visibly pinned and proudly worn — created interest in others for many months ahead.”
After serving for more than nine years in Kenya, she returned to California but visited Kenya again in 1993 for the Centre’s 10th anniversary. She wrote: “Where once I used a book entitled ‘Where There is No Doctor,’ now computers are used as sources of information.” Today, the centers she helped establish continue to thrive and have enhanced the lives of thousands of girls over the years.
Following her retirement, Sister Ruth served in hospitality and coordination roles at the Sisters’ Provincial House in Saratoga, Calif., at the House of Prayer in Carmel, Calif. and at the convent in Belmont, Calif. She also coordinated religious education at St. Cyprian Parish in Sunnyvale, Calif. and volunteer activities at the Province Center in Belmont, Calif., where she now resides. Sister Ruth happily uses her lifelong sewing skills wherever they are needed, such as mending, shortening, creating and advising others.
Sister Ruth’s 80th Jubilee in 2026 was cause for a sentimental journey back through time.
“Looking back over 87 years, it has been a life open to the graces God has showered upon me every day,” she shared. “I have lived in loving and welcoming communities wherever I have been sent; communities that have been supportive. I loved the simple life of the SND. In these later days of my life, I ponder more on the person of God within me and the expanding universe: ‘Be still and know that I am God.’”
Updated in 2026