The following was posted on the web site of the Wicker Park (Illinois) Lutheran Church:

Ruth VanDemark has been pastor of Wicker Park Lutheran Church since October 1, 1999. A 1966 graduate of Vassar College, she received a Masters of Theological Studies degree in New Testament Studies from Harvard Divinity School in 1969. In 1976, she graduated with honors from the University of Connecticut School of Law and began the practice of law in Chicago in December of that year with a Chicago law firm. She was with that law firm for 18 years, first as an associate and then as an equity partner and head of the firm’s appellate practice group. She was president of the Appellate Lawyers Association in 1992–1993 and served on the Illinois Supreme Court Rules Committee from 1996 to 2002.

In 1992, Pastor Ruth began part time studies at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago. These studies eventually led to her receiving a Masters of Divinity degree in 1999. While maintaining a part time appellate law practice from her own offices from 1995 to 1999, Pastor Ruth also completed the clinical requirements for ordination including Clinical Pastoral Education at Northwestern Memorial Hospital and a two-year part-time internship at Augustana Lutheran Church of Hyde Park. Called to be Wicker Park Lutheran’s part time pastor in August of 1999, she continued to practice law on a limited basis until 2002. She became WPLC’s full time pastor in 2001.

From 1998–2004, Pastor Ruth was on the board of Lutheran Social Services of Illinois, serving as the board’s chairperson from 2002–2004. Pastor Ruth was Dean of the Central Conference of the Metropolitan Chicago Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in American from 2002 to 2005. She currently serves on the Metro Chicago Synod's Constitution and Discipline committees.

With Pastor Ruth’s call to WPLC, she and her husband, Leland Wilkinson, moved from Evanston to Wicker Park — a neighborhood of beauty, diversity, and great restaurants that they consider home. Pastor Ruth and Lee met and married when they were both students at Harvard Divinity School. Although Lee is a statistician and software developer, he is very much a part of the ministry at WPLC. He and Pastor Ruth are the parents of two adult daughters, one a mathematician and the other a writer, and are the proud grandparents of Beatrice and Felix Farb who live with their parents in nearby Lincoln Park.