GEORGE J.STONE, 73, WAS PARACHUTIST, STEEPLEJACK
The Plain Dealer
September 4, 2000 Monday, FINAL / ALL
By ALANA BARANICK; PLAIN DEALER REPORTER
A parachutist carrying a container filled with the cremated
remains of skydiver George J. Stone will jump later this month from a plane over
the parachute club Mr. Stone helped found.
The memorial event, which Mr. Stone's family calls "his last jump,"
will begin at 1 p.m. Sept. 17 at the Cleveland Parachute Club, 15199 Grove Rd.,
Parkman Township.
Mr. Stone, 73, formerly of Mentor and Eastlake, died of complications from
asbestosis Aug. 4 at his home in Houston.
He got his first bird's-eye view of the world as a paratrooper with the Army's
82nd Airborne Division at the end of World War II.
After serving in Germany during the Allied occupation, Mr. Stone kept his head
in the clouds in Greater Cleveland as a steeplejack, painting water towers,
changing light bulbs on radio transmission towers and servicing industrial
smokestacks.
He spent weekends in the 1950s and '60s stepping out of airplanes in skydiving
exhibitions at private airports. He rigged his shoes to emit streams of red,
white and blue smoke, so spectators could see him falling from 10,000 feet in
the air. He altered his own chutes at a sewing machine on his kitchen table to
maximize their efficiency.
As a parachutist, he did water jumps at the Fairport Harbor Mardi Gras. He also
did promotional jumps at store openings and floated to earth dressed as Santa
Claus, the Easter Bunny or an extraterrestrial at the Willo Plaza shopping
center in Willoughby.
For several years, he piloted a wood-fired hot-air balloon, from which he did
aerial acrobatics at the Burton Fair.
Mr. Stone and fellow jumper Floyd Hobby, formerly of Elyria, were part of the
seven-member National Parachute Jumpers-Riggers Association Inc. team that
represented the United States in the International Parachuting Championships in
Moscow in 1956.
The two men founded the Cleveland Parachute Club in the early 1950s, a few years
before pilot Dale Gates established the club's airfield in Parkman Township. Mr.
Stone sometimes alarmed his colleagues with his risk-taking, according to Gates
of Garrettsville.
"He jumped a little lower than a lot of people liked to jump," Gates
said, alluding to the risk of having less time to open the chute. "You
never knew what he was going to do."
Mr. Stone was born in Barre, Vt. When his military service ended, he followed
his mother to Cleveland.
He sold chickens, worked in a factory and took whatever odd jobs came his way
before starting Industrial Steeplejack Co. in Eastlake. Later, he ran a similar
business, the Mentor-based Accurate Maintenance Corp., until the late 1960s.
As a member of the Laborers Union, Mr. Stone did construction
work and maintenance for the Lindsey Wire Co. and other plants. He co-owned
Frenchie's Bar in Perry Township, according to his family.
In the mid-1970s, Mr. Stone moved to Leeper, Pa., where he ran the Longhorn
Steak House. He also owned the Tippy Canoe Bar in Tidioute, Pa. While in
Pennsylvania, he promoted and directed benefit air shows at the Clarion Airport.
He was living in Jamestown, N.Y., when his wife, Beverly, died. After her death,
he moved to Texas. His cremated remains will be interred in a columbarium at a
veterans cemetery near Houston.
Mr. Stone is survived by son, John of Willoughby; daughters, Paula Haley of
Houston and Doreen Kuczma of South Euclid; seven grandchildren; four
great-grandchildren; and a sister.
Arrangements are by the Aldine Funeral Home of Houston.