Obituary of Arthur C Rediske

ARTHUR CLAIR REDISKE April 6, 1923 – July 16, 2020 Breast cancer claimed Arthur Clair Rediske on July 16, 2020 at the age of 97. Belle Margarete Cavender and Arthur John Rediske welcomed a son, Arthur Clair, on April 6, 1923, two years after his sister Muriel. Imagine all he saw in his life! Black Friday, the start of the Great Depression, was in 1929! He was born before that in the "Roaring Twenties.” Growing up in Yakima, he met a redhead, Lois Thomas. Joining the church choir to be close to her, they promptly sent him to the back row because he couldn't sing. But, her heart sang and they married September 6, 1942, spending nearly 78 years together. Art joined an after-school radio club in high school, propelling him into a career as an instrument engineer, a skill that he used during WWII. As a Naval Reservist, he repaired aircraft for Boeing and Pan American in Seattle, New York, and Kodiak, Alaska. Member and Past President of the Instrument Society of America, Art worked at Hanford for General Electric, Douglas United Nuclear, Kaiser, and Bechtel. His last professional project was providing oversight on the electronics for a new automated welding head used to connect reactor sodium cooling pipes. A self-taught master craftsman, he excelled in woodworking. While living in Richland, he built an addition on their home—a master bedroom/bath, and a rec room. The concrete slab saw kids roller skating and using Mom's potter's wheel before the walls went up! Later, he shepherded a bedroom remodeling home economics project with his eldest daughter, Patricia. During his life he crafted many fine pieces of furniture for family members. His woodworking skills expanded to include making bows for archery. He joined the local archery club, and donated several bows for trophies. One was made of yew wood, which he bent and curved in a specially-crafted steam box he built for the purpose. With his electronic expertise, he and his son, Len, built an electronic organ for Len’s rock band, with practices in the rec room, participation in the Battle of the Bands during the hydroplane races, and which Len played in through college and beyond. When he was young, Art learned jewelry-making skills from his father, Arthur John. When he and Lois moved to Olympia to be near family, he set up a jeweler’s shop in the garage, handcrafting silver and stone jewelry with his two youngest daughters, Claire and Maitri. They sold many pieces at local art shows, and his favorite line with customers was, “What can I sell you today?” Heavy discounts were common, as Art got a kick out of seeing someone wear his creations. His daughters took him to the local Arts Olympia group, where everyone treated him like royalty, and were amazed at the handcrafted jewelry. Art was just like his mother, Belle—they never met a stranger. He was interested in everything and everyone. We called him our Renaissance Man. He had a questing mind—one that liked to figure things out, understand what made things work. Throughout his life Art worked on an ancient Greek puzzle—trisecting an angle using only an unmarked compass and ruler. First introduced to the puzzle by Miss Sloan, his high school math teacher, it grabbed his interest and he worked on this puzzle off and on his entire life. In 2018, believing he had solved it, his proof was published in an edition of the peer-reviewed Journal of Advances in Mathematics. Imagine his surprise when he discovered that a woman who also lived in their facility was a retired math teacher and wanted to see his proof. After reading through it and talking with Art, she dropped his proof on a table, looked at him and said, “Art, you are a genius!” She, too believes he has solved this puzzle. She told him he could shorten his first proof by many steps by omitting some unnecessary basic geometric steps, so he set to work and did just that. His second proof was submitted and accepted for publication in 2019 (see The Trisection of an Arbitrary Angle: A Condensed Classical Geometric Solution at https://rajpub.com/index.php/jam/article/view/8487, Vol. 17, 2019). Mrs. Sloan would be very proud. Family was always very important to him. He was close to his sister, Muriel, affectionately calling her "clam mouth.” When they were young, he was fascinated with magic, and often used Muriel as a guinea pig to test his tricks. One he remembers teasing her with peeling an orange and finding an apple. Growing up, he spent hours with his cousin Clifford. They tried making wings and jumping off roofs, and hunting “sage rats” in the desert with their home-made bows and arrows. One day cousin Clifford was stationed inside an outbuilding, looking through a knothole, watching to see if Art could put an arrow through it. He reported that at the last second, the thought occurred to him that Art was a pretty good shot and perhaps he shouldn’t be looking through that knothole. Just as he moved his head away from the hole, he felt the feathers from the arrow skim his temple. A close call! When his daughter Claire married, he became great friends with Claire’s husband, Brian, and they spent many hours together on woodworking projects, not the least of which was a large workshop they designed and built together. Art’s greatest love was his wife, Lois—“the red-haired girl.” He courted this auburn-haired beauty after meeting her at a local Grange dance. Her mother reported being tongue-tied over his last name, and told the family she lived in fear of calling him “Art Ridiculous.” Even if this may have happened, it didn’t stop Art and Lois from falling in love and marrying. She was his “Wabbit” and he was her “Squirrel,” nicknames they affectionately used through their life together. Art is survived by his wife, Lois Annabelle (Thomas); sister, Muriel Mullen; children, Patricia (Jim Weatherman), Len (Linda Warner), Claire (Brian Thompson), Maitri (David Mudd); ten grandchildren, eleven great-grandchildren, eleven great-great grandchildren, and extended family. He was preceded in death by his parents, his infant sister Betty Belle, his parents-in-law Mary Magdalene (Hanna) and Hallard Clyde Thomas, his brother-in-law Eugene (“Spud”) Mullen, and his grandson, Arthur Nolan Weatherman. We love you Dad!