Ruthe Rootes Battestin of Charlottesville died peacefully at home on Monday, May 30, 2024, at age 90.

Ruthe was born in Dallas, Texas, on July 22, 1933, the daughter of Edmund Wilcox Rootes and Mary Hill Gilmer. Her father, who had Virginia roots and was born in 1867, died when she was 8, and her mother raised her and her two older sisters.

She attended Ohio Wesleyan University, where she was on the staff of the school paper and from where she made weekend trips to New York. After graduation in 1955 she married a classmate, Nolan Smith, and they moved to New Haven for his graduate study at Yale. While there, Ruthe sat in on classes with her husband, honed her research skills, and became a prized assistant in the Yale library.

In 1963 she married Martin C. Battestin, an English professor at UVA. Her New Haven friends viewed her move to Virginia with consternation, for there she developed a strong professional relationship with UVA English professor Fredson Bowers, who had pointed out significant lapses in the scholarship of some prominent Yale academics.

Ruthe was used to defying expectations. As a girl she added an “e” to her name to make herself unique, but that proved redundant. She was also perceptive. Returning home after her first day at school, she asked her mother, “I’m never going to be free again, am I?” Her mother confirmed the insight. In her long life with Martin, she applied her investigatory abilities to preparation of his landmark biography of the English writer Henry Fielding. She made discoveries (such as finding fifty previously unknown letters of Fielding) that had eluded scholars for two centuries, and she was acknowledged on the title page. Her own comment on her sleuthing was that “It can all be found, if you’re just patient—and persistent—enough.” Ruthe certainly was persistent, and her standards were unambiguous.

The Battestins spent much time in London, in later years at their flat in Lowndes Square. Ruthe had a knack for getting to know people in the worlds that were important to her. When on the anniversary of T. S. Eliot’s death she visited his memorial in Westminster Abbey, she struck up a conversation with the only other person there—Eliot’s widow Valerie, who invited her to tea. She was an indefatigable correspondent, and she was noteworthy for bringing people together at her parties, whether they be local friends, out-of-town speakers, or English department faculty.

In 2012 the Bibliographical Society of the University of Virginia established Battestin Fellowships, in recognition of the Battestins’ contribution to the scholarly life of UVa, to support bibliographical and textual research by UVa graduate students in UVa libraries.

Martin, Ruthe’s beloved husband of 52 years, passed away in 2015. She is survived by a nephew, Philip Bogel of Napa, California, who cherishes the memory of this “formidable woman, fiercely intelligent, bold and progressive,” one who with Martin possessed “a zest for experiences and knowledge.” The latest of her cherished feline companions, Henry, is now adjusting to the new home Ruthe arranged for him.

Martin expressed his own love and appreciation for Ruthe in the dedication of his edition of Fielding’s novel Tom Jones. Applying to Ruthe an effusive passage from Shakespeare that introduces a list of crowning virtues, he wrote, “What you do / Still betters what is done.”

Gifts in Ruthe’s honor may be made to the Battestin Fund, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, VA 22906; to the Bibliographical Society of the University of Virginia; or to St. Paul’s Ivy, PO Box 37, Ivy, VA 22945.

Condolences may be shared with her family on the tribute wall.

For more on services and to share your condolences, visit Hill and Wood Funeral Service.