Mt. Pleasant Township man remembered for love of family, people
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While growing up among coal-mining families in the Standard Shaft neighborhood of Mt. Pleasant Township, Frank Jackson loved being around people, but he had no desire to meet them at the bottom of a mine.
“That was not for him,” said his daughter Kristina Behan of Pensacola, Fla. “When he got a job at a printing company, he really enjoyed it. And, when some friends of his went into that business, he joined them.”
Frank D. Jackson of Greensburg, former general manager and co-owner of the Foothills Litho Co., died Thursday, Jan. 9, 2020. He was 90.
Mr. Jackson was born Jan. 13, 1929, in Standard Shaft, a son of the late Frank Anthony and Hattie Kathleen (Brindlinger) Jackson. He began his career working at the Charles Henry Printing Co. in Greensburg.
Mr. Jackson also served as a photo lithographer during the Korean War, when he joined the U.S. Army and was stationed in Germany for two years.
When he returned, Mr. Jackson headed back to the Charles Henry Printing Co., where he eventually met his wife of 66 years, Patricia Joyce (Kistner) Jackson. The couple was married May 2, 1953.
“He was an incredibly devoted husband,” said his daughter Gayle Jackson, of Virginia.
Her sister agreed.
“He was at work a lot, but every day he would call her,” Behan said. “And he would come home for dinner so he could see his family as he was building his business.”
Above all, Mr. Jackson knew how to look on the bright side.
“He was a force of encouragement and support,” Jackson said. “He could find the good in whatever was going on.”
In the mid-1960s, Mr. Jackson and his partners started the Foothills Litho Co. in Latrobe.
“We learned about what was going on in the company, and he took us on weekends to do cleaning in the offices,” Jackson said.
In his spare time, Mr. Jackson enjoyed golfing in the Latrobe and Ligonier area.
“He was working a lot and raising family, so the big thing for him was golf,” Jackson said.
After retiring from his business in the late 1980s, Mr. Jackson began working as a part-time real estate agent at Ligonier Valley Real Estate.
“He never really expressed an interest (real estate),” Jackson said. “I think he just wanted to get out and continue to work, and be with people.”
Behan agreed.
“He was always interested in other people,” she said. “He was a very loving family man and that family was pretty large, but he remembered so many things. The man was 90 years old but he could go into great detail about his nieces and nephews.”
Mr. Jackson is survived by his wife Patricia Joyce (Kistner) Jackson; his son, John Jackson and his wife, Lisa, of Pittsburgh; two daughters, Gayle Jackson and husband, James King, of Virginia, and Kristina Behan, of Florida; his son-in-law, Robert Lightburn, of Virginia; two sisters, Mary Angela Kornides, of Latrobe, and Louise McGivern and husband, Robert, of Mt. Pleasant; 13 grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.
Friends will be received from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday at Leo M. Bacha Funeral Home, 516 Stanton St., Greensburg. Prayers will be at 9 a.m. Wednesday in the funeral home, followed by a 9:30 a.m. funeral Mass at Blessed Sacrament Cathedral, 300 N. Main St., Greensburg. Internment will follow at Greensburg Catholic Cemetery.