After her last child moved away, Ruth Pinkenson Feldman became a “Green Bubbie” to the neighborhood children — sharing her garden, wisdom, and love.
“I’m no farmer – I’m not looking to grow all my own food! I just want people to see and appreciate the magnificence of Hashem’s Creation and taste homegrown food”
Pulling up in front of Ruth Pinkenson Feldman’s wide fieldstone house on a leafy street in Bala Cynwyd Pennsylvania this New Yorker’s first thought is: How quiet it is! The only noise this spring morning comes from spirited exchanges of birdsong. Ruth’s front lawn turns out to be not a patch of grass but a mosaic of flowers and plants with flagstones meandering toward the front door.
Ruth emerges from a swing chair on one side of the porch where she’s been ensconced with a book. She greets me warmly and it’s evident she spends a lot of time on this spacious porch furnished with comfortable-looking wicker couches and ornamented with potted arrangements and a coffee table scattered with gardening books and her siddur.
With her short blonde sheitel clogs and artsy jewelry Ruth’s appearance immediately intimates her various roles as an early childhood educator artist gardener and community member. The inside of the house as we enter likewise breathes education and art: the living room coffee table holds children’s books art books and seforim and Ruth’s canvases in both abstract and more traditional styles are everywhere — on the walls stacked against the piano propped up against the dining room walls.
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