WEBVTT 00:00:02.000 --> 00:00:41.000 Speaker1: He was. Saw the one and she. I remember as a kid, I was about ten, 11 years old and bathed her feet. And that's the work. They didn't charge anything for it. I remember when we used to go to the cinema, she had offices down on the first floor, and Sidney Keller, the director, lived up on the top floor. And we were up there one day and we had a club there and reformed it and it was the Jane Addams Club. We had plays, we had the little women that we performed for a big audience. And I still know the girls who were in it. 00:00:41.000 --> 00:00:49.000 For Fallon and Flo. Were still members of that club and. Club. 00:00:49.000 --> 00:00:52.000 Speaker1: Social worker from Chicago. 00:00:52.000 --> 00:01:00.000 Speaker2: That made mothers famous. What's her name? Jane Addams. Jane Addams. I heard that she was quite a quite a worker. 00:01:00.000 --> 00:01:07.000 Speaker3: Now, you say she came to the home and didn't charge. Did she do this for just the Jewish community? 00:01:07.000 --> 00:01:13.000 Speaker1: No, no, no. For everybody. 00:01:13.000 --> 00:01:15.000 Speaker3: Very unusual. Very. 00:01:15.000 --> 00:01:17.000 Speaker1: She was a lovely woman. 00:01:17.000 --> 00:01:20.000 Speaker2: Yes, You are, Grandmother. I know her personally, too. 00:01:20.000 --> 00:01:24.000 Speaker3: Do you remember anything about their crusade to clean up Pittsburgh? 00:01:24.000 --> 00:01:35.000 I was a kid then. I don't remember it. I might have been ten. About nine years old. 00:01:35.000 --> 00:01:55.000 Speaker1: So I know very little, only that I had a lot of fun up on the hill and there were colored people and all. Associated with a girl. Her father was a doctor. Doctor? And there was no trouble at that time at all. I don't remember. I used to live. No, we go to school with them. 00:01:55.000 --> 00:02:01.000 Speaker3: I did too. Do you remember anything about the founding of Montefiore Hospital? 00:02:01.000 --> 00:02:14.000 Speaker1: I remember when they opened the hospital out. So here's the place outside of. 00:02:14.000 --> 00:02:18.000 Speaker3: And it was founded by Jewish people, from what I understand. 00:02:18.000 --> 00:02:22.000 Speaker2: That's right. But was a big influence to the people. 00:02:22.000 --> 00:02:32.000 Speaker1: And they were kind. And I don't remember anything said about overcharging or everything went normal. You didn't have a lot of money, but everything seemed to fit into place. 00:02:32.000 --> 00:02:35.000 Speaker3: And it was open to the whole community, I. 00:02:35.000 --> 00:02:45.000 Speaker2: Think. Speaker3: So it was it wasn't sectarian in any way at that time. The Federation did a lot of work. What did the federation do? Well, I. 00:02:45.000 --> 00:02:49.000 Speaker1: Mean, they were more sympathetic to the people. I mean. 00:02:49.000 --> 00:02:54.000 Speaker3: Is this the United Jewish Federation? It was the. 00:02:54.000 --> 00:02:55.000 Speaker1: Because I remember it was a federation. 00:02:55.000 --> 00:02:57.000 Speaker2: Jewish Federation. 00:02:57.000 --> 00:02:58.000 Speaker3: Jewish Federation. 00:02:58.000 --> 00:03:11.000 Speaker1: In fact, I worked for them and gave them many charities go down and help them out and their office and go out on pledges and did a lot of work in this. Now I know a quiet lady. 00:03:11.000 --> 00:03:23.000 Speaker3: Well, you've done your share. I think I have. When you were growing up, what type of jobs did most of the Jewish people have that you knew? 00:03:23.000 --> 00:04:12.000 Speaker2: I was. I was a building trades, and I knew there was quite a few quite a few Jewish carpenters in Pittsburgh. A lot quite a few of them. Also Jewish bricklayers designed their own building suits. And there were George Contractors was one of the finest contracts in the city was Mr. Parker. Eight. Parker's father. Eight. Parker has his. He runs the Nathan build a building supply. His father, one of the one of the biggest contractors here in Pittsburgh. We have other building trades. At that time, when I was a plumber, carpenter, bricklayers, electricians that you. Your many Christians. Merchants. Merchants. 00:04:12.000 --> 00:04:15.000 Like of the. We're all a community. 00:04:15.000 --> 00:04:21.000 Speaker1: That's all. Jews are off the farm and every merchant there. So bad. 00:04:21.000 --> 00:04:39.000 Speaker3: I would say. What year did you come to Pittsburgh? And you came with your parents and family. What brought them to Pittsburgh? My. 00:04:39.000 --> 00:04:44.000 Speaker1: Father's sisters. They were the biggest delicatessens. 00:04:44.000 --> 00:04:47.000 Speaker2: Response. One of the biggest. 00:04:47.000 --> 00:04:55.000 Speaker1: And he said, my father was always in the dairy business. He says, you can make it very well here. So we all came and they opened a delicatessen store because I remember that. 00:04:55.000 --> 00:04:56.000 Speaker2: By the way, a. 00:04:56.000 --> 00:04:58.000 Speaker1: Real good one. 00:04:58.000 --> 00:05:16.000 Speaker2: On Fifth Avenue, had a big he had a big store there, put up a big building there. And by the way, that building that you had, the historian. I did the plumbing in there. Oh, really? I did that. I worked for a fella who did was a plumbing contractor, and I was working in that building. 00:05:16.000 --> 00:05:17.000 Speaker3: Is that so? 00:05:17.000 --> 00:05:22.000 Speaker1: Well, that's the way it goes. That's a long, long time ago. 00:05:22.000 --> 00:05:25.000 Speaker3: What do you think of intermarriage, Ruby? 00:05:25.000 --> 00:05:29.000 Speaker2: I'm opposed to it. Why assure him? 00:05:29.000 --> 00:05:34.000 Speaker3: But do you have any. Any reasons? 00:05:34.000 --> 00:05:41.000 Speaker2: Workplace is hard enough to get along with and people of your own kind and take a different religious background. It makes it more difficult. 00:05:41.000 --> 00:05:51.000 Speaker3: That's what I say too. That's what I think. Have your views on Zionism changed? Have they become stronger? It has. 00:05:51.000 --> 00:06:12.000 Speaker2: Become stronger. I think it's a very worthwhile organization. Inside that I remember years ago, my mother, we had couscous in our house, 3 or 4 of them for different charities. One of them was a Zionist organization to buy land in Israel for the Jews. That goes back. Way back. 00:06:12.000 --> 00:06:21.000 Speaker3: I remember that too. Are you active in any Zionist? No. Work at the present. 00:06:21.000 --> 00:06:23.000 Speaker2: I remember. I don't remember that at all. 00:06:23.000 --> 00:06:33.000 Speaker3: Did you ever belong to an an organization specifically for national Jews? I guess they mean Zionist. 00:06:33.000 --> 00:06:39.000 Speaker2: Veterans and the Zionist organization. I don't think that's specifically for a Jewish organization. 00:06:39.000 --> 00:06:51.000 Speaker3: In the 19 tens, the Jewish Philanthropies became a federation. What changes occurred in this organization? 00:06:51.000 --> 00:06:59.000 Speaker2: I wouldn't. We never applied to any charity. I never need it, never applied for it. But I didn't know anything about it, Although I read about it, I used to hear about it. 00:06:59.000 --> 00:07:04.000 Speaker3: Do you remember anything about that from 1910? 00:07:04.000 --> 00:07:12.000 Speaker2: I used to remember the National. International now. In as much as it used to be. I think just for Pittsburgh. I remember. 00:07:12.000 --> 00:07:13.000 Speaker1: I worked. 00:07:13.000 --> 00:07:22.000 I did the books for the. For France's only Jewish transients. 00:07:22.000 --> 00:07:24.000 Speaker3: Well, what do you mean? They came into Pittsburgh. 00:07:24.000 --> 00:07:48.000 Speaker1: A man came into Pittsburgh. He used to be trained to travel from one city to the other. This place was just for Jewish men. They didn't want to eat anything that was strictly kosher. And the Federation allotted them so much money. Finally, there weren't enough men. And they. You can tell it's so funny that the last bit of money that was left. Went back to the Federation, but we were allotted every month. 00:07:48.000 --> 00:07:55.000 Not just have meetings. You have to be. Appointed elected from different organizations. 00:07:55.000 --> 00:08:08.000 Speaker1: I came as an officer of some organization. These women were all top women of the city that were that ran this house of shelter. Pittsburgh. House of Shelter. Well, it had a woman there and a man that. And I have beds in that house. 00:08:08.000 --> 00:08:14.000 Speaker3: It used to be on Locust Street. Well, was this for someone like a salesman out of New York? No, no. 00:08:14.000 --> 00:08:16.000 Speaker2: No, no, no. Poor translation. 00:08:16.000 --> 00:08:17.000 Speaker3: Oh. 00:08:17.000 --> 00:08:21.000 Speaker1: A poor man that couldn't find a place to sleep or to eat. And they fed them there. 00:08:21.000 --> 00:08:24.000 Speaker3: Oh, it was a charitable organization. 00:08:24.000 --> 00:08:49.000 Speaker2: And not only that. I remember when I was a youngster, that poor man. You come in Pittsburgh and didn't know where to go to the. He went to the shore, went to the solitary shore right on Townsend Street. And I used to be up there very often. And they somebody they would give him money enough to buy food and place to shelter. They used to send him to. They used to send him to someplace to take care of him. But they come from Pittsburgh. That's when I was a youngster. I remember that very distinctly. 00:08:49.000 --> 00:08:52.000 Speaker3: I never knew of such a thing. It's very interesting. 00:08:52.000 --> 00:10:03.000 Speaker2: I went to the show. You went to the show? The first thing came in Pittsburgh. A stranger here. You didn't have any money, went to a show, and there he was, taking care of some. He took care of him. Fact of the matter is, I don't know if I'm telling you the first dude that came here to New York City before he before the Revolutionary War, there were a few Jews there who came here. Most of the Jews came. Here they come. A couple of Jews here came from Brazil. They were they were emigrant emigrants from Spain. The time of the Inquisition. They went to Brazil, where they went to Brazil. They came up to New York, to Amsterdam. New Amsterdam was called at that time. And the and they at one time, these people, the burghers, the Dutch settled the community there. And this is what I got from history. Yeah they they settled there they didn't want even more Jews come in there. So these several Jews who were here already said, let any Jews come in. We will see that they do not become a public charge. We will take care of them. We left a few other Jews coming in there at that time. That was back historically. 00:10:03.000 --> 00:10:08.000 Speaker3: On what neighborhoods in Pittsburgh have you lived in? 00:10:08.000 --> 00:10:12.000 Speaker2: Mostly in the Hill District, the youngster and Squirrel Hill. 00:10:12.000 --> 00:10:15.000 Speaker3: Whereabouts and Squirrel Hill. 00:10:15.000 --> 00:10:30.000 Speaker2: Well, lived on Merrill Street, Seven Street, Hobart Street. And then I moved to to the Amberson Gardens in Shadyside until I met this young, lovely lady here. 00:10:30.000 --> 00:10:35.000 Speaker3: And you remarried, and now you're living in Green Tree? 00:10:35.000 --> 00:10:36.000 Speaker2: No, this is Scott Township. 00:10:36.000 --> 00:10:42.000 Speaker3: Oh, excuse me. Scott Township. My building half is in Green Tree, and. 00:10:42.000 --> 00:10:45.000 Speaker2: Uh, I didn't know that, but it's all in Green Street. 00:10:45.000 --> 00:10:53.000 Speaker3: What other groups for Jewish people did you join? 00:10:53.000 --> 00:10:57.000 Speaker2: No other group that I knew. I belong to the winemaker one time. 00:10:57.000 --> 00:11:00.000 Speaker3: How long were you a member there? 00:11:00.000 --> 00:11:56.000 Speaker2: I was a member there when the first opened up. Maybe. Oh, I must have been. About 19, 20 years old. They first opened up a place in the old dispatch building. You don't ever heard of it? It used to be the newspaper called The Dispatch was a morning paper. They had one of the buffalos. They had dispatch building. They rented a hall up there. From there. From there, they moved to Fifth Avenue corner. Know what is? That the killing there, yet that same killing is still there. Even came on Fifth Avenue. Then from there, they moved to where they're at today. So I belong to the I belong to a year or two ago. I forget how many years ago must be at least 60 years ago, 2019, I was about nine. About 20. They picture two years ago. 00:11:56.000 --> 00:12:03.000 Speaker3: Did you ever drop out of membership from any organization? Yeah. What did you drop out of From. 00:12:03.000 --> 00:12:07.000 Speaker2: For my breath. Oh. 00:12:07.000 --> 00:12:10.000 Speaker3: Particular reason or just lack of interest. 00:12:10.000 --> 00:12:37.000 Speaker2: One was lack of interest. And secondly, have they out to go to a meeting? There was very well meeting was conducted very nicely and they were all very hurried to get through with the meeting so they can sit down and play cards. And so as I said, that's all they're thinking about the playing cards. I know, I know what it does. I said, I don't I'm not a card player, so I just dropped out because I didn't take any interest in it further. 00:12:37.000 --> 00:12:40.000 Speaker1: That doesn't that doesn't make the organization. 00:12:40.000 --> 00:12:49.000 Speaker2: No, it doesn't. It doesn't say the organization is a very worthwhile organization. I know all about it. I know all about it. The need, we need it, too. But they get along without me. 00:12:49.000 --> 00:12:53.000 Speaker3: Where are your parents buried? 00:12:53.000 --> 00:12:55.000 Speaker2: Mother buried here in Pittsburgh. 00:12:55.000 --> 00:12:57.000 Speaker3: Do you know the name of the cemetery? 00:12:57.000 --> 00:13:00.000 Speaker2: The policy? Sure. Whatever that is. Mccarrick. 00:13:00.000 --> 00:13:01.000 Speaker3: How do you spell that? 00:13:01.000 --> 00:13:10.000 Speaker2: It's called Say it again. It's a Polish Jewish cemetery where she buried. 00:13:10.000 --> 00:13:16.000 Speaker3: Do you own a cemetery plot for yourself? Yes. Which cemetery? Sarah? 00:13:16.000 --> 00:13:18.000 Speaker2: Sarah? Sure. 00:13:18.000 --> 00:13:26.000 Speaker3: Are there any other activities of this burial organization? This. None that, you know. 00:13:26.000 --> 00:13:33.000 Speaker2: They have they have they have this cemetery, shul, synagogue and the cemetery and this cemetery. 00:13:33.000 --> 00:13:41.000 Speaker3: Because we heard that there are professional mourners years ago. There'd be some people I don't know whether years. 00:13:41.000 --> 00:13:48.000 Speaker2: Ago they used to put the body in a place and wash the body before they put in a shroud and everything else. It don't do that anymore. 00:13:48.000 --> 00:13:52.000 Speaker3: And no professional mourners or anything like that. 00:13:52.000 --> 00:14:00.000 Speaker2: There is professional people who are there who will say prayers for you and you give them some money for that. But that to me, that's a foolishness. 00:14:00.000 --> 00:14:04.000 Speaker3: Oh, well, I know when you go to the cemetery, you can hire someone who will. 00:14:04.000 --> 00:14:19.000 Speaker2: But I can do the same. I can say the same thing as they do with have the same prayer book. I can say I can say I read Hebrew, same as they do. I would know what I'm reading. Neither do they. But I can read it because I can read the Hebrew. 00:14:19.000 --> 00:14:27.000 Speaker3: Uh, do you belong to anything like a family club? You know. 00:14:27.000 --> 00:14:42.000 Speaker2: When I graduated University of Pittsburgh, when I came back out of the Army, I graduated University of Pittsburgh with high honors of our class. And I belonged to the Beta Gamma Sigma honorary fraternity. Uh huh. Which I still get literature from them. 00:14:42.000 --> 00:14:46.000 Speaker3: Even that A Jewish or nonsectarian. Oh, honorary. 00:14:46.000 --> 00:14:57.000 Speaker2: It's like a Phi Beta Kappa. This is the Phi Beta Kappa of the Schools of Economics. And now it's called the Business of Administration. 00:14:57.000 --> 00:15:10.000 Speaker3: Do you have any friends or acquaintances who might be able to give us further information about the old Pittsburgh old organizations? 00:15:10.000 --> 00:15:44.000 Speaker2: I remember very well talking about pollution. I remember when pollution was really pollution and it was so dark in Pittsburgh here that in noontime they couldn't see the front and crossed the street even. That's what they had pollution, That's what they call it. That time they called. They come clean from Pittsburgh and that was pretty bad. That was pollution. That was the time. Nothing like what we had the other day. That's nothing practically. But we had really badly couldn't. Your face was dirty and your hands just do nothing. Being outside was really black from the soot in the city of Pittsburgh. Do you remember that you were out here then? 00:15:44.000 --> 00:15:48.000 Speaker3: I've only been here about 16 years now. 00:15:48.000 --> 00:15:54.000 Speaker2: That became after the after they started fixing up the city of Pittsburgh. 00:15:54.000 --> 00:15:59.000 Speaker3: Yeah. And any of your brothers, what were their occupations? I have one. 00:15:59.000 --> 00:17:03.000 Speaker2: Brother. My brother. One brother passed away. He. He was in the candy manufacturing business for years, and he retired. I need the card. And that's what all like another brother. That's a plumber. Another brother. Bill is a plumber today. Everybody knows Bill can't field corn. Well, no, she don't. I didn't live in Squirrel Hills. Yeah, you know, everybody knows my brother Bill. He's in the plumbing business today. And I got a brother who's a pharmacist, graduated University of Pittsburgh Pharmacy School. He's now has a very beautiful pharmacy and lives with his family down in Corpus Christi, Texas. That's where we were. That's where we were down there about two years ago. Went to bar mitzvah. That's my brother's grandson mitzvah. We were invited. So we went down there in Corpus Christi, Texas, right on the Gulf of Mexico. And three sisters. I have beautiful sisters who lived, all three of them in Los Angeles, California. 00:17:03.000 --> 00:17:07.000 Speaker3: And the occupation of their husbands. 00:17:07.000 --> 00:19:25.000 Speaker2: Well, one of them. One sister is a widow. The oldest one. The next one. The grass widow. Third one worked in the UCLA University of Southern University of City of Los Angeles as a registrar department. She was in charge of the olive veterans who were going to university, to university, to their tried to taking care of all their needs, their books and their allotments and so on for another number of years to retire. This last January this year, she reached Paris in 65. She had a son who graduated UCLA with highest honors, also belongs to the Greater Gamma Sigma fraternity that I belong to, the honorary fraternity. And he got a scholarship to Harvard Law School and graduated the Harvard Law School with high honors and got himself a job in Los Angeles with a big law firm. Works for them six months time, he said. They don't want to be a lawyer. He said, These lawyers, these are this boss he's working for. He gets $1 million income a year and pays no taxes. I said, But is it legal? He said, Yes, it's legal, but it's not right. So he quit. He quit and became and he got a job. One of the big foundation knows all about him, was a brilliant boy, brilliant man. I call him a man. He's in his 30s, a brilliant man. He got him a job teaching sociology at Berkeley University. He taught there for two years time, finally became a professor of law, a university professor in Yale University, teaching law at Yale until this summer till right now, the last year of teaching there. He didn't like the weather up there. Too cold. He's used to being in Los Angeles, although he was born in Pittsburgh, but they moved to Los Angeles later. His father, by the way, is a manager of the Genesco Shoe Company and the Miracle Mile in Los Angeles. He's still a manager there, still working the Hawaii. And he now is would quit there. He got himself a job teaching law at the at the University of Hawaii in Hawaii. That's where he's at now. 00:19:25.000 --> 00:19:41.000 Speaker3: That's well thanks very much. You said you remember something else in the Depression Before the Depression started, you were a married man with two children, and you went to Duquesne Law. 00:19:41.000 --> 00:19:56.000 Speaker2: School at nighttime. And while there in the second year, the presence started Outbroke I have come to school with an automobile. I'm one of the few students coming up. There was automobile, my own driving, my own car and everything else. 00:19:56.000 --> 00:19:57.000 Speaker3: This is all from your plumbing business? 00:19:57.000 --> 00:20:02.000 Speaker2: Yes, sure. I was doing I'm making I had several men working for me. I was doing good. 00:20:02.000 --> 00:20:04.000 Speaker3: How old were you at this time? 00:20:04.000 --> 00:20:06.000 Speaker2: About about 30. My 31. 30. 00:20:06.000 --> 00:20:08.000 Speaker3: And you were going at night? 00:20:08.000 --> 00:20:36.000 Speaker2: Going at night time. Only school, only class I had was the nighttime class. They didn't have daytime, but law school. Not at that time. Oh. So that said, the first year, one fourth, one third of the class flunked out. 80, 80, about 80 left. Gretchen came along. Broke the chancellor of the School of Duquesne University. Fine old gentleman. Never forget him. He called me into his class. 00:20:36.000 --> 00:20:39.000 Speaker3: Do you remember his name? 00:20:39.000 --> 00:22:02.000 Speaker2: No, I don't remember his name. Because the fine old gentleman caught me in his pack. Caught me up in his office. He told them. They were told. I'm told. Mr. Cornish says that you haven't paid the tuition. Right now, he says, I know things are pretty bad. But I understand that your your marks are very good, he said. And I don't want you to stop. He said, Even though you can't pay tuition, you may be able to pay some time in the future. I want you to continue going to school, he told the priest. You knew I was Jewish. Most of the boys are Irish. A lot of Jewish boys in our class. Very. A lot of them. Maybe half of one third of the Jewish. But I got along with all fine with all of them. So. He told me that. So I. I appreciate it very much. And I kept on going to school, even with the present team, to going to going to the dogs. And I was still going to school, passing everything and making everything. And the second year, another third passed out. There were about 40 left in our class and I'm still going strong with the Depression and all. So and he finally graduated. But what happened then? The government passed a bonus act and the bonus got through. I took part of this bonus and paid my tuition at the university, came in adversity, and I graduated the university. 00:22:02.000 --> 00:22:03.000 Speaker3: With a law degree. 00:22:03.000 --> 00:22:09.000 Speaker2: With a larger. I'm graduate from a law school. Graduated their passed my bar exam. 00:22:09.000 --> 00:22:10.000 Speaker3: You took the bar exam? 00:22:10.000 --> 00:22:33.000 Speaker2: Sure. I passed my bar exam right away. And one and one third of the boy didn't pass the bar exam either. And I went to pass the bar exam without any difficulty. I'm not practicing law. Very interesting. Very interesting. Yeah. 00:22:33.000 --> 00:22:47.000 Speaker3: The room in which the interview took place is a very average middle class type of Jewish home plants, old knick knacks. 00:22:47.000 --> 00:22:53.000 Belonging to the family. This couple. 00:22:53.000 --> 00:23:53.000 Speaker3: Uh, Reuben Corn remarried about four years ago. And part of the interview, you will notice his second wife fan contributed her part.
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