Family Story Finder

The sweep of family history across the generations

1968 Democratic convention
  • August 26 1968 - August 29 1968

It was a signature moment of the turbulent 1960s. Walter, 18, and Dan, 15, were there in Chicago, working as messengers for the Eugene McCarthy campaign.

Action at a distance
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Stan's Mathematica notebooks document his later work and speculations

Helga at the Theodor Herzl School
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Amid the chaos of the Nazi period, the Zionist school in Charlottenburg taught skills and values that lasted a lifetime

Liberal values in the 1960s
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From civil rights to war resistance to arms control, Ruby family members embraced liberal social causes

Mössbauer man—Stan makes his mark in physics
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Stan's innovations in Mossbauer spectroscopy.

Sputnik in the backyard
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Watching Sputnik at night from our back yard in a suburb of Pittsburgh is one of my earliest memories.

The Meeker Massacre
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Social reformer Nathan Meeker was among nine men killed in an uprising of Ute Indians at the White River reservation where he was serving as U.S. agent. His wife and daughter—Smith family descendants—were held hostage for three weeks

The physics experiment that went wrong
  • 1951 - 1958

How and why did Stan Ruby's important post-graduate research go wrong, and what impact did it have on his career in physics?

The problem with anti-ballistic missiles
  • October 6 1968 - March 10 1969

Stanley Ruby entered the public debate over nuclear missile technology in 1968-69.

The Rubys in Israel—1961 sabbatical
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Our family’s amazing year of discovery and connection