PVT. EDWIN RUOFF (A BEDSTUY HERO) (1918)
Brownstone Detectives investigates the history of our clients’ homes.
The story you are about to read was composed from research conducted in the course of one of those investigations.
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In 2014, The Brownstone Detectives partnered with the New York City Parks Department to help celebrate the lives of the servicemembers of Bedford-Stuyvesant Heights who made the ultimate sacrifice during the Great War.
We researched these heroes to locate pictures, stories, and their descendants to be brought together for a ceremony that dedicated a new “Victory and Peace” war memorial at Saratoga Park.
This biography tells the story of one of those servicemembers.
PVT. EDWIN V. RUOFF
Before being drafted into the U.S. Army to fight in the Great War, Private Edwin V. Ruoff was a resident of Stuyvesant Heights where he lived at 193 Ralph Avenue.
He was killed in an accidental bomb explosion on 3 June 1918 in France, when a supposedly harmless shell went off. The explosion, which took the lives of 45 soldiers in total, occurred when the company was drilling.
It all started when one of the men discovered the “bomb or hand grenade” and “began fooling with it.”
Then, “after tossing it about and whirling it around, he let it drop. As the missile hit the ground, there was a terrific explosion, the force of which threw almost every member of the company to the ground.”
THE ARMY VISITS MRS. RUOFF
According to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, his mother, Margaret “Maggie” Ruoff, received word that her son had been killed by a bomb explosion soon after the incident.
After the truth had had some time to sink in, Mrs. Ruoff spoke of her son.
“Well, he was a good son. I am proud of him,” she cried. “He did his duty and I am sorry that he was not longer in the service. He left Camp Upton on April 15, aboard the train that was wrecked at Central Islip, on his way to New York, when several soldiers were killed.
Ruoff was 24 years old, being born on 8 July 1894, and was a member of Company B, 305th Infantry. One of five children of Charles and Maggie Ruoff, he had a brother, Walter C., in the 309th Infantry, and another brother, Fred, 20 years old, who said he was anxious to avenge Edwin’s death and expected to enlist himself.
CIVILIAN LIFE BEFORE THE WAR
Edwin had been a manager of the Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company (today’s “A&P” grocery chain) store at 2049 Fulton Street before joining the Army.
According to his WWI Draft Registration Card, Ruoff had been a tall, slender man with blue eyes and brown hair.
Private Edwin V. Ruoff was remembered on 10 September 2014 at Saratoga Park where the “Victory and Peace” war memorial was dedicated.
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Brownstone Detectives is an historic property research agency. Our mission is to document and save the histories of our clients’ homes. From our research, we produce our celebrated House History Books and House History Reports. Contact us today to begin discovering the history of your home.
