William Jefferson Blythe Jr. lost touch with each other when he was an infant, after his father briefly married and divorced his mother's sister, and he never knew his biological father or paternal siblings. Later in life, Henry Leon Blythe took the name Henry Leon Ritzenthaler in honor of a step-father. He ran several small businesses in Paradise, California, including a janitorial business, and died in 2009. He was unaware of his connection to the future president until the presidential campaign of 1992, when an investigation by "The Washington Post", based on birth registry records, revealed details of Bill Clinton's family. Ritzenthaler met his
William Jefferson Blythe Jr. to Hope, Arkansas to be with his wife. Shortly after he returned, he purchased a house in Chicago and readied it to receive his wife and expected child; he was apparently laying the ground for a more settled and conventional married life. Blythe moved to the new house in Chicago while Virginia remained behind in Hope. In Chicago, Blythe returned to his old job as a traveling salesman for the Manbee Equipment Company, which repaired heavy machinery. He died three months before the birth of his son. On May 17, 1946, while traveling from Chicago, Illinois, to Hope, Arkansas, Blythe