Lisa, my dad is Donald Ritter, Meta & Herb's son and only child. He now lives in Newport, RI & in the Bahamas and is very much alive and well. My dad & grandfather ran Ritter Transportation together for about a decade and then my dad took over & my grandfather retired to Florida (and went on to marry two more times! after Meta's death in the late 60's). My dad sold the business and retired in the mid 1980s.
According to my info Herb was one of many children and he grew up in Hell's Kitchen, NYC. He was a huge man who boxed professionally, worked on the Panama Canal and evidently was the first person to carry propane over the open road. He was a great (sometimes scary guy) respected enough in NJ to keep out both the unions and the mafia from his trucking business for decades, which is saying a lot.
My mother always told me that one of Herb's brothers was a well connected bigwig in politics in NJ and my investigation into how my dad was adopted by Herb & Meta has lead me to believe this could be correct.
Nina Ritter