“The best of what the past was” is a great way to describe one of Cranston’s preserved gems. It is what owner Carol Schwebel calls her store, which has been serving generations of women for 70 years.

A rarity in today’s age of mass-market shopping, Ruth’s Lingerie, in the heart of Rolfe’s Square, keeps to the essence of its roots, providing one-on-one service for customers looking for the perfect bra.

Known for its variety of product, it is also a specialty store that offers a full-range of bra sizes, from A-O (Schwebel said they may even have one “P” size bra in-store). 

From nightwear and undergarments to swimwear, Ruth’s serves a diverse set of customers and offers a wide range of affordable to higher-priced items.

“We try to have both quality products, but we recognize that people's needs differ, and we want to be able to take care of all women if possible.”

Another way Ruth’s does that is through its service to breast cancer survivors. Schwebel says hers is the only store in the state to provide that service. Her mother, Ruth Lubinsky, received her certificate for fitting breast cancer survivors in 1957 – a time when providing such a service was rare, but maybe no rarer than a woman owning a business in the ‘50s.

Ruth’s, founded by Lubinsky in 1954, is where Schwebel’s grandmother worked as the shop’s first seamstress. The store began with a simple mission: to help women feel their best, as it states on the store’s website.

“…I see what we do [as] helping women,” Schwebel said. “We're making women feel good, and that's important. I'm a good feminist at heart.”

With the store, Schwebel said her mother, who had been widowed early when Schwebel was 19, was able to take care of all her needs in the mid-1990s. It was the store’s income that put Schwebel through school.

And when her mother passed, Schwebel, who had also lost her husband in the same year, didn’t have the heart to close the shop. Living in Ohio with her family, she made the decision to return to Rhode Island.

“It was my mother's name on the door, and that was important to me,” Schwebel said.

Since opening, the store continues to be woman-owned and women-run. But in modern times, a challenge that faces the quaint little shop, is the internet.

Schwebel said younger generations are more likely to purchase their items online than come into the store.

“You might not know what you need, what bra size and what products is going to best meet your needs,” Schwebel said. The younger generation “doesn't seem to have the same allegiance to the store that the older generation did.”

Schwebel explained that some of that store allegiance is crucial to a brick-and-mortar store. But despite the changes that inevitably occur – the rise of online shopping, COVID-19 and the endlessly changing fashion industry, some things remain true for Ruth’s.

“People [say] that were unusual [because] we can have three generations of women coming into the store,” Schwebel said. “So in other words, we could have the granddaughter, the mother and the grandmother, and for all three of them to walk out with products.”

Just that morning, a mother-daughter duo was shopping in preparation for a family member’s wedding.

Looking toward the future, Schwebel hopes to keep the store open and running for as long as possible, preserving the legacy and mission that began with her mother.

“This one really is kind of unique in that it started all those years ago, and it is still serving women in very much the same way that women help women,” Schwebel said.

To find out more about the shop, you can visit ruthsofri.com.