Biographical Note
Ralph Samuel Jaffe was born in New York, New York, on February 8, 1907. At the outset of World War II, Jaffe was living in Newport, Rhode Island, with his wife, Betty, and their two children, Rita and Stanley. The proprietor of a hardware store, Jaffe was drafted into the United States Army in 1944 at the age of 37, leaving his wife to attend to the family business. Jaffe served at Fort Bragg, North Carolina; Fort Meade, Maryland; and Manila, Philippines. While in the Philippines, he served as a clerk in a recovered personnel detachment. He achieved the rank of Private First Class and was awarded the Good Conduct and Asiatic-Pacific Campaign medals. At the end of his enlistment in 1945, Jaffe returned home to Rhode Island and resumed operation of his store. He died on October 28, 1992.