Can Ruth, the person, save Ruth, the 340-year-old tree in a new housing development?

It is easy to underestimate her.

She lives out there south of Nashville where the hills roll green, a couple of miles off the highway. No matter what the world throws at her, she is a survivor. She's older now, but still takes care of everyone in her vicinity

Don't misunderstand her quiet countenance. She is a force of nature.

With a bit of magic in her.

Her name is Ruth.

It is hard to imagine why anyone would want to kill her.

Two Shaquille O'Neals

There are two Ruths, actually, and the opening words of this story apply to both of them.

Except that only one of them was in danger.

The first Ruth is Ruth Osburn, 65, who used to be a dental hygienist and now describes herself as an activist.

The second Ruth is a tree.

"Ruth The Witness," named by friends of the first Ruth, is a 340-year-old Chinkapin oak with a wrinkled trunk that measures 227 inches in circumference, 67 inches in diameter. How big is that? If two Shaquille O'Neals (91 inches from outstretched fingertip to fingertip) tried to wrap their arms around her, they would still be 45 inches short. Her branches stretch out to offer 90 feet of canopy.

She is not as tall as she once was. During a particularly nasty storm in 1963, she was hit by lightning, which lopped off her upper trunk and left her with a permanent flat-top, like Natalie Maines in a particularly badass incarnation.

Ruth The Witness must look at us strangely.

She's stood out there since about 1683, before there were Americans or Tennesseans or blue or gray or red or blue. Before you could take pictures of her with a flash bulb or your phone.

She has lived through wars, sorrow, pestilence and all manner of humans treating each other cruelly.

And love. Imagine how many couples have stopped to hold hands in her cool presence.

She has felt the wrath and the rejuvenation of the rain.

'I started squawking my head off like a mother hen'

In July 2022, Ruth Osburn's husband, Gary, was installing lamp posts in a new housing development — Drees Homes at High Park Hill, 157 homes on 162 acres — in Arrington just off Highway 96.

He saw the Chinkapin oak in all her gnarled magnificence. He was stunned by the expanse of her. After work, he took Ruth to see the tree, who was not yet named.

"She took my breath away," Ruth Osburn said. "Her spread was majestic."

There was a clothes line hanging from one branch to another. And in her trunk, Ruth could see an outline, she said, of wide hips.

"I knew she was female," Osburn said.

It was on that first evening, while basking in the benevolence of the biggest tree they had ever seen, Gary told his wife he had heard a rumor: the tree was going to be excavated.

That is not a good word — excavated — to have mentioned in the same sentence as you, when you're a tree.

The rumor, as it turned out, was true. Plans were in place that did not include any drawings or mention of preserving the old tree. There were two lots for houses drawn where her roots currently sit. So, during a later phase of the development, she would have been gotten rid of like the first victim in a serial killer movie. The old house next to the tree, and a shed not far from the tree had already been ripped asunder.

"I started squawking my head off like a mother hen," Ruth Osburn said. "That tree needs to be saved."

Osburn recently has been known to march on the state Capitol in Nashville protesting. She has a degree in dental hygiene from Western Kentucky University, and recently retired after a long career working on people's open mouths while rarely keeping her own closed. She said when she was going to school, she was the only deaf dental hygienist east of California.

She doesn't do sign language. Instead, she reads lips and body language.

The first thing she did was to tie a yellow ribbon around the old oak tree (sing along if you must) ... so there would be no accidental excavation.

She also set a goal. One day, after Ruth The Witness is saved, she and her group of friends are going to have a picnic under that tree.

'Ruth The Witness'

Osburn told her husband's cousin Ginger Shirling.

Shirling, more social media savvy than Osburn, made a Facebook post.

Suddenly, a movement had started. Five women joined forces to promote the saving of the tree.

Those women came up with the name "Ruth The Witness."

It seemed fitting.

"I very much admired how diligent she was, how much time and effort she put into all of this," said Tamera Clark, one of the women who began working to save Ruth The Witness. She even uploaded a photo of the Ruth the tree to the Chinkapin oak Wikipedia entry.

After Clark and Osburn met, "I learned that Ruth was deaf, and then her tenacity totally made sense," Clark said. "She has spent her whole life being determined. Having spent more time talking and texting with her I understand that she is always standing up fighting for the right thing."

As people began to get riled up, Osburn went straight to the person with the power to save Ruth The Witness.

A homemade loaf of bread and two hugs

It would be easy here to insert the backstory of the bad guy, an evil tree killer dude who flosses his teeth with a chainsaw.

But John Waits, the developer, isn't that.

When he bought the property, he said he saw a "big ol' tree." But he didn't think much of it. He didn't know it was significantly ol' or that anyone would want to save it.

He was designing a housing development with lots of open space to conserve the natural beauty of what was once a Middle Tennessee farm.

And then, last July, he heard from Ruth Osburn. Something about a tree. He didn't realize he was being hit by a tiny hurricane.

"She," he said, "was relentless about it."

Her relentlessness included bringing him a homemade loaf of bread and giving him two hugs.

Waits had one question: Was the tree in good health?

Osburn brought in her heavy gun, arborist Josiah Lockard.

His report says Ruth The Witness is "in very good condition" and her "root flare" is sufficiently buttressed. "The canopy is full and fairly uniform, with good leaf density and color," he wrote.

Bottom line: He said Ruth The Witness is in "exceptionally good health."

He recommended about $1,500 worth of pruning and cleaning around the tree. Ruth Osburn said she would pay that initial fee.

Witnessing, long after we're dead

Somehow, the two Ruths were magical enough to win the war before it had even started.

Hearing she was viable, Waits agreed to let Ruth The Witness keep witnessing. He re-drew the plans, moved two houses to the other side of the development, surrounded Ruth with a grassy park.

"It's going to be there as long as it lives," Waits said. "I felt good about it."

On April 13, 2023, the Williamson County Planning Commission approved the re-submitted plans allowing Ruth The Witness to remain.

Ruth, the person, didn't go to that meeting. She felt confident everyone was on the same page. After dealing with her, who wouldn't vote to save Ruth?

Doing what's right, Waits estimated, cost him about $90,000 for the new plans and the moving of infrastructure.

Ruth Osburn met with Waits again and presented him with a second loaf of bread, and another hug.

"Thank you for not saying no," she said.

There is a hint of warning in Waits' voice when he talks about Ruth The Witness.

She is surrounded now for the first time in her life by private roads. There may even be a gated entry to this community.

"You can't just come in and see her," he said.

Ruth Osburn smiled.

"We'll see about that," she said.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Williamson County: Ruth Osburn helps save 340-year-old tree