Obituaries
 

 
 

Edward B. Cantey Jr.
1921-2007
The collecting community will miss Ed Cantey with his passing this past May. Those who knew Ed knew his kind manner, his love for the hobby and his affection for his wife, Carroll. Until Carroll’s death, if you saw Ed, you would see Carroll. They were truly partners in life and every aspect of it. At stamp shows, both would take a seat side by side at the dealers’ tables and review each cover together and comment on each.
Ed Cantey died Sunday, May 20, 2007 in the South Carolina Episcopal Home at Still Hopes. Born in Columbia , he was a son of the late Edward B. Sr. and Helen Robertson Cantey. He attended Columbia city schools and was a 1942 graduate of the University of South Carolina with a degree in chemical engineering. Serving as a commissioned officer in the Navy during WWII, he studied meteorology at the University of Chicago . He later received a master’s degree in chemical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Employed for more than thirty years with Pfizer Pharmaceuticals, he was director of the pilot plant and had retired from the legal department.
Upon his retirement, Ed returned to his home town of Columbia , South Carolina and elevated his interest in postal history collecting. Ed assembled the largest collection of South Carolina Confederate stampless covers ever assembled until it was sold intact to another collector. Ed also collected Columbia , SC, postal history and won numerous gold medals for his exhibit of mail to and from Columbia . In 2002, he was presented the CSA’s President’s Trophy for his exhibit. Before his death, Ed expressed his love for the hobby by donating one of the largest cash gifts to the Alliance to fund the work on the Confederate States Catalog and Handbook.
Ed and Carroll will be missed at future stamp shows, however, their love for the hobby will live on forever.
                                        By General Tony L. Crumbley
 

Gordon Bleuler 1917-2007

A long life lived well in philately. Born in Muscogee, OK. in Jan. 1917. Gordon became an advanced stamp collector when by the age of 15 he was invited to be a founder of the Oklahoma Philatelic Society in Tulsa, holding Charter Member # 8. In 1940, Gordon sold his extensive U.S. Commemorative stamp collection in order to make a down payment on a new home in Dallas, TX. Gordon then began new collections of U.S. Postal History with specialization in Oklahoma and Indian Territory, Texas, Florida Confederate States, Hawaii, Alaska and all Western States. His Civil War postal history both Northern and Southern is well known. Gordon may have been inspired by the well known Oklahoma Humorist Will Rogers' famous saying that "He never met a man he didn't like" to Gordon's saying that "He never met a collector that he didn't like".
Gordon was a contributor to various philatelic books, frequently wrote articles for various publications, talked to Clubs and Societies and presented many award winning Postal History exhibits. His foreign collections included stamps and covers of the Netherlands, Switzerland, Japan and French Antarctica.
Gordon was also an artist in that he hand illustrated many of the pages in his Exhibits. Gordon also created a one of a kind group of hand drawn Texas Sesquicentennial envelopes for the 1986 event.
On a personal note, Gordon and I met in 1978. He became my mentor in collecting U.S. 19th Century Postal History. Gordon always had a smile, a great sense of humor and his many friends became my friends as well.

Col. Jim Doolin


 

Wilson Hulme II
1946-2007

CSA life member Wilson Hulme died of a heart attack on January 10, 2007. In his 60 short years, Wilson had three careers and became a world class philatelist and postal historian.

Hulme, born in Dallas in 1946 and raised in Ardmore, OK, graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1968 and received a master's from Michigan State in 1969. He then served in the U.S. Navy as a nuclear submarine officer until 1976. After earning an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1978, he worked in the food service industry for Frito-Lay, Unilever and Nabisco until 2001. In 2002, he accepted his dream job as the first Curator of Philately at the Smithsonian's National Postal Museum (NPM) in Washington, DC. He served as host for a CSA dinner meeting at the museum and personally conducted special vault tours for our members during our meeting at NAPEX in 2005.

After joining the CSA in 1976 as member #2015, Wilson became life member #33 when that was offered as an option. He was also a life member of the U.S. Philatelic Classics Society, being honored by them as a Distinguished Philatelist in 2003. He was president of the society when he died. He was a member of many other clubs and societies, including the Collectors Club of New York and the Royal Philatelic Society of London, where he became a fellow in 1992.

In the hobby, Wilson specialized in early stamp separation techniques and equipment. He was a thorough researcher and cataloger with an outstanding collection in the area, including both official and unofficial separations on U.S. and C.S.A. stamps. He served as an expertizer for the American Philatelic Society and the Philatelic Foundation, as well as an outside expert for our society. He was also the private perforation section editor for the CSA Catalog currently being written by Alliance members.

At the NPM, Wilson was successful in allowing us to "access the inaccessible," his mantra, by bringing exhibits such as a portion of the Queen Elizabeth II collection and the Benjamin K. Miller collection to the museum. His desire was to make the NPM the center of the philatelic universe, as well as a resource for philatelic research. This included enhancing the National Philatelic Collection and expanding access to all of the museums artifacts.

Wilson will be missed by his many friends, but his positive and long term impact on the hobby will be difficult to duplicate.

Van C. Koppersmith
 

Vernon S. Stroupe, Jr.
1927-2006

Since early childhood, Vernon had an unquenchable thirst for philatelic knowledge. This desire and willingness to share with others has added much to the hobby. On March 21, 2006, Vernon lost his battle with leukemia which he had fought for over two years.

A native of Asheville, North Carolina, he was a member of the First Baptist Church where he served as a life deacon. He wrote the history of the church. He attended Davidson College and Asheville-Biltmore College, now UNC Asheville, and completed two years of photographic trade school at the Archer School of Photographic Arts in California. He joined the U.S. Air Corps in 1944 and was transferred to the U.S. Marine Corps. He served until 1946.

After military service, Vernon returned to California and began his profession within the photographic industry where he worked from 1949 to 1974. During this time, he pursued his philatelic interest as a general U.S. collector until he discovered Perfin in the early 1960's. He assembled quite a large collection of Perfins. Just before he moved back to North Carolina in 1974, he purchased a collection of North Carolina postal history. This would set the stage for his passion over the next 32 years.

Vernon began his second career as a furniture representative taking over his father's furniture sales district covering North Carolina, South Carolina and later Virginia. His travels with this career allowed him to do considerable research on the postal history of North Carolina. In February 1982 he became one of the 17 founding members of the North Carolina Postal History Society. He would later serve as president of the organization. In 1989 he became the co-editor of the N.C. Postal History Journal. Throughout his tenure he produced 64 issues. He was working on the last issue when he was taken to the hospital for the last time.

As chief editor of the four volume "Post Offices and Postmasters of North Carolina" published in 1996, Vernon became the foremost authority of North Carolina postal history. No other states published work can compare to the thoroughness in this work.

Vernon was a member of the APS Perfin Society and the Confederate Stamp Alliance as well as other state and local philatelic organizations.

With the closing of his albums, a true friend to the hobby has been lost. The knowledge gained from his research is, however, preserved for future generations thanks to his desire to publish all he could.

                                                                   By Tony L. Crumbley


Gen. Jack Solomon
1921-2006
 General Jack Solomon passed from this life to the next on Friday, January 20, 2006. He had been battling kidney disease, among other ailments, for some time. Jack joined the Alliance in 1955 and was CSA member #869 for over 50 years, over half of that with the rank of "General", which was conferred on him in 1974.
When I first began in Confederates, Jack was in his prime of collecting and exhibiting. In 1970, when I began co-editing the Confederate Philatelist, Jack was the Secretary-Treasurer. He lead the CSA as President from 1972-73 with particular zeal. Some of my earliest Alliance memories were of manning CSA hospitality tables with Jack, Bob Werner and Etta Jurissen. Jack was passionate about recruiting members and had the distinction of attaining the highest ever number of members under his leadership - over 800. His phenomenal Confederate exhibit won most of the available CSA awards of the time and stomped the competition nationally. He won 6 Grand Awards from 1956 to 1971, culminating with the ultimate pinnacle, the APS Champion of Champions at SOJEX in 1971. He also won 5 Reserve Grands, as well as many other national and specialty awards over a 25 year span.
Jack was born in New York City and starting collecting when he was only 10 years old, first as a general collector, later specializing in U.S. and Great Britain and Colonies. It was 23 years later in 1954 at an ASDA show that he saw Confederate stamps at Raynor Hubbell's booth. As Jack told it, "I was flabbergasted when I saw these stamps. Always a history buff, I found myself holding actual mementoes of an era that continues to fascinate historians and students of the period. I was converted instantly." A more dedicated Confederate Yankee was not to be found.
Jack, an optician by trade, was married to Sylvia Solomon for over 40 years and is survived by his second wife, Beatrice, as well as his two children, Lois and Stanley, plus two grandchildren, 3 great-grandchildren and 3 siblings. In later years, he retired to Delray Beach, Florida from Long Island, NY.
My late husband, John, and I had the privilege of selling his phenomenal collection in November 1981. It was one of the best Confederate collections we ever handled, with rarities across the board. The most memorable to me were the Southern Letter Unpaid on a college corner card cover, which sold for $28,600, and the only "used" 1¢ Orange, Scott #14, - actually an adversity cover made from a partial sheet of the 1¢ stamps, which were never placed into use. That, of course, is a very well documented and written up cover. Pedigrees abounded in the collection, which was chock full of rare provisionals, patriotics and other wonderful usages that were a pleasure to write up.
Jack dropped out of the CSA scene for a time, but in recent years he enjoyed several CSA conventions before his health precluded his attending. We traded several letters during the last few years, which were full of memories of the "old days". He never got used to calling me "Trish", as I grew up and went by "Patty" when we first met in the late 1960's. I switched to "Trish" about 1973. There are very few that I have not retrained to call me "Trish" over the years, but he was one of them.Those of us who were around 30 + years ago remember his enthusiasm and energy well. He will be missed.
                                                                     Trish Kaufmann