History is Altoona man’s hobby, and genetics is livelihood – Altoona Mirror

Mirror photo by Cherie Hicks Michael Farrow sits in his Altoona home next to an 1850 marble fireplace that came from his aunts house in Philadelphia. The author of Altoonas Historic Mishler Theatre will receive the 2016 Angel of the Arts award from the Blair County Foundation on Saturday.

Michael Farrow was educated in human genetics and spent a career in the emerging field. But he has spent his retirement indulging his love of history and the arts, roused by youthful summers spent at his grandparents in Philadelphia.

He researched and wrote Altoonas Historic Mishler Theatre, published last year. For that, the Blair County Arts Foundation is honoring him with its 2016 Angel of the Arts award at its annual dinner on Saturday.

He devoted three years of his life to it and is giving all the proceeds to the Mishler, said Kate Shaffer, BCAF executive director.

She said the 174-page hardback book created a magnificent retrospective of the Mishlers past, present and potential.

Farrow said the award surprises him because even though he was born and mostly raised in Altoona, he went away for his college and career.

Im just somebody who came back to town (six) years ago after being gone for years, he said.

Farrow wasnt supposed to grow up here. Less than a year after he was born, his father, a medical doctor, took the family and his practice to a Boston suburb to take care of soldiers returning from World War II.

But, in 1943, when Farrow was 4, his father contracted strep throat from a patient and died; penicillin, only recently discovered, was not widely available.

The family eventually returned to Altoona, where Farrow attended Adams Elementary, Roosevelt Junior High and Altoona High, graduating in 1957. Summers were spent crisscrossing Philadelphia for its historical sites, museums and art.

For 12 years, I was immersed in all this history, said Farrow.

Although his grandparents were of Lebanese descent having immigrated in the late 19th century they lived near a neighborhood of working-class Italian immigrants, who would sit on their front stoops, talk and listen to music blaring from inside. That is where Farrow picked up his love of opera.

He bragged on the Altoona schools music programs, and he was in the band. He also spent a lot of time in movie theaters there were 10 in Altoona in the 1950s, he noted.

Farrow didnt consider music or art as a career because he was afraid he would end up as a teacher, an occupation he didnt want.

Just as he was getting his bachelors in biology from Juniata College in 1961, details of DNA were emerging, even though research had been devoted to agriculture.

Farrow then went to West Virginia University, earning his masters and doctorate in human genetics in 1970. He spent a one-year fellowship as a genetic counselor at WVU, fielding questions from mothers in the regions hollows and researching drugs used in leukemia patients.

Genetics was an up and coming field and the more I got into it, I found it fascinating, he said.

Drug companies began studying how their drugs and chemicals affected human genetics. Farrow went to work for Wyeth in Philadelphia, creating its first genetics lab and conducting tests to determine the toxicologic effect of chemicals and drugs on bacteria, animals and humans.

Then the federal Environmental Protection Agency began researching the effects of pesticides on humans and contracted with research companies to set up testing procedures. Farrow left Wyeth for Washington, D.C., and got in on the ground floor of breakthrough government research.

He worked for several contractors, building genetics laboratories, developing testing protocols and researching the effects of pesticides and drugs on humans. He spent the last two dozen years of his career working to get drugs and chemicals registered for government controls.

Farrow retired in 2005 and decided five years later to return to Altoona to be near his siblings after his mother died.

He delved into history research, publishing his first book on all those movie theaters he had visited as a youngster. Now Showing: A History of Altoona and Blair County Theatres was published in 2013 and sold out in two months.

Then he took a month off before starting Altoonas Historic Mishler Theatre.

Farrow now works on myriad projects for the Blair County Historical Society and its Baker Mansion, as a board member, and researching historical venues and conducting lectures and tours, such as historical neighborhoods and churches.

The fourth-generation Lebanese-American also plans to write a history on the 100 or so families that immigrated from Lebanon and Syria to Altoona well over a century ago.

If you really love something that doesnt have a lot of opportunities, make it your hobby and make a living at something you love as well, he said.

That hobby, he said, also helps him support causes that he loves.

I like Altoona and all the arts. They need money, he said. How can I support them if Im not a millionaire? I can lend my talent. Plus I get a high finding the history and these little unknown tidbits that are fascinating.

Mirror Staff Writer Cherie Hicks is at 949-7030.

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History is Altoona man's hobby, and genetics is livelihood - Altoona Mirror