Harold Jump’s H.S. Yearbook
Harold “Bud” H. Jump, Jr. © Frank H. Jump
Hal Jump hailed from Stamford NY and enlisted in the Korean War with the expectation of coming home in a box as a war hero. Hal was handy with electronics and was immediately sent to Germany to learn about radio transistors electronics, and code. Jump was discharged from the Army with a toolbox and enrolled in the RCA Institute of Electronics where he furthered his electronics skills set.
(Harold & Willy when they first met at the Kleine Astoria in Amsterdam circa 1957 – couple on the right) © Frank H. Jump
Jump lived at the Chelsea Hotel on West 23rd Street in NYC while going to school and very shortly after completing his studies got a job with PanAmerican Airways as an avionics technician, where he learned how to take apart and reassemble commercial airplanes. Jump married my mother Willy in late 1958. Willy and Harold met in Amsterdam when he was stationed in Germany. Jump continued working for PanAm up through the companies heyday. During this time he also moonlighted for an air conditioning company called Weston’s on Metropolitan Avenue in Queens. In 1969, Jump was sent to Roswell New Mexico to test the new Boeing 747, where they took it on test runs to see how much stress the wings would take on parabolic rises and falls. Jump never quite enjoyed flying after that experience.
Hal Jump (circa 1985) © Frank H. Jump
In 1980, he told me he was going to leave PanAm to work for the U.S. Postal Service as a computer programmer for the new zip code mail sorting machines in the Jamaica Queens division near Kennedy Airport. Jump worked both jobs until he was ready to transition full-time to the Postal Service. In preparation for this, Jump was sent to Norman, Oklahoma to study computer programming and maintenance and later completed more coursework in Milwaukee, WI in 1974. It was around this time he met his future second wife Anne Rich. Willy and Harold were living together but in separation until their divorce in 1985.
Harold Jump & Anne Rich in the 1990s
After his divorce with Willy, he remarried Anne Rich and moved briefly to Long Beach, LI until he left the Post Office and moved back to Stamford, NY where he worked as a school bus operator. After several years of commuting back and forth from Upstate NY to Whitestone where Anne’s family lived, they finally settled back in Whitestone where they lived until Anne’s death three years back in November of 2013.
Jump lived alone in Whitestone until a fall landed him in Menorah Rehabilitation and Nursing in Manhattan Beach Brooklyn with a subdural hematoma. Jump never recovered from his injury sustained from his fall and died nine months later. He is survived by his son Frank H. Jump, his sister Ann Jump (Estero, Florida), and step-daughters Linda Rich (Manhattan) and Debra Rich and grandchildren Jon-Peter and Bianca Pezzino (Whitestone).
Jump in 2010s
Services for Harold Jump will be held on July 7, 2017 @ 11AM at
OUR LADY OF GUADALUPE AT ST. BERNARD
328 WEST 14TH STREET, NEW YORK, NY 10014
