Jack Brail

He was very fortunate to have had 95 years of good health, a wonderful family, a happy 60+ year marriage, and immense pride in his eight grandchildren. He will be greatly missed.

His memory remained very sharp, and last week he was busy recounting stories of his first jobs out of college, as a dress salesman in 1950 for the Nelly Don company in the highly desirable territory of the Dakotas and Montana, followed by a year of covering Louisiana, Arkansas and Mississippi. He broke into the furniture business with Fox Manufacturing of Rome, GA, which was owned by the family of a childhood friend of his from Atlanta. He moved to Portland, Oregon to cover the Pacific Northwest for Fox for five years, before making his way to Philadelphia to cover the mid-Atlantic. It was in Philadelphia that he met his wife, Corinne (née Kalb) and where they raised their sons Richard and David until moving to Orlando in the late ‘70’s.

Jack was a very old-school Southerner. He was from Druid Hills and grew up in the Atlanta Jewish world so well portrayed in “Driving Miss Daisy” and “Last Night of Ballyhoo”. He went to school with the author, Alfred Uhry, and knew who all of the characters were based on in real life, some of whom were his relatives.

Jack was exceedingly modest and understated. He was never one to speak of his accomplishments. He has thrown away more trophies than most people will ever earn, winnowing down the collection of golf, tennis and swimming trophies with each move, until he was left with just the truly impressive club championship ones.

He proudly served his country in the Navy, between World War II and the Korean War. Since there wasn’t much going on, they put him to his highest and best military use. He was the tennis pro on the base and served as a lifeguard at the officers pool.

Jack was a great multi-sport athlete. He played tennis for the University of Georgia in the late 1940’s, and was also raced for Georgia’s swim team. He was a near-scratch golfer, and was the club champ at Warrington Country Club in Pennsylvania. He gave up golf for 25 years when his two sons were born, as he travelled so much during the week, and rededicated himself to tennis. In addition to being an excellent player he was a very good coach who volunteered in the Philadelphia Gold Cup junior tennis training program for years, at the indecent hour of 6 AM every weekend morning all through the winter, at indoor clubs in the far corners of Philadelphia.

In his 50’s, he took golf up once again. In his 80s, he had shot his age so many times he stopped keeping track. While a broken leg that never healed correctly left him using a walker and unable to play golf these last 5 years, he handled that setback admirably, working hard to maintain whatever mobility he had, with a daily, hour-long exercise routine til the end. He read voraciously, dozens of novels a year. He was always a good source of book recommendations. If you are looking for a book to read over the holidays, he would have recommended a Daniel Silva novel, one of the Gabriel Allon stories. He was an avid sports fan, and watching the Georgia Bulldogs football team win the college championship last year brought him great joy. Sadly, he came up a few weeks short of seeing them repeat this January.

He was the model of consistency and dependability. He liked his routines. As a traveling salesman, he put a lot of miles on his cars, and would replace them every 2 years. He liked Oldsmobiles. Enough so that he bought 15 of them in a row. Then he had a big year, and stepped up to a Cadillac. It was a lemon. He then became an early proponent of Japanese cars. He had only bought Japanese cars since 1980.

Jack is survived by his wife of 60 years, Corinne, and his two sons, David and Richard. He is also survived by 8 grandchildren - David and his wife Julie’s children Jordan, Marisa, Eliza, Carly and Lindsey, and Richard’s and his wife Laura’s children Noah, Seth and Eli.

Jack was predeceased by his brother, Robert.

The funeral will be private. Shiva will be at Corinne’s home at 1021 Royal Gardens Circle in Lake Mary, FL on Thursday from 2-4pm, at Richard’s home at 356 N. Bedford Road in Chappaqua, NY on Sunday from 12-4pm, and at David’s home at 320 West 102nd Street in New York, NY Monday 6-9pm.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Jack’s favorite charities, St Jude Hospital and the Shriners Hospital.