Zippo lost someone important on Sunday.
Sara Blaisdell Dorn passed away at the Bradford Regional Medical Center at the age of 88. Starting in 1950, Sara was heavily involved in Zippo’s legacy and after her father’s death in 1978, both her and her sister Harriet Wick assumed ownership of the company, and Sara guided it through the years as an owner, a treasurer, vice-president, and, even for years after her retirement, she served as an adviser for Zippo on the board of directors, guiding it along to the company it is today.
Even as far back as 1996, Shepherd Hills and W.R. Case and Sons sought to honor this exceptional woman by making our grand prize drawing during our Celebration event a canoe that housed Sara’s name, and that tradition of producing a knife with her signature continued well into 2001.
Though Sara may be gone now, her legacy lives on though not only the Zippo company and her family, but though the countless hours of charity work across the town of Bradford and the scholarship programs though the Blaisdell foundation she helped established in 1980 for the improvised students that needed them.