Teva Renee Ringe

Teva Renee Ringe was born on January 11, 1982, and moved to heaven at age 42 on August 9, 2024, after a fierce battle with cancer. She is survived by her sons Brendan and Ben, her dad and stepmom Rob and Laurie, her mom and stepdad Gennie and Gene, her siblings Danielle (David), LaRay (Clarence), Kay (Erik), Tevin, and Jesse, and her many nieces, nephews, aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends.

She was raised in rural Missouri, where she was active with her natural, adoptive, and foster siblings, as the oldest child. Teva was eccentric, daring, and at times dramatic. Not one for small talk but, easy to talk with about things of substance. She was a life-long learner and knew an impressive amount of information about many surprising things.

Though she loved all animals, she was a horse-crazy girl and there wasn’t much she couldn’t tell you about every kind of horse. At 12, she went to work mucking stalls in trade for riding lessons and eventually competed in dressage, one of the most difficult disciplines in English riding. She worked in many local stables and for more than a decade, was involved with therapeutic horsemanship, demonstrating an uncanny understanding for both rider and horse. At 16, she “ran off with the circus” for the summer, traveling with Circus Flora as the equestrian caretaker. Another venture with animals was her stent working as a dog trainer, or more specifically, to train the dog-owner how to train their pet, and with her ability to be firm and gentle at the same time, she was quite good at it.

Teva was an artist from the time she could hold a crayon. From horses to flowers to animation, she could get it on paper in minutes. In her earlier years she often made portraits of horses and dogs, and more recently, was commissioned in the gaming world to create personalized Avatars. Her dream was to have a studio for students and teachers to create through many types of media, planning to call it TevArt Studios.

For many years she was involved in The Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA), a community that re-creates medieval skills, arts, combat, and culture. She hand-sewed beautiful dresses to wear to the events and used her art and calligraphy skills at her booth when she wasn’t busy jousting with the moppets. Though most members adopted medieval names, she felt hers was suitable already.

In 2017, she enrolled in martial arts with Brendan and went on to earn a black belt, while wrangling little Ben on the sidelines. She remained involved with the Tectonic Taekwondo dojang and made many lasting friendships there.

Though she had many interests, none compared to the passion she had for parenting her boys, the pride of her life. It was for them she fought, and it was for them she loathed leaving this world.

Teva will be remembered with tender affection by all.

In lieu of flowers: please consider a donation to Mercy Health Foundation St. Louis who made it possible for Teva to get the best possible care and to spend her last weeks at a lovely hospice house.