Birth date: Apr 15, 2017 Death date: Jul 27, 2017
John R. Anderson, Jr., beloved husband, father, brother, uncle, and friend died on July 27, 2017. He was born April 15, 1944 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He graduated from Edison High School in 1962. Upon graduating he studied at OSU in St Read Obituary
Thanks for the lovely tribute, George. He really cared a lot about you. He always thought of you as his best friend. Vicki Anderson
All of us who knew him as a friend are very blessed. I believe we met in the first grade at Eliot elementary school and hit it off so well that our parents would drive us the whole block and a half to be together until we attained the maturity to just go over to each otherâ??s home and hang out for hours.His mom, dad & sister were wonderful folks. His motherâ??s grandparents lived just behind them and we could cut through the backyard to visit them. Thanks to the Anderson family, a relatively poor kid got to go camping, water ski, hunt, fish, you name it. We biked everywhere, then it was motor scooters, then motorcycles, finally cars. John had a great love of all things mechanical. I am forever indebted and grateful to him and his family for including me in so many of their activities. John was quiet, but easy to be with. He never pushed his interests on you, was always interested in your interests, but whenever you expressed a desire to hear about what he was doing, you could just feel the passion when he spoke of the things he lovedâ?¦ Whenever we got together, he always just continued the previous conversation, as though we had only momentarily been interrupted.I didnâ??t know what to do with myself after a year of college and after weighing my options, I decided to join the Marine Corps. My sister planned a going away party for me and surprised me with an impressive collection of my friends to bid me good luck. But, I was even more surprised when John announced that he and his father (a Navy vet) has visited the Marine Corps recruiter and that John was enlisting with me on the buddy system, which meant we would share the same platoon in boot camp and the same company at Infantry Training Regiment (ITR). Again, I was so lucky to have such a great friend always alongside for me no matter the rigors of the Marine recruit experience. We pulled our first liberty back home together and took great pride in becoming Marines. At the Communications battalion, they separated us, him into radio repair, me into radar. He shipped out ahead of me bound for Viet Nam and we did not see each other again until after he elected to obtain his discharge. I remained in the Marines for 10 years and we did not see each other again until we met up again at our 50th high school reunion.He was so glad that we got to be with each other again. We had a lot of joint memories to rehash. We have kept in touch since then thanks to the magic of email. I am going to miss him terribly. He always spoke with such great pride of his family. I can only imagine their loss. He was the glue that kept the old Brookside gang in touch with each other. They will miss him tooâ?¦I know that many people today are working very hard to understand and overcome the cancer process in our bodies. Some day they will succeed and stop this dreaded malady that takes so many good men and women prematurely from their family and friends. We have all lost a good man and a fine Marineâ?¦
I met John in the late 70's when he was building his 1935 Ford Streetrod. We traded out many services, attended Early Rod meetings and events, and met up at many Street Rod events through the years. John is a very dear Buddy and I miss him dearly. We kept in touch via emails, and Linda and I would often stop over at his and Vicki's house to spend the night on the way to events. John is a first class guy, and the world is less of a interesting place without him. We all love you John.
Lit a candle in memory of John Ralph Anderson
I worked with John for several years at American Airlines and he was always a fun, easy going guy to be around. He was usually smiling and happy no matter what kind of job we were doing at the time and he made me laugh many times. Unfortunately I think I've only talked to John once since his retirement and now he's gone. The world is a little less bright now without him.
