43
John Curea also makes table-top nativity scenes for family and friends
YOUNGSTOWN
The impressive Nativity scene in front of Holy Trinity Romanian Orthodox Church on Wick Avenue is the creation of longtime church member John Curea Sr.
Curea, 90, of Boardman, has been making tabletop-size creches for family and friends for many years, but he decided this year to expand his hobby and create a larger Nativity for outside the church, at 626 Wick Ave., at the request of the Rev. Florin Bica, parish priest, and with the help of his son, John Jr., of Enon Valley, Pa.
The Cureas’ creche, about 71/2 feet high at its peak, 6 feet wide and 5 feet deep, contains figurines of the baby Jesus and Mary and Joseph inside and the three wise men and another visitor outside.
Father Bica also asked Curea to make a Nativity scene to be located at the front of the church beside the altar.
Curea, who has held many offices at Holy Trinity, including president of the church council, was born in Niles and lived there nearly 10 years before his family moved back to Romania, where they remained throughout World War II.
At 20, Curea returned to the United States in 1948 and lived with an aunt and uncle in Campbell.
He was drafted into the Army in 1952 during the Korean War. He was stationed in West Germany as part of the Army of occupation there. When he was discharged in 1954, he lived with relatives in Campbell for a short time before moving to South Lakeview Avenue on Youngstown’s West Side. Also, when he left the Army, he used the G.I. Bill to pay for an associate degree in mechanical engineering from the Allied Institute of Technology. He landed a job with the DeBartolo Corp., where he worked for 38 years.
“We built plazas and malls all over the country,” he said with pride.
On July 15, 1956, he married his wife, Patricia, who died Sept. 30, 2016.
They lived in homes in Austintown and Boardman, which Curea built himself.
Besides his son, Curea Sr. has a daughter, Shirley Collins of Coral Springs, Fla., and four grandchildren.
Curea started making models about 30 years ago, but that is not his only hobby. He restores cars and ham radios and made scale models of the home in which his family lived in Apoldu de Jos, Romania, and also his son’s home in Enon Valley and for other friends and family.
Curea Jr. said the model of his home made by his father is exact, including the correct number of steps and bricks. “Working in my shop is very relaxing. And making things that people enjoy, like the models and the Nativity scene, is gratifying,” Curea Sr. said.