Shirley A. Ruedy

Shirley A. Ruedy

Cedar Rapids

Shirley Blood Ruedy, 90, of Cedar Rapids, died January 30, 2026, at her home in Cedar Rapids. A three-time cancer survivor and cancer columnist, she has some advice for you youngsters: Be a vigilant advocate for your health, find a job you love and do it with all your might, find someone to love and raise your children with, because, if you’re lucky, they will give you grandchildren.

It’s also a good idea to keep an entertainment journal where you record the dinner parties you have hosted in your home. Include the date, menu, table

setting, weather, who attended, how long they stayed, and what you wore. Over the years, that journal will answer countless questions and settle countless arguments. Shirley knows. She started hers in 1978.

Shirley liked to entertain, as you may have guessed, and she loved creating beautiful table settings, complete with crystal, silver, china, centerpieces, and name cards. She and her husband, George, outdid themselves with a memorable “Downton Abbey” dinner in October 2014, complete with a menu true to the time period, the men in tuxes addressed as “Sir,” the women in finery addressed as “Lady.”

Shirley also loved Christmas and sent Christmas letters to friends and family for more than 50 years. Over the years, those letters also have answered questions and settled arguments.

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Something else Shirley loved was writing stories and columns for The Gazette in Cedar Rapids, where she worked for 30 years. She wrote about many topics, specializing in features about interesting and/or beautiful homes. She confessed to “always liking pretty things.”

In 1991, when she was 55, Shirley created the first column, Cancer Update, to run in a U.S. newspaper that was devoted to explaining the science and the emotions of cancer.

Cancer Update ran in The Gazette twice a month from 1991 to 2007, when Shirley retired. That column and her volunteer work – visits with 176 women who’d had mastectomies; visits with terminal cancer patients; transportation to doctor appointments for cancer patients who needed a ride – led to her receiving the Courage Award from the American Cancer Society on its 75th anniversary. The honor was conferred in a Rose Garden ceremony at the White House in 1988.

Cancer was a deeply personal and intellectual interest of Shirley’s. She survived two bouts of breast cancer, in 1979 and 1984, and a round of endometrial uterine cancer in 2005 – anniversaries she celebrated each year. She knew what it was like to have a 10-year-old child and wondered if she would live to see that little girl grow up. When Shirley’s mother, ill with colon cancer, could no longer care for herself, Shirley moved her mother into her home where she managed the soft diets, the shots, the 26 pills a day, the cleaning, the comfort.

Shirley wrote about those experiences, those fears, the wisdom of getting a second opinion, how it was OK to “let go” when someone was terminal. She repeatedly encouraged people to stop smoking, saying she’d once been “a chimney” who quit smoking three times before it stuck.

The columns resonated with readers and won numerous awards. In 2022, she collected 70 of her favorite columns into a book, “Finally … A Manual on How to Handle Cancer: Reflections, Ruminations and Rooting Out Rubbish by a Cancer Columnist and Survivor,” which remains available on Amazon.com.

During her career, Shirley also received the Batten Medal, given by the American Society of Newspaper Editors for “concern for humanity and excellence in journalism,” and the Media Award from the Congressional Families Action for Cancer Awareness in Washington, D.C. Katie Couric, the well-known network television host, had received the medal the year before.

But Shirley’s greatest professional rewards came from readers of her column. One man from a small Eastern Iowa city wrote to Shirley, saying he and his wife had an idyllic marriage. The only point of contention: her smoking. He’d nagged her, but nothing worked. Then, one Christmas, his wife presented him with a copy of a Cancer Update column, tied with a red ribbon, and a note: “I’ve quit.” The column, contained in Shirley’s book, imagined the life of a busy, successful woman who married and had children and who had always intended to quit smoking, but never got around to it. Her dry cough signaled lung cancer, and she died, years before her time. The Eastern Iowa man wrote Shirley again at Easter to say his wife still wasn’t smoking.

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Shirley Ann Blood was born Jan. 14, 1936, in Anamosa, to Charles Blood and Beatrice Sampica Blood. The family moved to Cedar Rapids when Shirley was 5. She graduated from Immaculate Conception High School in Cedar Rapids and from Clarke College in Dubuque with a degree in journalism. She married George Charles Ruedy on Oct. 2, 1965, at Immaculate Conception. Their daughter, Anne Marie, was born in 1969.

Shirley was a longtime member of the Cedar Rapids Literary Club and served as the club’s first female president. She served on the board of the Linn County Cancer Society and was a former volunteer with the American Heart Association. She was a member of All Saints Catholic Church in Cedar Rapids.

She is survived by her beloved husband of 60 years, George; their daughter, Anne Marie Stephens, and her husband, Bill, of Grinnell; and two grandchildren, Ella and Jack Stephens.

She was preceded in death by her parents Charles and Beatrice Blood and her brothers Gordon, Clement, and Russell Blood.

Visitation: Tuesday, February 3, 2026, at Cedar Memorial Park Chapel State Room, from 4-7 p.m. The funeral Mass for Shirley will be held Wednesday, February 4, 2026, at All Saints Catholic Church, 720 29th Street SE, with a reception to follow.

Memorial gifts may be made to the American Cancer Society at cancer.org/donate or to the charity of your choice.