Einstein, Jack

Jack Einstein was born July 8, 1924 in Radford, Virginia. Jack’s great-grandfather was Moses Einstein, who had emigrated from Ulm, Germany.  He eventually ended up in Virginia after a few years in New York. Moses was a first cousin of the famous Albert Einstein, and that makes Jack his third cousin. Moses married into a Christian family, though whether he converted to that faith is unknown; either way, the American Einsteins followed a different path from their German cousins. Jack’s father worked for the railroad, supporting the family, which included Jack and his two older brothers. They were in Roanoke at that time, but when the company cut his father’s pay they relocated to the family farm near Charlottesville for a few years, eventually ending up in Richmond. Jack has great memories of that period, from milking cows to silent movies to Sunday drives in his father’s Model T! Jack was in high school by the end of that decade, and he was a senior when the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor occurred. The next day – Monday, December 8, 1941 – Jack began work at the Washington Navy Yard, where his older brothers were already employed.  Jack worked in the shops that produced the 16 inch guns for the navy’s biggest battleships, and because of his technical skills he was given a draft deferment for the first two years of the war.  Manpower needs became paramount by 1943, so he was called to report for duty at Fort Meade in 1944. Jack went into basic training, and while there he sustained a serious back injury.  The army saw that he would be unfit for combat, so they sent him to the Aberdeen Proving Ground, and with his expertise he was assigned to the Army Ordnance Corps. There Jack taught ordnance soldiers the ins-and-outs of all the different kinds of weapons they’d be using on the battlefield – and how to repair them. When the Battle of the Bulge necessitated shipping support troops overseas, Jack stayed in the U.S.: his back injury was too severe for him to be considered for combat. Jack spent his war at Aberdeen, where he also developed training techniques for the new weapons that were brought into play. He was finally discharged in May 1946, returning to work at the Washington Navy Yard. During that time he met a young bank teller named Helena, and her short-changing him at the bank one day eventually led to a lifelong relationship, with the marriage coming in 1949. Jack went onto work as a civilian contractor for the military for many years, raising a family and finding his way in postwar America with Helena.  Jack Einstein was interviewed by Scott Masters at his home outside Winchester, Virginia in July 2026.