This is a strange one. My initial inclination is she voluntarily ran away from the stressors of life. She was going to marry a guy from her home town, she was worried about not graduating but the time period doesn't make sense to me. Back in this era that was the expectation. You get married, have kids and settle down. It is not the norm for women to push so hard to get a degree. This would have been considered a distraction by most people so it wouldn't have really mattered if she didn't graduate. This one stumps me.

Ruth Elizabeth Baumgardner was 22 and a senior art major at Ohio Wesleyan University when she vanished from Austin Hall the night of May 4, 1937. A popular Delta Delta Delta sister, engaged and close to graduation, she was seen by roommates after 11:00 p.m. with hair in curlers; she said goodnight sometime before midnight and was never seen again.

Her room (319) was unusually orderly the next day: bed untouched, pajamas and robe hanging, hairpins put away, alarm clock set for 6:00 a.m. and run down. Her watch, sorority pin, and some change were on the dresser. A dorm key was found on a stairwell. Her new red Dodge remained in its garage with the key in the ignition; the belongings she took were an old handbag, about $5, a brown suit, a sport hat, and brown suede shoes.

Investigators and family pursued many leads: unconfirmed local sightings, reports of a high-pitched male caller the day she vanished, screams heard between 2:00 and 3:00 a.m., searches of the Olentangy River and a quarry, and a later shaky confession by a man arrested for another murder. By 1939 Ruth’s parents asked police to close the case. Her fate remains unknown.