Ruth Cave Flowers

Ruth Cave Flowers (1903–1980) was one of the first African American female graduates from the University of Colorado (CU). Described by former colleague Dorothy Rupert as having an “infectious love of learning”, Flowers was a lawyer and educator who taught at several high schools and colleges across the country.

Early life Ruth Cave Flowers was born in Colorado Springs, Colorado on March 10, 1903. Her parents had divorced before her birth and she was abandoned by her father. After her mother died when she was only 10 or 11, she went to live with her grandmother, Minnesota Waters, and her sister, Dorothy, in Cripple Creek, Colorado. They would first encounter racial discrimination when they moved to Boulder, Colorado in 1917.

Career After graduating from CU Flowers was unable to find a job in the West because of discrimination.

Flowers returned to her home in Boulder in 1959 after spending a year in Spain and took a position as head of the foreign language department at Fairview High School which she held until she retired in 1967.

Ruth Cave Flowers died on November 20, 1980.