Vladimir John Obidine was born on April 11, 1922 to Valeria Wcerus Obidine and Vladimir Obidine and first appears in the 1930 Los Angeles census as “Junior J. Obidine – 8 years old”.

No information for Second Lt. Obidine was located in any Torrance/South Bay yearbooks, city directories or telephone books. The reason for this became clear when it was discovered that his main connection to Torrance was through his marriage to Joan Ramskill in January, 1944.

Miss Ramskill graduated from Torrance High and was very active in student government and other organizations on campus. She met John Obidine at UCLA.

At UCLA, John was a scholar and athlete. He is listed as UCLA Football 1941-1942 and was on the 1943 Rose Bowl team that lost to the Georgia Bulldogs 9-0.

John enlisted on 5-17-1943. His service number was 0-524060 and his rank was Second Lieutenant. He was killed while attached to headquarters 5th Artillery Division US Army in France on August 25, 1944 following one year of service.