Ruth Nuneviller: Who is Gloria Steinem’s mother?

Ruth Nuneviller is an American Journalist and the mother of Gloria Steinem. Ruth Nuneviller’s daughter is popular as an American journalist and social-political activist. She emerged as a nationally recognized leader of second-wave feminism in the United States in the late 1960s and early 1970s. She was a columnist for New York magazine and a co-founder of Ms. magazine.

Ruth Nuneviller: Bio Summary

Who is Gloria Steinem’s mother?

Ruth Nuneviller was born on 15 August 1898 in Toledo, Lucas Co., Ohio, USA. She was the daughter of Joseph Henry Nuneviller and Marie Catherine (Ochs) Nuneviller. It is unclear if she had any siblings, there is no record of that. Ruth was Presbyterian, mostly of German (including Prussian) and some Scottish descent. According to Wikitree, Ruth Nuneviller was the Editor-in-chief, The Teaser, Toledo, Ohio (student newspaper @Univ. Ohio) – 1st female editor

Ruth Nuneviller was married to  Leo Steinem, a Jewish, the son of immigrants from Württemberg, Germany, and Radziejów, Poland. The couple tied the knot on 25 Oct 1921 in Toledo, Lucas Co., Ohio, USA. Before Gloria Steinem was born, her mother, Ruth, then age 34, had a “nervous breakdown” (what might be described today as an anxiety disorder and agoraphobia) which left her an invalid, trapped in delusional fantasies that occasionally turned violent.

ALSO, READ; Leo Steinem: What happened to Gloria Steinem’s father?

Gloria Steinem’s mother who was a fun and pleasant woman to be around went from “an energetic, fun-loving, book-loving” woman to “someone afraid to be alone, who couldn’t hold on to reality long enough to hold a job, and who could rarely concentrate enough to read a book.” The fun-loving woman began spending long periods in and out of sanatoriums for the mentally ill.

Ruth was not the only child of Ruth Nuneviller and her husband Leo Steinem, she had an older sister whose name is Susanne Steinem Patch. The Steinems lived and traveled about in a trailer, from which her father Leo carried out his trade as a roaming antiques dealer. Later Leo went to California to find work, while she and her mother continued to live together in Toledo. Gloria was just ten years old when her parents separated in 1944.

Ruth Nuneviller and her husband’s divorce

Gloria Steinem’s parents called their marriage a quit in 1944 after struggling for a while and being unable to make the marriage work. At that time their older daughter, Susanne, left for college. While her parents divorced due to the stress of her mother’s illness, Steinem did not blame it on male chauvinism on the father’s part, claiming that she “understood and never blamed him for the breakup.”

Nonetheless, the events had an impact on her personality: while her father, a traveling salesman, had never provided much financial stability to the family, his departure exacerbated their situation. Steinem concluded that her mother’s inability to keep a job demonstrated a general hostility toward working women.

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She also concluded that doctors’ general apathy toward her mother stemmed from a similar anti-woman animus. Years later, Steinem referred to her mother’s experience as “crucial” to her understanding of social injustice. These experiences convinced Steinem that women lacked social and political equality.

In 1951 Leo Steinem agreed to live with his former wife, Ruth Nuneviller for a year so that Gloria Steinem could move in with her older sister and finish her senior year at Western High School in Washington, D.C. Although the reunion between her parents was brief, Steinem’s mother eventually received the psychiatric treatment she needed and lived semi-independently until her death.

ALSO, READ; Susanne Steinem Patch: What happened to Gloria Steinem’s sister?

How did Gloria Steinem’s mother die?

Gloria Steinem’s mother Ruth Nuneviller passed away in Jul 1981 in Washington, D.C. She was 82 years old at the time of her death. The cause of Ruth’s death is unknown. The family didn’t make this information available to the public.

Talking about her mother in an interview- “My mother, like some of our mother’s, was the sadness of what might have been…who she could have been,” Steinem exclusively told SheKnows. “I didn’t know until after I was a teenager that she too had been a journalist long before I was born and given up her career.”