When the relationship terminated, Ruth'fessed up that, legally, she was a single woman. "My mother said 'that's good, you don't have to get a divorce'."
Inspired by the number of solo parents she met working as a supervisor at Newtown kindergarten, Ruth formed a singles club.
"I met my first husband, a Dutch Indonesian there, he was a teacher with two children. I was pregnant with our daughter straight away."
A series of postings to remote schools followed, Mangakino included, where Ruth became an uncertified teacher. "My aim was to break a culture of child abuse in the area."
The couple became parishioners at the local Anglican church. "Who should be the vicar but Sonny Melbourne?" (her present husband).
Ruth joined Jaycees, one of two women in the club. It still rankles that when her husband moved to Kawerau College the local branch vetoed a female member. "I joined Edgecumbe, the laugh was on Kawerau because I became president."
Being elected Caxton Mill's clerical union delegate was Ruth's entree into the trade union movement. "In Mangakino I'd joined the National Party, Jim Bolger [former Prime Minister] was our MP. I innocently thought I could be a union delegate and National Party member at the same time but soon found out I couldn't."
Ruth was in the thick of the big Tasman mill strike of 1976 - "exciting times".
When her marriage fell apart she moved to Tokoroa, applying for a job at Kinleith. "I didn't have a hope, blacklisted because of my union connections."
A sawmilling company wasn't so picky, taking her on despite her continued involvement with the trade union movement.
It was around this time union firebrand Bill Anderson invited her to join the communist-driven Socialist Unity Party (SUP). "We backed the IRA. Muldoon [Prime Minister Rob Muldoon] came up with a list of 32 SUP members, I was very upset I wasn't on it."
Returning to Wellington, Ruth became even more deeply entrenched in SUP and trade union affairs, and an invitation to study at Moscow's Institute of Social Sciences was issued.
"As soon as you joined the SUP you were aligned to the Soviet Union."
She arrived in February 1989, the leader of New Zealand's delegation of four.
Study was preceded by a period in quarantine.
"It was at the beginning of the Aids epidemic. There was a group from French-speaking Senegal there too. The leader and I became attracted, moving in together at our hostel, we used a dictionary a lot speaking English, French and Russian in the same sentence.
"We were together about six months, he wanted to come here [New Zealand] but I wasn't having that."
Before leaving Wellington, Ruth had secured "a 101" in Russian at Victoria University, her language skills bumped up a notch by working in the Russian embassy's information office.
Field trips took her stepping across the USSR, some places scary, others fascinating. "In Georgia, the border police were armed with rifles; in Dagestan, on the Caspian Sea, people spoke at least 100 dialects, a bit like our Maori tribes."
In Moscow, Ruth became a regular at plays and the Bolshoi Ballet, less cultural was a screening of Crocodile Dundee dubbed into Russian.
"I was the only Australasian there, people couldn't understand what I was laughing at."
Ruth returned home disillusioned with witnessing communism in action.
"The strong people were meant to look after the weak, in reality that didn't happen."
She remained at the Russian embassy until the Berlin Wall came down, then it was back to union work, initially with Jagpro (the Journalists and Graphic Process Union).
"When it merged with the EPMU I was made redundant, by then the Communist Party had disintegrated, the SUP fizzled out. I joined the Labour Party."
Renouncing her communist beliefs, she became parish and vestry secretary at Trentham's St John's Church.
"At a conference in Waikanae I sat next to this couple from Rotorua, asked if they knew Sonny Melbourne, they said 'that's him in the front row'. I flashed my name tag at him, said 'remember me?', we hugged, I nearly stowed away in the van taking him back to Rotorua."
Sonny invited her to visit him in Ngongotaha. "I moved in, he said 'we'd better get married before the bishop says anything'."
How did marrying a churchman sit with her communist background?
"I think it was pre-ordained, I grew up in a loving Anglican family, my older brother was a minister. I felt I was coming home."
RUTH MELBOURNE
Born: Dannevirke, 1939.
Education: Dannevirke North School, Russell St Primary Palmerston North, Christchurch West High School, Moscow's Institute of Social Sciences.
Family: Five children (two adopted when married first husband), five step-children, 16 mokopuna, 30 moko tuarua (with present husband).
Interests: Family, church, reading "I was born surrounded by books", Maori language, culture and music (waiata and himene), member Labour Rotorua's seniors' branch.
On her life: "Blessed . . . I live in extremes."
Personal philosophy: "Love everybody."
