Young, Ruth V. ²

  General Notes:

[Obiturary for Ruth (nee Young) Block
received from Roberta Vilma (nee Hill) Fromberg to Robert Howard Tachna on August 8, 2002 via email.]
RUTH YOUNG BLOCK, 100
--------------------
Longtime owner of electrolysis firm
By H. Gregory Meyer
Tribune staff reporter
August 9, 2002
Ruth Young Block was a hard-nosed entrepreneur of unwanted hair. The former owner of a Loop electrolysis business and leader of two cosmetic hair-removal associations turned a life of Depression-era penury into one that allowed a long and comfort able lakefront retirement. Mrs. Block, 100, died Wednesday, Aug. 7, of heart failure in her Chicago apartment, said her physician, Dr. Jack Bulmash. The Polish immigrant opened a hair-removal office on borrowed money in 1937 after several lean e conomic years, said her granddaughter, Barbara Jaffee. Short of capital to invest in a $250 electrolysis machine, she fashioned one with the help of a vacuum-cleaner repairman, her granddaughter said. "It was this that catapulted me to the very to p," Mrs. Block wrote in autobiographical notes about the invention. Further tinkering led to a machine that removed hair painlessly, her granddaughter added. Her office in Suite 1313 of the Marshall Field's annex building at 25 E. Washington St . occupied what later became a hotbed for hair removal, said American Electrology Association president Gerrelyn Adams. Within a block of her Ruth Young Block Ltd. firm were at least six other electrolysis businesses, an electrolysis equipment su pplier and the Kree Institute of Electrolysis. Mrs. Block remained so convinced that Suite 1313 was her company's lucky number that she took its door with her when she moved downstairs, Jaffee said. Her daughter Carol Block Rohr took over the bus iness, now based in Orland Park with eight Illinois locations, a company representative said. She was one of the founding members of the Illinois Electrologists' Association and a president of the American association, Adams said. But as a busin esswoman she did not always agree with them. In the 1950s, Adams said, Mrs. Block introduced a light-based hair-removal machine to Illinois that had been banned in California. "They brought this to Illinois and said they were the only ones that h ad it. Yes, that's true, because it didn't work," Adams said. When the Illinois Electrologists' Association objected to the apparatus, Adams said, Mrs. Block formed a splinter association. "I think they've disbanded," Adams said. In a 1994 inte rview, Mrs. Block told the Tribune that she followed flapper styles in the 1920s as a way to mark her American identity. She spent her first paycheck, from a job as a stenographer in the Stock Exchange building, on a pair of patent leather shoes . Mrs. Block also is survived by another daughter, Fern Jaffee; two other grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren. No services are scheduled. Copyright (c) 2002, Chicago Tribune

  Noted events in her life were:

• Death in week. Wednesday

• Jewish Birth Date. 29 Av 5661

• Birth in Week. Wednesday

• Yahrtzeit. 29 Av 5762

Ruth married George Block on Jun 27, 1923 in Chicago, Illinois, United States. (George Block was born on Feb 27, 1895 in Chicago, Illinois, United States ² and died on Mar 8, 1968 in Chicago, Illinois, United States ².)

  Noted events in their marriage were:

• Marriage In Week. Wednesday

• Jewish Marriage Date. 13 Tammuz 5683