OH OH - Ruth Baumgardner, 21, Delaware, 4 May 1937

[Claudette]

It is working fine for me. What should I look for? Do we know her family's address?

 

[Marilynilpa]

I did a search where I purposely misspelled Baumgardner as "Baumgartner". I found this:


http://news.google.com/newspapers?i...37,5682805&dq=ruth-baumgartner+and+ohio&hl=en

I wonder if this is the same Ruth (four years before her disappearance):


http://news.google.com/newspapers?i...10,5105081&dq=ruth-baumgartner+and+ohio&hl=en

That is the same Ruth. She disappeared in 1937.

 

[Marilynilpa]

Hi, guys, I'm thrilled to see that interest has not diminished in Ruth's disppearance. I originally posted this case a long time ago, and have spent quite a bit of time investigating this one. I've spoken to Ruth's relatives, her former fiancee and former sorority sisters, and visited the college in Ohio. I have six boxes of documents relating to this case. If anyone has any specific questions not answered in my multitude of posts over the years on this thread, I would be happy to answer them. It could save everyone a lot of research time!

 

[marie-chantal]

Hi, guys, I'm thrilled to see that interest has not diminished in Ruth's disppearance. I originally posted this case a long time ago, and have spent quite a bit of time investigating this one. I've spoken to Ruth's relatives, her former fiancee and former sorority sisters, and visited the college in Ohio. I have six boxes of documents relating to this case. If anyone has any specific questions not answered in my multitude of posts over the years on this thread, I would be happy to answer them. It could save everyone a lot of research time!

Marilyn, were you ever able to find out when/if Ruth died?

 

[Marilynilpa]

Marilyn, were you ever able to find out when/if Ruth died?

There has been an ongoing theory in this thread regarding abortion. I believe Ruth may have died after undergoing an abortion.

I have never been able to determine when or where she died and, since no body has been found, I suppose it could be said there's no proof she was killed in the first place.

There are other posters with different theories, so maybe they can respond to your post with their theories.

 

[Claudette]

What is your opinion on Ruth being kidnapped and being a witness to a crime according to a now deceased LE officer? If you feel this is not the case, please share your opinion on why he claimed she was a witness to the crime and a victim to kidnapping to named people.

 

[Stella]

There has been an ongoing theory in this thread regarding abortion. I believe Ruth may have died after undergoing an abortion.

I have never been able to determine when or where she died and, since no body has been found, I suppose it could be said there's no proof she was killed in the first place.

There are other posters with different theories, so maybe they can respond to your post with their theories.

Your post reminded me that Ruth left behind items that she wouldn't want stolen if she were going somewhere to have an abortion. Sorority pin, watch and key to her dorm in particular. The overnight case would be carrying only what she needed for a day/night away from school. I agree with the abortion theory but I'm not so sure she died from it. That white slavery business still niggles at me.

 

[marie-chantal]

I've always been a subscriber to the white slavery theory. The story about the slain officer makes sense to me. I just wonder if she got out alive. The abortion theory is also highly likely, but it's just so hard to get past the story about the murdered officer.

 

[Claudette]

Do you have the scans from the book? If not I can email them to you.

 

[marie-chantal]

Thank you! You sent them to me either last year or earlier this year. They were what caused me to be a subscriber to the white slavery theory. The big mystery to me was how she happened to meet Sereno and the other guy. They were from vastly different social classes. I'm also so curious to know what happened after she was found. I know that her family quietly asked LE to drop the investigation.

 

[Marilynilpa]

Thank you! You sent them to me either last year or earlier this year. They were what caused me to be a subscriber to the white slavery theory. The big mystery to me was how she happened to meet Sereno and the other guy. They were from vastly different social classes. I'm also so curious to know what happened after she was found. I know that her family quietly asked LE to drop the investigation.

At one time I intended to write a book about Ruth. After researching her case for a couple of years, the abortion theory has come across to me as being the most likely. White slavery, while possible, seems less likely to me.

Ruth's family hired the famous Pinkerton Detective Agency to locate her, and after a while the family asked LE to quit looking for Ruth. My opinion is that the detective agency was able to find out what happened to her, and that Ruth was dead. I do not think this was connected in any way to the slain police officer, but I could be wrong.

 

[Stella]

I always assumed that Ruth disappeared on a Saturday night. Rereading the Charley Project, it says she studied her last night in her dorm for a test the next day, so I looked at a 1937 calendar. May 4th was a TUESDAY. This confounds me. Why would she go ANYWHERE after 11:00 pm on a school night, especially when she had an important test the NEXT DAY. She was already worried about having enough credits to graduate, it just doesn't make sense. If she went for an abortion, you'd think she'd go on a Saturday to give herself at least a little rest and recuperation time before Monday morning classes.

 

[Marilynilpa]

I always assumed that Ruth disappeared on a Saturday night. Rereading the Charley Project, it says she studied her last night in her dorm for a test the next day, so I looked at a 1937 calendar. May 4th was a TUESDAY. This confounds me. Why would she go ANYWHERE after 11:00 pm on a school night, especially when she had an important test the NEXT DAY. She was already worried about having enough credits to graduate, it just doesn't make sense. If she went for an abortion, you'd think she'd go on a Saturday to give herself at least a little rest and recuperation time before Monday morning classes.

You make a good point. I'm thinking that since abortions were not legal at that time, Ruth had to leave whenever someone could see her. Maybe this person couldn't see her any other day.

I have never been 100% sold on the abortion theory, but it's one that makes the most sense to me.

The main problem I have with the idea of Ruth being pregnant is that she had recently become engaged. If she were pregnant, you'd think she and Bud (her fiance) would have just gotten married.

The "mystery man" who called Ruth in the days leading up to her disappearance has intrigued me from the get-go. I feel like if I could ever find out who that man was, I'd be able to figure out what really happened to Ruth. I'm thinking it might have been a middle man who arranged for Ruth to have an abortion. JMO

 

[Marilynilpa]

Thank you! You sent them to me either last year or earlier this year. They were what caused me to be a subscriber to the white slavery theory. The big mystery to me was how she happened to meet Sereno and the other guy. They were from vastly different social classes. I'm also so curious to know what happened after she was found. I know that her family quietly asked LE to drop the investigation.

IMO, Ruth was never found. Her family asked LE to drop the investigation in 1939, after the Pinkerton Detectives were unable to find her alive. I have always felt they learned of Ruth's fate (death, IMO) and didn't want LE to continue wasting resources trying to locate her.

I have numerous boxes of research I conducted on Ruth, and I have had to go through rumors, speculation and outright lies in trying to solve her disappearance.

I have researched "white slavery" and have not been able to find a single documented case where a girl of Ruth's background, a college student, engaged, sorority sister, well-to-do family, etc., was taken by white slavers. Unless I find a documented case where a young female college student with a background similar to Ruth's was ever forced into white slavery, I will continue to think this did not happen with Ruth. JMO.

Regardless of how she came to disappear, I find Ruth's story to be very sad. She had everything to live for.

 

[dogperson]

You make a good point. I'm thinking that since abortions were not legal at that time, Ruth had to leave whenever someone could see her. Maybe this person couldn't see her any other day.

I have never been 100% sold on the abortion theory, but it's one that makes the most sense to me.

The main problem I have with the idea of Ruth being pregnant is that she had recently become engaged. If she were pregnant, you'd think she and Bud (her fiance) would have just gotten married.

The "mystery man" who called Ruth in the days leading up to her disappearance has intrigued me from the get-go. I feel like if I could ever find out who that man was, I'd be able to figure out what really happened to Ruth. I'm thinking it might have been a middle man who arranged for Ruth to have an abortion. JMO

Your scenario does make a lot of sense especially if Ruth were pregnant, but not by Bud, and if she and Bud had never had sex. In that case she couldn't have gone to him and told him of the need for a quickie marriage. I'm not trying to cast doubts as to whether she was a girl of good character, because obviously she was, but we all make bad choices, especially when we are as young as Ruth was. Even in the 1930s premarital sex was taking place, it just wasn't talked about. My dad's teen sister got pregnant in the 1940s and it was a huge scandal when the father ran off and refused to get married, so you can imagine how disgraced Ruth and her family would have felt by an out-of-wedlock pregancy in the 1930s. If Ruth were pregnant by someone else, and had never had sex with Bud, her only other choice would be to somehow convince him into a hasty elopement after which she would have had to pass the baby off as his. This might not have been possible depending on how far along she was, plus with no pressing reason to suddenly get married it might have been hard to talk Bud into running off to the courthouse. They came from the type of families that would have expected an engagement period followed by a nice wedding. So an abortion might have seemed to Ruth like the only way out of a bad situation.

 

[Claudette]

I think part of the problem is people tried to give her a squeaky clean image. Think about this time of the century. For all we know she did drugs and slept around but NO ONE would admit this because it would "look bad".

 

[Shamrocker99]

I think part of the problem is people tried to give her a squeaky clean image. Think about this time of the century. For all we know she did drugs and slept around but NO ONE would admit this because it would "look bad".

I so agree!! On many of these cases it seems like the family puts the "best face" on the missing person instead of the truth and I actually think it hinders them being found or the cases solved. I understand someone not wanting all their dirty laundry out there, but it might have helped end the mysteries.

 

[Sue Doe Nimm]

OK. So, this may be kind of out there, but reading the speculations about Ruth running away with another man and possibly being institutionalized after her disappearance got me thinking. What if, instead of a man, she was planning on running off with a woman? At that time, having a daughter who was a lesbian was even more disgraceful than one who was pregnant out of wedlock. The DSM (diagnostic manual for mental illness) had homosexuality categorized as a mental illness until 1973, and in the 1930's being gay absolutely would have been enough to get you committed to an institution. If her parents had wealth and prestige, Ruth being gay would have been scandalous and damaging to their standing in the community. It's quite possible that she could have been locked away somewhere far away from her home under a false name and been subjected to aversion therapy-the preferred method to cure gay people of their "mental condition" in this era.

 

[momtolil]

OK. So, this may be kind of out there, but reading the speculations about Ruth running away with another man and possibly being institutionalized after her disappearance got me thinking. What if, instead of a man, she was planning on running off with a woman? At that time, having a daughter who was a lesbian was even more disgraceful than one who was pregnant out of wedlock. The DSM (diagnostic manual for mental illness) had homosexuality categorized as a mental illness until 1973, and in the 1930's being gay absolutely would have been enough to get you committed to an institution. If her parents had wealth and prestige, Ruth being gay would have been scandalous and damaging to their standing in the community. It's quite possible that she could have been locked away somewhere far away from her home under a false name and been subjected to aversion therapy-the preferred method to cure gay people of their "mental condition" in this era.

Could be....
Is anyone watching American Horror Asylum? IT is hard to watch at times but I am so intriqued by it. I have always had an interest in learning about that time in history and how "mental illness" was portrayed and how it was treated.... We have come a long way.

Though the stories in the show are over the top, I do think some of them are close to the reasons society had for instatutionalizing people in the past.

So sad... I hope that didn't happen to Ruth.

 

[Sue Doe Nimm]

Could be....
Is anyone watching American Horror Asylum? IT is hard to watch at times but I am so intriqued by it. I have always had an interest in learning about that time in history and how "mental illness" was portrayed and how it was treated.... We have come a long way.

Though the stories in the show are over the top, I do think some of them are close to the reasons society had for instatutionalizing people in the past.

So sad... I hope that didn't happen to Ruth.

My seventeen year old son is into that show. He was really upset about the "institutionalized for being a lesbian" story arc, and couldn't believe people would do that to someone. I didn't have the heart to tell him that some people are still trying to cure others of being gay, like it's a disease or something. Our discussion came back to me while I was reading this thread and my brain did a little "Hmmm, I wonder if that's a possibility?" thing. I hope to every higher power available it didn't happen. Asylums were not good places to be back then for any reason, even if it was a valid one.