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Page her. . . . That dream was so real it made me miss her even more. Nowhere is the suffering that Ruth Stokoe's illness caused her husband more apparent than in his account of finding two small slips of paper with her writing on them 'They are two of a great many little scribblings Ruth did in the fall and winter of when reason was snapping off and on like alight bulb almost at the point of finally burning out. The smaller slip was done, no doubt, when Ruth was looking at a catalog of paintings of the Niagara region . . . . The larger slip is even more heartbreaking. I
can't tell if her word "angryness" is about her own occasional behavior or about my reactions to it. Lord, have mercy."13
Bill Stokoe's many friends began to worry about him. They insisted that he was working too hard, that at his age he should not have such enormous responsibilities, that he had no time for himself, that he had lost too much weight after having a pacemaker implanted in August of 1990. But Stokoe, in his quiet, stubborn way, continued to do exactly what he wanted to do. "There is no danger whatsoever that I will lose myself in serving Ruth" he said. "Its not so much serving her as continuing our life together and doing the things for her that she did for me and would do for me if I needed them."14
Early in 1992, after caring for his wife for five years, Stokoe found a nursing home nearby where he was sure she would be comfortable. The home was close enough that he could spend several hours with her everyday. In November of that year, he had two dozen red roses delivered to Ruth in celebration of their fiftieth wedding anniversary. When he paid his daily visit that afternoon, he recalls, "Ruth was dozing in her chair right in front of the mantle piece where the roses with my card were displayed. As I walked over to greet her by name, she opened those lovely blue eyes, focused a moment, and her whole face shaped into a smile."15
Just as Stokoe accepted the circumstances imposed by his wife's illness, he also came to terms with Gallaudet. Initially, he could barely talk about the closing of the lab, "it sickened me so He was angry enough to refuse the title of Professor

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