FEATURE PAGE
February 28, 2019




Jimmy Blow, 96, won't accept "retirement"
World War II is over. You're a military veteran with a new wife back in your hometown where you have a job. You look into going to college but there's a waiting list to get in. So what's your next move?

For Jimmy Blow, at age 23, it was starting a new business in a new town with established competitors in place.

How did that work out?

Obviously, very well. He turned 96 years of age this month, and he's still going to work at his jewelry store alongside his son who's been with him there for almost 46 years.

The Jewel Box opened on Downtown Smithfield's South Third Street in October 1946. Jimmy Blow had been working for a jeweler in his hometown of New Bern earlier that year when he stopped for lunch in Smithfield after a visit to N.C. State College in Raleigh. "I liked what I saw, so I opened a shop" --- thanks to financial backing from a couple of older friends back home, Jimmy explained.

"The day I opened I was bankrupt!" he exclaimed. Well, not exactly. What he meant was that he was in debt from the get-go. "You opened your own business on credit," he said; "everybody was in the same boat" in those years just after the war, and the Great Depression.

Making sufficient sales to cover your expenses and reduce your debt was not an easy task in Smithfield where two family jewelry businesses had been around for some time. "Selling a $100 item was a big deal that made your day," Jimmy recalled.

And Saturday was the make-or-break business day. "We did as much business on Saturday as we did the rest of the entire week," he said.

Jimmy Blow's wife Dardenella was "my bookkeeper and my inspiration," he said. They would have celebrated their 74th wedding anniversary this month had she not passed away two years ago.
In front of The Jewel Box store open on Booker Dairy Road since 1990 are Gordon Blow (left) alongside Kathy Sharp, a 12-year employee, and Ricky McLeod, an employee for 22 years.
Son Gordon joined his father at The Jewel Box after graduating from Campbell University in May 1973. Actually, he returned to the store where he started helping out at age 12, "running errands and running up and down the stairs to get merchandise that was stored on the second floor," he recalled.

"I love doing this," Gordon said of the work he hasn't grown tired of doing after all these years. "It's always a pleasure when you can help someone out" with their purchases, he said --- purchases of items that often become treasured keepsakes of one's lifetime and beyond.

Gordon Blow has two sons who aren't in the jewelry business. Darden, who resides in Charlotte, is Eastern U.S.A. supervisor for Homefront America, a charitable organization that assists military veterans and their families. Grayson, who resides in Greensboro, is an accountant with LabCorp, a widely known medical diagnostics service based in Burlington.

Jimmy Blow, meanwhile, is among a handful of surviving World War II veterans who reside around here. He was a transport pilot with the U.S. Army Air Corps, stationed mostly at the Warner Robins Base in Georgia during his service from 1942 till 1945.

His take on avoiding "retirement":
A man's got to keep doing to keep on living.