Ruby June Reinbolt

Born in1921 In a small rural farming town in Ohio, at the home of paternal Grandmother. Died in 2022 Atlanta, Georgia, at age 101, in her apartment at her Retirement Community. Ruby June was born to a young farmer and his wife. Her life started early on the farm with chores before school, which included field work and gardening such as hoeing sugar beets. They also gathered eggs, raised pigs, fed calves, milked cows, separated milk from cream, and churned butter. They made raised doughnuts from scratch every Saturday morning. These became cherished memories throughout her life. Ruby June was eight years old, the oldest of four girls, when her mother died. Her father later remarried and they added another sister. The sisters all loved cooking, all kinds of crafts, sewing, knitting, quilting, and playing cards. They were great friends and support to each other throughout their lives. Ruby June spent most of her high school years living with her paternal grandmother Hodge in a grand old house with a tower and big curved porch the town of Jackson Center, Ohio. After she graduated from high school, Ruby June procured her first job as household help in a millionaire’s home in the Oakwood neighborhood of Dayton, Ohio. Her employer had invented the automatic starter for the automobile. They even took her to Miami, Florida by train with their family for the winter. They had a beach home on a golf course, so Ruby June would spend time with other neighborhood maids on the beach. This was the first travel that Ruby experienced. It was during this employment that she was asked to prepare for an important dinner party in Dayton. She served dinner to guest Orville Wright, inventor of the airplane. He lived next door to her employer, and she would watch him leave for work at his bicycle shop each morning. He was famous at 65, and she was 18. Just imagine the scope of air transportation and space exploration that would follow. Then at age 21 she met Homer Reinbolt, and he swept her off her feet. They were married in 1942 with a few family members present. World War II was underway. Ruby June and Homer worked at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton until they both joined the Civil Service and were both shipped to Alaska. She was a bookkeeping machine operator, and he was an electrical inspector for B17 and B24 war planes. Their daughter, Jean, was born in Alaska at the end of the war. They lived in a one room apartment in a wooden apartment building. They took day trips to Fairbanks and Denali via train and boat. It was an exciting time to learn about a new and rugged territory which later became the US state of Alaska. After the end of the war, Homer and Ruby June bought land and built cottages and a boat dock with their own hands-on East Harbor, Ohio, on Lake Erie. Their son, Oren, was soon born. Ruby June thus became an owner and the driving force of a summer resort named Skippers. This became their small business livelihood for 26 years. It was a busy and demanding life all summer, but they spent every winter at Ft. Myers Beach, Florida, enjoying warm weather and sailing. One winter they bought a 28-foot sailboat in Ohio and made a 5-month boat trip from Cincinnati down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers to the Florida Keys. Ruby June tutored her daughter third grade while she was out of school for several months, and she read chapters of Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer out loud each night. The adventurous family was featured in newspaper articles all the way along the rivers. After the sale of Skippers Resort, they retired and bought an Airstream trailer and a yellow 1969 Brougham Cadillac muscle car and traveled the United States. Ruby June and Homer became well known as Mr. and Mrs. Sound for all the Airstream Rallies. They selected music and set up sound equipment for entertainment. In 2002, they finally gave up the wandering, and they settled down in their Florida, condo on a picturesque canal. Homer passed away at age 86 after 60 years of marriage. Ruby June continued to live at the condo for eight years until she moved to Atlanta, Georgia at the age of 90, to be near her daughter. Ruby June moved to a retirement community for eleven years in Atlanta. She enjoyed many crafts, games, organized a dominoes group, played cards, and loved the church knitting group. She also enjoyed visits from her son and grandchildren who reside on the west coast. One visit included a tour of the new Braves baseball stadium with her son. Another included wonderful meals prepared by her grandsons who are both great cooks. She is preceded in death by her parents, her husband, three sisters, her son-in-law, her daughter-in-law, a nephew, and two nieces. She is survived by her daughter of Atlanta, her son of Langlois, OR, two grandsons and their families of Seattle, WA and Sonoma, CA, one sister of Lima, Ohio, and favorite nieces and nephews around the United States. Ruby June had a very full and long life to age 101, and she had a wonderful attitude about growing older and maintaining as much independence as possible. She will be missed by her family and friends and many residents at her community. In lieu of flowers, you may wish to consider donations to the following: St. Anne’s Terrace Retirement Community (Affiliated with St. Anne’s Episcopal Church) 3100 Northside Parkway NW, Atlanta, GA 30327. OR Grace Lutheran Church 607 South Main Street, Jackson Center, Ohio 45334 Please note that your donation is in memory of Ruby June Reinbol