Not too many accountants have become folk heroes in American life. But Henry W. Bloch, who died last week in Kansas City, Mo., at the age of 96, may be an exception. He was the last survivor of the three brothers who founded H&R Block, the mammoth tax-preparation business, in the mid-1950s. In a series of TV ads starting in the 1970s, Bloch’s earnest, reassuringly plain-but-competent persona not only made his company millions of dollars but eased the anxiety of millions of taxpaying Americans. “Don’t face the new tax laws alone,” he’d say.

Like more than a few entrepreneurs, Bloch essentially stumbled onto success. The middle son of a comfortable Jewish family in Kansas City, he had graduated from the University of Michigan before entering the Army Air Forces in World War II, winning the Air Medal and three oak leaf clusters as a B-17 navigator in Europe. After the war, he studied statistics at Harvard Business School and worked briefly as a stockbroker.