Getty Julia Ruth Stevens at Fenway Park on July 9, 2016 in Boston, Massachusetts.
Julia Ruth Stevens, the last surviving daughter of baseball icon and Hall of Famer, Babe Ruth, has died at the age of 102.
She called him Daddy, even when she was in her 90s, as the New York Times reports.
She had been adopted by Babe Ruth.
She died on Saturday and had been living in an assisted care facility in Nevada.
Reports state that Stevens was a Boston Red Sox fan in her later years, but that she also kept a soft spot for the Yankees.
Her son, Tom Stevens, pictured below, confirmed her death.
GettySon, Tom Stevens and Mother Julia Ruth Stevens, daugther of Babe Ruth, attend the spring training game between the Oakland Athletics and the San Diego Padres at Peoria Stadium on March 7, 2009 in Peoria, Arizona.
WATCH the video below, of Julia Ruth Stevens preserving her father, Babe Ruth’s legacy:
Stevens was born in Athens, Ga., on July 7, 1916.
Her biological parents were Claire Hodgson and Frank, who was older than Claire by many years. Her parents separated when she was a baby.
Her mother, Hodgson then met Ruth in 1923, when he was at the height of his career.
“I have this vague image of this huge man, who was really nice, coming to visit Mother, and he’d pick me up and set me on his lap and ask me little questions about how I was,” Stevens told The Arizona Republic in 2001. “If Mother and I went out with him, people just crowded around.”
However, her father, Ruth, had already been married to Helen Woodford when he’d met Stevens’ mom, Hodgson. Woodford and Ruth had a daughter, Dorothy, as well. The Ruths separated in 1925, and Ruth’s first wife, Woodford, died in a house fire in Boston back in January of 1929 while Dorothy was at boarding school.
Ruth then married Stevens’ mom, Hodgson, during the 1929 baseball season, on opening day.
Following his second marriage, Ruth adopted Julia Ruth Stevens.
His new wife, Stevens’ mom, also adopted Dorothy Ruth Pirone in 1930. (Pirone died in 1989).
The four of them all lived together in a New York apartment on West 88th Street, according to reports by The New York Times.
Stevens’ family put up a Facebook post to announce her death:
“Originally a peach born in Athens, Georgia, Julia moved to New York City with her mother Claire in 1920, where Claire modeled and sometimes performed as an extra in Broadway plays,” the post states above. “Early on, fellow actor and Babe Ruth acquaintance Jim Barton introduced the two, and the rest, as they say, is history. Julia always said she loved growing up in New York during this time and there was no place she would rather have been. She even sang on the radio for a short time.”
Stevens was an author of three books.
Stevens owned Cranmore Mountain Lodge in Conway, New Hampshire. She ran the lodge with her co-owner, first husband, Richard Flanders until he died.
Stevens then married a second husband, Grant Meloon, her family said.
After divorcing Meloon, she married a poultry farmer by the name of Brent Stevens and became known as “the egg lady,” according to her family.