Jacob "Jay" Schiff: A Tribute

Jay Schiff

A tribute page for Jacob "Jay" Schiff, A friend of Sime~Gen and A COMPANION IN ZEOR, who passed away in January 2005 after a fall. Pictured: Jay -- 2004


Part of A Companion in Zeor
Remembrances, for inclusion, can be e-mailed to Karen MacLEOD

REMEMBERING JAY
by Jacqueline Lichtenberg


He was a staunch, good friend and supporter of fandom -- Sime~Gen in particular. Little of his handiwork has produced anything we can show -- but he was a worker at the level of spirit and energized others to good cheer and love of life. I'm going to miss him.
Live Long and Prosper
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://www.simegen.com/jl/
http://www.simegen.com/writers/simegen/ for availability of new Sime~Gen
volumes.


Jay and Nadine


REMEMBERING JAY
by Karen MacLEOD


I can't quite figure out how to put into words just what 34 years of friendship was...
In part ----
There's so much more to tell about him. I can't tell you how much this man means to me.
He helped me with mathematics when I had problems with it in college.  He had the patience to help me learn to drive (when my Dad was too ill with cancer to do it), Jay donated mimeograph and other office machines to me to get the fanzine printed on paper.  He kept my typewriters and the office machines working.

Jay drove me to the 1976 Presidential Inaugural, and we also wandered the Smithsonian museums.  We spent hours with friends at the Franklin Science Institute in Philadelphia, the year they had a Star Trek related exhibit.  He loved tinkering with anything mechanical, often taking things apart to see how they worked -- whether he could put them back together was another question altogether.

There's so much I have to think about...  He loved animals more than most people.  Jay was a vegetarian, who respected your own choices.  He was a voracious reader, everything from textbooks to comic books.  Jay's "fun" was to sit at the kitchen table with a science, calculus or advanced algebra text, and play with a pad of paper and numbers....  He loved railroads, and model railroading, he volunteered with the riding center, and so much more.

I'm hoping his sister can send even more information about him to fill in things I don't know.  I know he had nephews, but no children of his own. 



REMEMBERING JAY
by Jenny Flink, his sister



While Jay was in the army he volunteered to help a doctor in the contaigious disease section of the hospital.

His happiness came when he could pass on some of his math ability to help others get a foothold in this world. Jay was very effective teaching higher math to students who could not grasp the study, and he succeeded in getting them to understand and pass those subjects.

Without money, he was a bigger philanthropist that many, many who had more.  One of the phylanthropies that our grandfather, Jacob Schiff, related to but not the big financier, Jacob Schiff, helped found was B'nai B'rith.

These people I know were his friends.  You, Karen, Yetta Eberson, Ethel Harman, Irv Thomas, Thelma Green, Eleanor Maxwell (Irv's Cousin) and all of the friends of Nadine who were in close touch. Bill McKinney, that Jay and I knew from teenage years, who had been working for Charney's and became part of the Schiff Charney work force was a real friend to me and everyone including Jay. He offered to send me the A.C. Press notice that he had seen in the paper and I figured I 'd send it to you via e-mail. Bill McKinney has been friend of our family since he worked for Charney, one of our competitors from the Schiff Brother days. Incidentally the youngest children that used to come Schiff Brothers' to get their school supplies at our store must be about 60 years old or older. That's ancient history.


Jay
This is a link to our on-site electronic copy of the "A.C. Press" obituary notice, Jenny mentions.


TRIBUTE TO JAY
by William Long



My memories of Jay are fond ones. I met him in the 1980's when he would come over to where I was visiting, and either help out doing things or just talk about railroads as well as the history of Atlantic City and some of the people that lived there.

My best memories of Jay are when we would just sit around and talk, about a great many topics. There was a trip to the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, where at the time, there was a Star Trek themed show. I enjoyed watching his joy when he found the other exhibits of old train locomotives, and telling us about them.

These are my memories of Jay.


For those it might interest, here is a link to the information website kept when Jay was injured, and his subsequent health updates up until his passing.