Ruth Iona Lyster

There are some people who love to teach and others who love to learn. Iona’s life was filled with both, making her a beloved instructor throughout her 65-year career.

The family name (pronounced Lister) has been traced back to the American Revolution. Like her parents and two older brothers, she was born in Philadelphia. Shortly afterward, a move was made to the Delaware County suburb of Aldan. The borough is almost entirely residential and one of the county’s smallest municipalities. At just 384 acres, it is not quite twice as big as Mount Moriah Cemetery. 

Iona’s family was among the first to attend the borough’s only church which was founded just before the first World War, and she prayed for her brothers as they both served in that war. John, the oldest, enjoyed a 42-year career with Philadelphia National Bank, becoming a vice-president before he retired. Wayne picked up his father’s business as a successful cement contractor. Iona and John remained single but all three always called Aldan home.

1925 marked the end of Iona’s first college experience when she graduated from Wilson College, a Presbyterian-related school for women in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. Her first job was that fall, teaching math and languages at North Wales Junior High School in Montgomery County. She did the same at Marple Newtown Senior High School in northern Delaware County from 1928-1935. The yearbook published during her final year was dedicated in her honor.

Being a lifelong learner, she invested her free time in the summers by taking more college courses. Since she had dedicated her life to living for Jesus Christ, she wanted to use her gift of teaching to help others walk that path. By 1931 Iona finished her courses at Philadelphia School of the Bible (known today as Cairn University) and earned a masters degree at Winona Lake School of Theology in 1935.

With that, she became an assistant professor at Bryant College, a Christian school in Dayton, Tennessee. She taught Latin and New Testament Greek for several years, then returned home to teach at PSOB. 

She was a part of the faculty there from 1939 until retiring in 1969. But in the meantime, Iona studied languages at the University of Pennsylvania, Temple University, West Chester State University, the University of Geneva, and the University of Oklahoma Institute of Linguistics.

Retirement didn’t last long; the pull of the classroom brought her back in 1970 to what was then called Philadelphia College of Bible. For the next 19 years she was a part-time French teacher until her health began to fail.

But that’s not all she did. Besides being active in the alumni association, Iona served on the college’s board of directors. In the 1970s she was on the board of another school reaching the inner city, Manna Bible Institute, where she also taught in the evenings.

Her obituary didn’t mention other ways she spent her leisurely hours, but she clearly believed in using her time to invest in the lives of others. Chief among those activities was teaching Sunday School and Bible studies at Aldan Union Church and the Blue Church in nearby Springfield.

Iona understood and lived by the thought expressed in this poem:

None of us have these in equal measure

Available time, acquired talents, and accumulated treasure

At the end of my life, the ultimate question will be

Did I use them to serve my Savior, or did I mostly spend them on me?

She was buried with her parents in Section 129 on the Yeadon side of the cemetery.