Visitors approach 98-year-old Arthur Haake’s front door through the trees and gardens of a comfortable retirement community in Midlothian, Va.

Inside, the sunny, spotless house is filled with watercolor landscapes painted by his late wife, Ruth Stein Haake (SAR’38), and with a gallery of paintings, etchings, and photographs of horses.

Among the many interests the Haakes shared during their long marriage, at center stage were horses. But there were two other passions that shaped their lives: a love of service and a belief in Boston University.

“Ruth grew up poor with deaf parents in Buffalo,” says Haake, a retired US Marine Corps colonel. “She worked from age 13 in order to get through college.

She knew what it was to struggle, but she loved her years at BU and wanted to help other students in need.” To ease the struggle of Sargent College students, the couple established the Ruth J. Stein Haake SAR’38 Scholarship Fund. “We decided that our only charitable funding would go to Sargent College, and we decided on charitable trusts,” Haake says. “Over the years we made a custom of establishing them, and I have continued this custom. I’ve also remembered Sargent in my will.” The Haake scholarship is aimed at deserving SAR students, with a preference for those pursuing athletic training.

The couple met as students in the late 1930s. Arthur was studying law at Harvard, and Ruth was pursuing an undergraduate degree in physical education at Sargent College, then located on Massachusetts Avenue, near Harvard Square. After earning a law degree in 1939, Arthur was admitted to the New York bar. Ruth graduated from BU the same year and then trained as a nurse. But war clouds were on the horizon, and Arthur joined the US Marine Corps in 1940 as a member of the first officer candidate class; he was commissioned a second lieutenant and volunteered for a commando unit. They married in 1941.

When the war broke out, Arthur fought in the Pacific, first in the Solomon Islands and later on Peleliu Island, where he was wounded, and then on Okinawa. Ruth, meanwhile, worked as a nurse on a cattle ranch in New Mexico and then as a visiting nurse in New York City.

After the war, Arthur had an eclectic career that combined his law training and his experience in the marines. He commanded a battalion, taught night operations and raids, and sat as a judge on the Military Court of Appeals. He also served as the commanding officer of the US Marine Corps Officer Candidates School in Quantico, Va., where he’d once been an enlistee. He was the Marine Corps’ last equitation officer, training military personnel in horsemanship related to their service. Ruth, meanwhile, volunteered as a nurse on different military bases. They were both active in hunt clubs and built their outdoor lives around their horses.

In 1957, they adopted a daughter, who now lives in Richmond, Va. Arthur retired from the Marine Corps in 1967 and worked in city planning and management. He and Ruth bought an 1847 farmhouse and 40 rolling acres in Caroline County, Va., where they lived and rode together for 12 years, became active in 4-H, and devoted their lives to the outdoors. They sold the farm in 1980 and moved just outside of Richmond. Ruth volunteered at the local hospital, and Arthur attended classes at Virginia Commonwealth University. They traveled extensively. The Haakes moved to the independent living community in 2007. Ruth died at age 95 in 2010.

Haake is a private man, not much given to talking about himself. But you can still hear a bit of his New York childhood in his speech, and in time, he will tell you about the years he devoted to the Marine Corps and about his and Ruth’s love of the outdoors.

And he still plays a mean guitar. He takes up the instrument and tunes it a bit for a visitor. “This is from the hills of West Virginia,” he says with a grin, “a song from the mountains.” And then, in a clear, steady, pitch-perfect voice, sings the story of Darling Corey:

“Oh the first time I saw darlin’
Corey
She was standin’ in the door
She had her shoes and her
stockings in her hand
And her little bare feet on the
floor…”