Jim Charley worked long and hard to find products for the customers of his family's wholesale grocery business when food was rationed during World War II.
"He would come home for dinner and then be gone again," said his son, Ray Charley, of Greensburg.
James A. Charley, 92, of Ocean Ridge, Fla., and Greensburg, died Friday, Dec. 16, 2005, at home.
Mr. Charley's vigilance on behalf of his customers frequently meant spending long nights on a telephone trying to reach contacts on the West Coast. That was no easy task on a party line from Derry, Westmoreland County, his son said.
He was the former chairman of Charley Brothers Wholesale Grocers, now a division of Super Valu Inc. The Charley Brothers company was formed by Mr. Charley's father, Michael, who immigrated to the United States from Syria in 1901 at the age of 16.
"He saw the United States as a land of opportunity, got on a boat and came to a strange country with a strange language," Ray Charley said.
Michael Charley started selling produce door-to-door and then started a small retail store outside Derry. From those humble beginnings, he and his sons, James, Fred and Bill, would launch Charley Brothers, the wholesale grocers that would supply the Shop 'n Save and County Market chains.
"The Charley Brothers company really was the Charley Brothers," Ray Charley said.
Jim Leeper, of Aspinwall, whose father was a Pittsburgh food broker and a friend of Mr. Charley's, recalled him as a man "ahead of his time."
"He proved you could be a success and still do it the right way," Jim Leeper said.
And he did it by being innovative, Ray Charley said. When Charley Brothers built a new 60,000-square-foot warehouse in Carbon, near Greensburg, in 1957, it dropped the traditional multifloor concept and put everything on one floor -- including a computer.
"It was housed in the IBM room," he said, adding that today, many grocery stores dwarf the 60,000-square-feet mark.
Mr. Charley was devoted to his wife of 57 years, Grace (Cooper) Charley, his son said.
"His love, and her love of him, was just remarkable," Ray Charley said.
Mr. Charley instilled in his children a sense of the importance of community service. He was a former elder at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Greensburg, a former trustee of Westmoreland Regional Hospital and served on the board of directors of Commercial National Bank.
"He always seemed to inspire others to be better," said his son.
Mr. Charley is survived by his wife; a daughter, Rebecca Williams, of Higganum, Conn; three sons, David Charley, of Tokyo, and Christopher and Ray Charley, of Greensburg; two stepsons, Cooper Wright, of Warrenton, Va., and Robert Wright, of Sharpsburg; a sister, Louise Bashour, of Irving, Texas; a brother, William M. Charley, of Greensburg; and numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
A memorial service will be held at 11 today at Westminster Presbyterian Church, Greensburg, with the Rev. Donna Havrisko and the Rev. David Eversdyke co-officiating.
