Editor’s note: This is part of an occasional series that features Alle-Kiski Valley residents and the notable things they do.
Joe Utterback looks forward to evenings in a recliner with a good book after decades of serving Plum families in need.
“It’s hard to describe the feeling,” said Utterback, Plum Food Pantry director. “You feel like you’re contributing to society with what you’re doing. I got a lot more in return knowing that some kids are going to get food because we’re here.”
Utterback, 89, celebrates his last day as director Tuesday.
He led the borough’s only food pantry the past 17 years and has been a volunteer since December 1982.
Utterback credits neighbor Karen Douds, one of the pantry’s founders, with getting him involved. Other founders were Cindy Best and Sue Meyers.
“We never thought it was going to be anything,” he said. “When I got involved shortly after it started, we had maybe five or six clients. When we got up to 30 clients in a month, we were wondering how we were going to survive. Every time we needed something, somebody helped out.”
The pantry now serves about 150 Plum families monthly. It’s open from 5 to 6:30 p.m. the first through fourth Tuesday of the month at the Holiday Park United Methodist Church at 81 Sandune Drive.
Most of its food comes from the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank in Duquesne.
“There’s a lot of personal satisfaction in what we do,” Utterback said of the volunteer work. “It’s not for glory, that’s for sure.”
First food, then toys
He said one of his food pantry highlights was launching the annual toy drive in the late 1990s. The pantry, churches and others chip in to ensure Plum children have toys for the holidays.
“We put up an Angel Tree with the names of boys and girls, their ages and what they would like,” Utterback said. “We leave it up to people in the church to pick an angel and buy whatever’s required, and it works.”
Utterback, a lifelong Pittsburgh Steelers fan, spent his childhood on a farm in Searights, Fayette County, before moving with the family to Cleveland, Ohio.
“Being a Steelers fan in Cleveland is not a good thing,” he said. “Can’t be a Browns fan, and the rest of my family are Browns fans.”
He graduated in 1947 from the now demolished Thomas A. Edison School in Cleveland and joined the Army in January 1949.
He reached the rank of corporal and served three years, six months and one day.
“I enlisted for three years and was in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean sea sick when (President Harry S.) Truman extended everybody a year,” Utterback said. “But then they cut it back.”
Utterback was a clerk in the 2nd Armored Division, also known as “Hell on Wheels,” and stationed in Germany in the American occupied zone. He and other officers would help civilians.
“People were still trying to get out of the east zone, and there were a lot of people on the road pushing buggies and wagons with possessions piled high trying to get as far away from the Russians as they could get,” he said.
“We would collect money in the church services and buy stuff and have our families send stuff over.
“There were a lot of Polish displaced persons, and a lot of them were in really bad straights.”
That dedication to helping others would serve Utterback well back in the states.
Utterback moved from Cleveland to West Mifflin and worked for Westinghouse Electric making blades for jet aircraft.
He later moved to Plum’s Holiday Park neighborhood, and worked for U.S. Steel in the metallurgical department of its Homestead mill for 28 years.
He married Verna “Flo” Utterback. They were married for 60 years and had two children, Donna and Lou. She died in July 2016 at age 81.
“She was a best friend, and I still miss her,” Utterback said.
Resident Bernard Ogline will take over as pantry director. He’s volunteered for years and helped upgrade the pantry’s computers and record keeping, among other tasks.
Utterback said he has no plans on returning to the pantry so it doesn’t appear like he’s looking over Ogline’s shoulders.
“He has a right to do it his way just as I did it my way,” Utterback said. “He does a good job as it is. We have a reputation of having the best records of any pantry, thanks to Bernie. He’s a good man.”
Volunteers plan to celebrate Utterback’s contributions via a luncheon in September.
Call 724-327-0367 for more information about the Plum Food Pantry.
Michael DiVittorio is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Michael at 412-871-2367, [email protected] or via Twitter .
Louis B. Ruediger | Tribune-Review
Joe Utterback stands on Tuesday outside the food bank at Holiday Park United Methodist Church in the Holiday Park section of Plum.
