Samuel Ciccia - The Man Labeled “Bing”

Sam in front of his Hardware-Rental 

store on Grant Street with his beloved “Grissly”

A handsome young man in his early twenties walked along the railroad tracks in Buffalo, NY, picking up coal which was then thrown into a huge sack. It was the early onset of the depression and his parents and siblings, the family of Anthony and Josephine Ciccia, were awaiting the daily promise of warmth from Sam’s sack of precious jewels. Sammy, as he was affectionately called by all, was the second oldest son of a family of thirteen (one three year old brother had died of pleurisy), Sam took the responsibility of making sure his family was cared for – an attribute he carried through all of his ninety-six years.

Although he attended high school for only a few years, Sam was a brilliant, creative out-of-the-box thinker, and self-made success wrought with his policy of hard work and the and a “never-give-up” philosophy, along with his oft-repeated “you can always do a better job when you do it yourself.”

He met and married the prettiest former country girl named Jessie, who had moved to the “big city’ and was working ten hours a day in a laundry. Soon after they were married, they had two children, despite cries of well-meaning relatives who warned that “people shouldn’t start a family in these dire financial times. Sam would paint cars for extra income, striping without a ruler, and even took a dangerous high rise building job but realizing his life was more important than the money, promptly quit.