Amy Ruth Moore Bass was a native Alabamian. A devout Christian, she was the wife of Elijah Bass Sr., the mother of 10 children (7 daughters and 3 sons); and the grandmother of 12 grandchildren. Amy Ruth was also a farmer, a gardner, the world's best cook and a very friendly person. She was a long time member of Jerusalem AME Church, where she was a Sunday School Teacher and she sang in the church choir.

Above all, Amy Ruth loved her family.She taught all of her children and grandchildren how to love each other, to look-out for one another, and to respect themselves as well as others. By her example, she also taught them how to love God and to put God first in all they did.

After they had moved North and started their own families, two of Amy Ruth's daughters, Inez and Esther would send their children South to spend the summer months with their grandparents in Alabama. They knew that Alabama would be a safer and more enriching place for kids to spend their idle summertime, less full of opportunities for them to go astray.

During those summer months, all of the kids were assigned chores. The main tasks included mowing the rather large lawn and picking various vegetables in the vegetable garden. Most of the boys preferred yard work. But one of Inez's sons, Carl S. Redding, disliked working in the hot sun; he preferred to seek refuge in the house, working by his grandmother's side as she prepared meals for the family. He would help her by shucking corn, peeling field peas, or rolling out biscuit dough with a broomstick.