Many schoolchildren as well as adults will remember Ruth Upshaw as the Bird Lady of Marion. Katherine Kaeser gave her the name.
Katherine asked Mrs. Upshaw to join the Business and Professional Women’s Club of Marion, which she did. She was a member for 26 years, and every time Katherine introduced her, she called her “our bird lady.”
“I really didn’t like the name,” said Mrs. Upshaw, “I preferred to be called Mrs. Charles Upshaw, a name I was proud to have when I married my husband, Charles.”
For 42 years, Mrs. Upshaw kept and sold birds from her home on East Jefferson Street in Marion.
She first became acquainted with the singing canary birds when a neighbor won one at the Williamson County Fair for pitching nickels. The next year, she made a trip to the fair and purchased a young bird for $1. She called him Little Billy.
It wasn’t long until she had acquired six breeding pairs. Her interest in birds grew and she subscribed to bird magazines to learn how to care for them.
Through the years Mrs. Upshaw has had a lot of correspondence from people wanting to know more about her birds.
She was the first person to bring parakeets to the state of Illinois and she shipped and sold her birds all over the nation.
Often as many as three or four groups of schoolchildren on field trips toured her bird cottage.
She retired from the business nine years ago but still has many fond memories of her birds.
She cried all night after selling her first bird, Little Billy. The new owner would stop by and report to Mrs. Upshaw on how the bird was doing.
A nephew from Murphysboro found a baby redbird that couldn’t fly and brought it to Mrs. Upshaw.
“I had been told if you took a redbird from the wild it would train younger birds to sing its song,” Mrs. Upshaw recalled. “I prepared a strawberry box to keep it in and with the help of my grandson, Kelly Summers, who was 18 years old at the time, we fed the baby bird every hour with hard boiled eggs. We took Kelly and the bird up to the photographers to have their picture taken of Kelly feeding the bird. In the picture, both of them have their mouths open.”
Mrs. Upshaw kept the redbird about three years and it trained her other birds to sing the redbird song. A neighbor told her, it was against the law to keep a redbird from the wild. She called the game warden and he advised her to turn it loose.
Afraid it might die, not being used to the wild, a friend of Mrs. Upshaw’s took the bird and cared for it until it died.
One cold and snowy Christmas, a couple walked across town, because the man wanted to buy his wife a bird from Mrs. Upshaw as a gift.
“My hobby turned into a business and it brought me in contact with the public which I enjoyed,” said Mrs. Upshaw.
One little boy, Ben Willoughby, came to her shop with his mother and Mrs. Upshaw gave him a crippled bird to care for. Now a grown man, Ben raises birds and sells them in the Marion area. Often he and Mrs. Upshaw will discuss the care of birds.
From one room in her home, her business grew into a bird cottage behind her house. Along with the birds she sold goldfish and a variety of flowers. Now she has a few plants to keep her busy.
“Before a person reaches old age they should find something to consume their time,” she said. “If you don’t have a hobby or interest, it’s a richness in life that you will miss. I appreciate what I have left of my life and I enjoy my flowers and memories.”
Sam’s Notes:
Ruth Upshaw’s bird business was called Canary Cottage and was located at 500 E. Jefferson Street in the block directly behind the old Logan school building on E. Main which is now the Washington School. Ruth passed away in May of 1991 and is interred at Rose Hill Cemetery.
(Photo and Article written by Violet Grisham for the Southern Illinoisan, 1960’s)