Jack Ridenour

Jack Ridenour married Ruth Irene Wildermuth — Robert Earl Wildermuth’s older sister — on 6 May 1943 at Camp Kilmer, New Jersey. Camp Kilmer was the U.S. Army’s main East-Coast staging area for soldiers shipping to the European and CBI theaters of World War II; Jack and Ruth had one week of marriage before Jack shipped out.

The China-India-Burma Theater

Jack served in the China-India-Burma Theater (CBI) — the Pacific war’s western flank, running supply over the Hump from India into China, and supporting British and Commonwealth ground forces against the Japanese in Burma. The CBI was the least-known of the four major American theaters of World War II — smaller-scale and lower-profile than Europe, the Pacific Islands, or the European-Mediterranean theaters — but materially essential to keeping China in the war. Jack’s specific unit, rank, and assignment are open research.

While Jack was overseas, Ruth went back to Marietta and lived as a “warbride widow” until his return at the end of the war. After their reunion they raised two daughters in the postwar years:

• Karen Kay Ridenour, born 8 January 1949
• Marcia Ann Ridenour, born 7 April 1951

The multiple myeloma cluster

Per Ruth’s autobiographical sketch in Robert Earl’s 1989 memoir, Jack later died of multiple myeloma — the same blood cancer that had killed his mother-in-law Sadye Irene (Fleming) Wildermuth in August 1976. This is an unusual cluster of the same uncommon cancer within one extended family across one generation; whether environmental, coincidental, or carrying any genetic component is open. The pattern is part of the medical history Robert Earl’s memoir flags for “any of my progeny that I may have passed the diabetic gene onto, have faith.”

His exact dates of birth and death are open research.

Sources: Ruth Irene Wildermuth Ridenour’s parallel autobiographical sketch, in Robert Earl Wildermuth’s 1989 memoir.