Ruth Elizabeth Little

A celebration to honor the life of our wife, mother and grandmother will be held at Trinity Cathedral Chapel on Saturday, August 13 at 11:30 AM. Ruth was born in Gary Indiana to Lenore Mackey and Percy Jones. Her first love was music, and she played both piano and cello, earning her first wages playing as young as age 14. She was gifted academically and loved intellectual stimulation. She ultimately held degrees in economics, math and epidemiology from Indiana University, Columbia University and Johns Hopkins University. She taught at Seattle University, University of Washington and University of Michigan, and finished her career at the National Institutes of Health. She conducted some of the earliest research on the affects of alcohol on the fetus, and testified before the US congress about her findings. Eventually this line of research took her around the world. Ruth married Robert Wilson Little in 1953 and raised two daughters. They were happily married 36 years until his death in 1990. She married Yosif Asen Zlatkov in 1996. They traveled a great deal before settling in Portland in 2005. Ruth is survived by her husband, Yosif Asen Zlatkov-Little, two daughters, Libby Little and Alison Little Toledo, and six grandchildren; Kirsten Lily Hansen, Gunnar Edward Hansen, John Christian Hansen, Emily Ruth Smith, Garrett Riley Smith and Jack Dillon Smith. She was preceded in death by her first husband, Robert Wilson Little and two grandchildren, Elise Kathleen Smith and Wilson Robert Smith. Memorial gifts can be sent to the Nature Conservancy, directed to the maintenance of the Robert W. Little Preserve. Arrangements by Autumn Funerals, Cremation & Burial, Tigard, Oregon