Dr. P. B. Ruff by Edith Greisser, ONDQ Spring 2003, Vol. 12, No. 1, pg. 43 Dr. P. B. Ruff buried all seven of his children. He related this dream: “In 1849 I had an infant child (Annie) very ill with measles. She had been very low for several days and we looking for her to die every hour. I had lost a great deal of sleep on that account. One night, just before daylight I threw my self across the bed, near the child without undressing, to rest, but not to fall asleep. I fell asleep how ever and had a dream that woke me. I got up immediately. The dream lay very heavy on my mind. I told my wife and an old lady who was helping to nurse the child that I had a very strange dream and thought that we were going to lose two children instead of one. I believed from the dream that our little son, at Mt. Enon Academy in Edgefield County was dead. He was at school at Mt. Enon at the time. They thought it strange that I should think him dead when neither the teacher nor any one else had sent me word that he was ill. We had no intimation at all that anything was the matter with him. I was fully convinced in my own mind that he was dead. My wife begged me not to leave the baby. She said it would die before I got back. I said to her “I must go and bring our son home. I can do no more for the baby — the case is hopeless”. “I wrote a note to the livery stable for a carriage and a pair of good horses. I told the driver to drive fast and get to Mt. Enon as soon as he could without injuring the horses. I rode ahead on horseback, crossed the Saluda and got to Mt. Enon in an hour and a half, sixteen miles. When I entered my son’s room he recognized my voice and spoke to me. He was perfectly rational but was dying. He lived about half an hour after I got there. I brought him home the same day, a corpse. The infant Annie died the second day after”. In April 1858 Dr. Ruff advertised in the newspaper that he had ‘returned from the west and will resume practice in Newberry’. He settled very near to Baudausian Springs, a place where Newberrians went for picnics and rejuvenation from the waters. His medical books were inadvertently sold at auction and he was forced to advertised for their return. Apparently circumstances were not encouraging when he advertised he had not discontinued his medical practice and could be found either at his house or at Land & Bruce’s Drug Store. Fortunately farming was an option and in March he was able to present a specimen of winter wheat 24 inches to the news staff. It had been sown in November. His daughter Mary A. Ruff Kinard, wife of John M. Kinard Esq. died March 1860 and son-in-law John M. Kinard died in the war in 1864. A son, John J. Ruff, died in Richmond Virginia during the war and in 1865 a son Rannie Ruff, a student at St. Matthew’s Academy, also died. Dr. P. B. Ruff  was elected President of the Newberry Medical Society in December 1865 and for four months in 1866 he was a partner with Dr. Sampson Pope in Medical practice. It became necessary to publish a table of fees for his services in the newspapers and in March 1868 he declared bankruptcy. His only surviving son, Reubin Ruff, drowned on July 12, 1869 while rafting in one of the western rivers. Dr. Ruff continued being active in the SC Medical Society and financial problems were no stranger to him. Frances Harriet Ruff, his daughter died 1879 and he buried his second wife in 1887. Dr. P. B. Ruff, 84 years and 3 days old, died in Newberry at the home of Dr. Warren Robertson, on December 28, 1890. He was buried in the Old Village Graveyard with most of his family. He was the grandfather of Mrs. Elbert H. Aull of Newberry, a child of his daughter Mary Ann ruff Kinard.