Jack Pinky Blum - just a quiet great neighbor. I was most fortunate to grow up through the late 1950s and early 60s in Steubenville. Most of us back then had great neighbors who looked after us as if we were part of their family. On Cleveland Ave. I had Rocco Cutri and Mike Stanko to each side . Moving to Marion Place while in HS I lived next to Bob Williams and Jack Blum. All were good to me, my brother, and widowed Mother. I suspect that most of us during our teenage and early 20s period never give much thought about the lives our neighbors have lived and how they think about life. I never thought about my neighbors as being part of the WWIIs Greatest Generation, but they were. They were just there and they always came over to help if there was a problem that needed attention. While watching one of the historical TV channels the other day I watched a documentary about the bubble gunners on the B-17 of WWII. Then I remembered how one of my neighbors, Jack Blum, mentioned that he had been a turret gunner and had flown 20/30 flights over Germany. He said that he was nick named, Lucky Pierre. Then it clicked. The documentary said that more airmen were lost in Europe than all the losses in the war against Japan in the Pacific. Jack came back to Steubenville after the war , raised a family with two lovely daughters and with his brother, Arthur, opened a novelty distribution business known as Blum Brothers. When a fire destroyed their warehouse in the 70s, Jack entered the banking field and was successful as the Manager of the Union Bank s Wintersville office. He was a great neighbor and like so many of his generation he talked little about WWII. Jack , like all my former neighbors, make me Steubenville Proud. Thank you Jack, Bob, Mike , and Rocco for being great neighbors and making me so proud to say, Im from Steubenville. Video - click on this link to hear about what Jack went through flying over Germany during WWII youtu.be/gRWrAP_b3vY
Posted on: Sun, 11 Jan 2015 23:47:02 +0000
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