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To this day he still drives, albeit short trips around town, and has a vodka martini — “or two” — a day.
Sallada was born on April 18, 1919 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He met Jane, who later became his wife, when they were teenagers in early April 1933. The couple famously left a hot dog roast with their church youth group on Sept. 29, 1933, and that turned into a family tradition with hot dogs on every Sept. 29.
The high school sweethearts married on March 7, 1942, but it was only after Sallada enlisted in the Navy. It was right after Pearl Harbor, and didn’t want to be drafted.
“I knew I was going to get stuck,” he said on why he enlisted.
Sallada was in San Diego for basic training and spent a few months in Seattle before he spent two-and-half years teaching and supervising at the aviation ordinance school in Norman, Oklahoma. Then he served nine months on the aircraft carrier the U.S.S. Essex in 1945. He called his time on the Essex “a nine-month cruise” but he was in charge of the ordinance — guns and ammunition and rockets — while on the aircraft.
He left the Navy after his time on the Essex and moved to Clifton with his wife. He went to the University of Cincinnati to study mechanical engineering and began their family. In 1959, the Salladas moved to a seven-acre farm on Ross Road in Fairfield because of the school system and to be closer to his job as a supervisor in the mechanical and production engineering department at Fernald.
“It has a bad reputation, but dad told me at one time he felt it was an honor to work there because nuclear energy is really what told the war,” said his daughter Marjeane Sallada, with whom he lives on Ross Road across the street from their one-time seven-acre home.
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Sallada said worked at Fernald because he wanted to be on the ground floor “if atomic energy was going to be the coming thing.”
After 14 years at Fernald, he worked another 14 years at Pleasant Electric as a supervisor of the construction crews. He retired in June 1984 at 65. And the day after he retired, he and his wife took their first of three RVs on a 13,000-mile road trip.
They spent years traveling, hitting the 48 intercontinental United States and parts Canada, traveling more than 250,000 miles, Sallada said.
Paul and Jane were married until Dec. 22, 2013, when Jane died at 95. They celebrated 71 years of marriage, and 80 hot dog anniversaries. Together they had four children, Paul Sallada, Jr., who lives in Cincinnati, David Sallada, who lives in Hamilton, Marjeane Sallada, who lives with her father, and Steve Sallada who lives in Hyde Park.
Sallada said there really isn’t the secret to his long life. He said it may have been his wife’s home cooking, but believes he’s still around because, “God doesn’t want any more engineers up there.”
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