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David Ritchie, 39, Former Oswego Resident, Dies
Potsdam. - David L. RITCHIE, 39, guidance and adult education director in Potsdam Central School since 1957, died unexpectedly at 10 Friday night in the office of a local physician after being stricken with a heart attack while giving adult high school equivalency tests at the local school. His home was at 73 Leroy St.
Ritchie was giving the tests to 95 candidates at the local school when seized with an attack of illness. His wife was with him when stricken. He went across the road to the office of Dr. Richard J. Howell. While in the office he suffered another attack and died. The candidates taking the examination were from all parts of the North Area which includes the Adirondack section to Catskill on the south. The Potsdam Rescue squad administered oxygen but to no avail. He had a heart condition previously.
Born in Arbrotch [sic], Scotland, on March 4, 1921, Ritchie cam to the United States at the age of five with his parents, Mrs. Elizabeth Ritchie of 255 E. Seventh St., Oswego, and the late James Ritchie, and was a graduate of the Oswego public schools and Oswego State Teachers College, now State University College of Education, where he majored in industrial arts, with the class of 1943. He earned a master's degree in guidance at St. Lawrence University. During World War II he served with the U.S. Army Air Corps as an aerial gunner with a bomber squadron in Italy. He wa honorably discharged in 1945, returning to Oswego.
In September 1946 he came here as an instructor in the industrial arts department of Potsdam High School. Three years ago he was advanced to the position of guidance director and also director of the adult education program. He was also in charge of the high school equivalency testing program in the North Area.
He was active in the First Presbyterian Church here, serving as a member of the board of trusteed at the time of his death. He also was a member of Racket River Lodge 213, F. & A. M., the Northern Zone Guidance association and the New York State Teachers association.
Surviving are his wife, the former Miss Louise BARDESCHEWSKI who resided at 95 Fifth Ave., Oswego, at the time of their marriage on Dec. 28, 1946: his mother; three daughters, Joyce, 12, Ellen, 7, and Linda, 3, at home: and a brother, John Ritchie, a pharmacist in Birmingham, Ala.
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1921 - 1961 (39 years)
