RUTH ALLAN HUCKINS MINER, 1918-2008

Ruth Allan Huckins Miner, 90, a feisty citizen activist whose detection of serious radium contamination with her Geiger counter at a Lansdowne home in 1990 led to a $50 million EPA Superfund cleanup and the demolition of 21 homes, died of heart failure Nov. 11 at home in Chestnut Hill.

It all started on Earth Day in 1990 in Fairmount Park. Mrs. Miner set up a table urging people to demand public radiation monitoring. Two women and a man asked her to test a warehouse on Austin Avenue in Lansdowne.

"So we walked all around it," Mrs. Miner said in a 1991 Inquirer interview. "Every step we took, our little machine went ticky-tick-tick."

Officials ordered the cleanup after finding dangerous levels of radiation near what had been a radium factory from 1915 to 1922. A further search in 1991 found contaminated Delaware County houses built with radioactive sand from the factory. The Environmental Protection Agency rebuilt 11 homes and paid the owners of 10 others to move.

Just as she had done most of her life, the determined Mrs. Miner continued her quest for justice until shortly before her death. Her political activism included support of a world government and environmental issues. Handmade posters on wooden sticks stood ready near the door of her home. The spirited protester grabbed a sign and raced to demonstrations against nuclear power plants, to human rights rallies, and to silent peace vigils around Philadelphia.

Four days after her birth in the 1918, Mrs. Miner's father died in the influenza epidemic. She was an adored only child raised by her mother and grandparents. They surrounded her with books and music that sparked her imagination. After graduating from West Philadelphia High School in 1936, she earned a bachelor's degree in English literature in 1940 from the University of Pennsylvania.

At Penn she studied the languages and religions of India, Japan and China and became interested in Zen Buddhism and Christian mystics. "She formed a philosophy of universal truths that she found in every religion," daughter Allyn said.

During World War II, she met Richard Saxton Miner, who was in the Coast Guard, and they married in 1943. Mrs. Miner was an air-raid warden in West Philadelphia during the war. The couple eventually raised three daughters in Chestnut Hill. Richard Miner died in a sailboating accident in 1967.

Mrs. Miner eschewed nylon stockings for leather sandals long before doing so was popular. She was big-boned, had blond hair and ice-blue eyes, and walked with her chin in the air and her denim skirt flapping. She raised her daughters with a sure hand and instilled in them an interest in music and languages. She encouraged them to choose a career they wanted, no matter how unpractical.

All of Mrs. Miner's daughters learned Latin, play the violin, and are teachers. Nancy Canning, the eldest, speaks Chinese; Allyn specialized in Hindi and Sanskrit (and plays the sitar and Irish fiddle); and Shelley Robinson speaks Russian (and plays the cello and harp). "We played for her at family gatherings, including her 90th birthday," Allyn said. "She loved cheerful music which reflected her positive personality."

Mrs. Miner was an editor for the Ladies Home Journal at the Curtis Publishing Co. and, in the 1960s, edited for the Macrae Smith Co., a publisher at 15th and Locust Streets. She also worked for the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom and for the American Friends Service Committee. She wrote a guide to world holidays for young adults,

Days to Celebrate

, which was published in 1978.

Mrs. Miner, who never owned a car, took public transportation everywhere - even to the start of trips with the Wanderlust and Batona hiking clubs. She married a fellow hiker, Emanuel Share Mendelson, in 1984. He died in 2001.

In addition to her daughters, Mrs. Miner is survived by three granddaughters and six great-grandchildren.

She donated her body to the Humanity Gifts Registry. A memorial service is being planned. Memorial donations may be made to the United States Fund for UNICEF, 125 Maiden Lane, 11th floor, New York, N.Y. 10038.