Plummer remains busy, active and positive

June Casagrande

Ruthelyn Plummer doesn’t know how much time she has left, and in a

way that’s a good thing. Just as well to focus on researching the

family genealogy that has her so intrigued, to focus on lunching with

friends, shopping with her son and the occasional bridge game. Just

as well to accept the diagnosis of terminal pancreatic cancer without

seeing it as a looming, dooming deadline.

“Hey, I’ve got a lot to live for,” she said from the sofa of her

sunny Costa Mesa mobile home, her fashionable pink pants

complementing her bright floral top as she sat with her knees pulled

up to her chin like a teenager.

Plummer, an eighth-generation Californian, born and raised in

Newport Beach, has left a permanent imprint on her native city.

Twelve years on the City Council, a stint in the mayor’s seat and a

lifetime in community activism have earned her a certain immortality.

A number of little parks in the West Newport area owe their

existence, in part, to Plummer. Resident-only parking in her

neighborhood of Newport Island, which corrected a longtime problem

with visitors’ cars clogging the streets in summer months, also ranks

on her list of accomplishments. She worked for years to help women

get into politics in Newport Beach and beyond. And she also fought

against allowing skateboarders and bicyclists on the 8-foot-wide

cement walkway along the beach on West Newport.

“I had to be a mean mama on that one,” she said. “But that’s for

pedestrians. And I bet that’s saved the city a lot of money in

liability over the years.”

The secret to her success on the council, said Plummer, now 79,

was to keep a low profile.

“I stayed out of the headlines,” she said. “If you had four votes

on the council, you were probably going to accomplish what you set

out to do.”

Plummer ran for the council in 1980 on a platform of improving her

district, West Newport. At the time, the city was regularly making

deals with developers on the other side of the bay, handing over

development rights in exchange for commitments for infrastructure

improvements, park development and other projects for the city.

“I thought, why not use some of that money to help out poor little

West Newport and the Peninsula?” Plummer recalled.

It was a message that resounded with voters and colleagues alike.

“Her district was the oldest part of town and the many little

things she accomplished there made a huge difference,” said former

Mayor Evelyn Hart, who was elected to the council two years before

Plummer and served with her for 12 years. “She pushed for improved

bush shelters, street improvements, she really insisted on getting

public restrooms put in at the beach near the Huntington Beach

border. She really made the entrance to our city much nicer.”

But Plummer’s role in local government, including a term as mayor

from 1989 to 1990, is but a single chapter in her remarkable life.

For example, it has been widely reported that Plummer was a riveter

for McDonnell Douglas during the World War II, but not many people

know why.

“It was right after I got out of high school and I really wanted

to work the graveyard shift,” she recalled, a shadow of mischievous

youth haunting her smile. “And here’s why I wanted to work the

graveyard shift: I would come home at maybe seven in the morning and

put on my bathing suit and go to the beach all day. I’d get some

sleep on the beach, spend time with my friends, then come home and

sleep for a little while. Then I’d get up and go to the Rendezvous

Ballroom, where I’d stay until about 11 at night when it was time to

go to work again. When you’re a teeny bopper, you do wild things.”

That teeny bopper is still alive and well and lurking in the

spring in Plummer’s step, even as her life winds down into a lower

gear. She moved to Costa Mesa after being diagnosed with pancreatic

cancer to be closer to family and friends. Two of her six children,

sons David and Clay Smith, are near enough to help her with grocery

shopping and getting around town.

“Everything considered, I’m very lucky,” she said.

* JUNE CASAGRANDE covers Newport Beach and John Wayne Airport. She

may be reached at (949) 574-4232 or by e-mail at

june.casagrande@latimes.com.