Insurance agent always had a joke

9/29/2005

WEST UNITY, Ohio - Lewis Emery Bly, 81, who owned Bly Insurance Agency here, died Tuesday at the Inn at Fountain Park, Bryan, of complications from congestive heart failure.

Mr. Bly, an industrial engineer, worked for companies in Michigan and Ohio before starting the insurance agency.

"He was very easy-going, always the comedian with a joke to tell," his daughter, Amy Nafziger, said.

The youngest of five boys, Mr. Bly graduated from West Unity High School before enlisting in the Army Air Corps during World War II. A second lieutenant, Mr. Bly was a pilot stationed at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.

Mr. Bly received his bachelor's degree in industrial engineering from Tri-State University, Angola, Ind.

He married Lyla Hartman in 1946. She died in December, 2000. On Aug. 15, 2004, he married Marjean Beck.

A longtime member of the West Unity United Methodist Church, where his first wife was an organist, Mr. Bly was a member of the American Legion Post 669, the Lions Club of West Unity, the Loyal Order of Moose, and Superior Lodge 179, F.&A.M.

Surviving are his wife, Marjean Beck Bly; daughters, Teresa Taylor, Andrea JoHantgen, Amy Nafziger; stepdaughters, Kathleen Van Etten, Susan Terrill, Denise Dean, and Barbara Von Wert; three granddaughters, two grandsons, and three great-grandchildren.

Visitation will be after 4 p.m. today in the Hollingshead-Beck Funeral Home. Services will be held at 11 a.m. tomorrow in West Unity United Methodist Church.

The family suggests tributes to West Unity United Methodist Church.