Tom Ruttinger Brought Winning Ways To Ping-Pong And Pinochle

Thomas Ruttinger was a man used to winning. A championship table-tennis player 30 years ago, Mr. Ruttinger more recently shifted his winning ways from the Ping-Pong table to the pinochle table.

Playing several times a week at area senior centers, he routinely would turn losing hands into jackpots.

"He always made everybody mad because he won all the time," said Dorathea Riebe, a close friend.

But illness won July 18 when Mr. Ruttinger died after a long bout with cancer. He was 77.

Mr. Ruttinger was born in Kansas City, Mo., on Nov. 19, 1916. He headed west in 1935 to join his father, who was working on the Fort Peck Dam in Montana. Two years later, Mr. Ruttinger came to Washington, where he served as a foreman during construction of the Grand Coulee Dam.

During World War II, Mr. Ruttinger helped build planes for Boeing. He joined Seattle Transit in 1944. Mr. Ruttinger won several awards for Driver of the Year, as well as Most Friendly Driver.

Daughter Cynthia Ruttinger recalled that schoolgirls used to wait for his bus. "He'd counsel them and talk to them about all sorts of things," she said.

It was in the Seattle Transit Table Tennis League that Mr. Ruttinger first discovered his talent with a Ping-Pong paddle. Throughout the 1960s, he was champion of that league and was sponsored by State Farms Insurance Company to play in the All-City Table Tennis League, whose title he also took.

Mr. Ruttinger retired from city transit in 1978, but he soon began driving buses again as a volunteer for Seattle Senior Services.

In his later years, Mr. Ruttinger began frequenting senior centers at area schools run by the School Personnel Involved with the City's Elderly program. It was there he began tearing up the pinochle table.

Mr. Ruttinger also did a great deal to make the lives of his fellow senior citizens easier. Riebe recalled he always knew where to go to buy things inexpensively. "All the women at the center used to get him to buy their stockings and makeup," she said. "He always knew where the sales were."

Mr. Ruttinger was married between 1940 and 1974 to Andresa Ruttinger, currently of Burien. He remarried in 1977, and his second wife, Doris, died in 1987.

Mr. Ruttinger leaves four children: Cynthia Ruttinger of West Seattle; Darla Ely of Puyallup; Sonya Howard of Seattle and Tommy Ruttinger of North Seattle; 10 grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.

He is also survived by five brothers: Harold Ruttinger of Otem, Utah; Edward Ruttinger of Atlantic, Mo.; Robert Ruttinger of Federal Way; Lewis Ruttinger of Fontana, Kan.; and Albert Ruttinger of Mission, Kan.

Mr. Ruttinger's ashes will be buried at the Spring Hill, Kan., cemetery, where his mother is buried.

Private services have been held.

Memorial donations may be sent to the Group Health Cooperative Foundation's Hospice Program Fund.