Carl Edward Wildermuth

Carl Edward Wildermuth was the third of Earl Adam Wildermuth and Sadye Irene (Fleming) Wildermuth’s five children — born 5 July 1928 in Marietta, Washington County, Ohio, six and a half years after his eldest sister Ruth Irene and four years after his older brother Robert Earl (Chuck’s grandfather).

A blind son

Per his sister Ruth’s parallel autobiographical sketch in Robert Earl’s 1989 memoir: Carl was blind. Ruth records this in the brief family-summary section without elaboration; the cause — congenital or acquired through accident or illness — is not specified in the family record. Carl’s blindness shaped the family arc through his adult life.

After his mother Sadye died of multiple myeloma on 4 August 1976, Carl lived with his father Earl Adam through Earl’s remaining years. Earl Adam suffered a massive stroke on 8 December 1977, with grieving over Sadye’s death named in the family record as a major contributing factor to the stroke, and died.

Carl’s later life and death

Carl outlived his father by twelve years, dying 9 December 1989 at Licking County Memorial Hospital in Newark, age 61.

The 1989 obituary — his later life resolved

Carl’s death notice in the Marietta paper fills in much of what this page had left open. He was a lifelong Mariettan and a graduate of the Ohio State School for the Blind, a member of the Harmar Hill Church of Christ, and — a striking detail for a blind man — a member of the Marietta C.B. Radio Club. About twelve years before his death (c. 1977, the year his father died) he had moved from the family’s 320 Harmar Street to Newark, settling at 622 Hudson Avenue.

He was survived by his wife, Katherine (DeBona) Wildermuth — the first record in this archive that Carl married — and by his brother Robert E. (Casselberry, Florida) and sisters Ruth (Mrs. Jack Ridenour, Newark), Norma (Mrs. Eugene Gault, Hebron), and Betty Jo (Mrs. Joseph Haddox, Newberry, Florida). Services were at the McClure-Schafer Funeral Home, Evangelist Ray Linn of Heath officiating, and memorial gifts were directed to the Ohio State School for the Blind. The obituary gives his burial as Valley Cemetery, Marietta, where the family tree instead records East Lawn Memorial Park, Reno — the two sources disagree and remain to be reconciled.

Sources: Dale Eesley / FamilySearch — Carl Edward Wildermuth (GMLN-NMS); Robert Earl Wildermuth’s 1989 memoir and Ruth Irene Wildermuth Ridenour’s parallel sketch; Carl E. Wildermuth obituary, Marietta paper, 9 December 1989 (family papers, transmitted by Chuck Eesley 2026).