Korn, Ruben, December 7, 1975, tape 1, side 2

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.

For Fallon and Flo. Were still members of that club and. Club.

Speaker1: Social worker from Chicago.

Speaker2: That made mothers famous. What's her name? Jane Addams. Jane Addams. I heard that she was quite a quite a worker.

Speaker3: Now, you say she came to the home and didn't charge. Did she do this for just the Jewish community?

Speaker1: No, no, no. For everybody.

Speaker3: Very unusual. Very.

Speaker1: She was a lovely woman.

Speaker2: Yes, You are, Grandmother. I know her personally, too.

Speaker3: Do you remember anything about their crusade to clean up Pittsburgh?

I was a kid then. I don't remember it. I might have been ten. About nine years old.

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.

Speaker3: I did too. Do you remember anything about the founding of Montefiore Hospital?

Speaker1: I remember when they opened the hospital out. So here's the place outside of.

Speaker3: And it was founded by Jewish people, from what I understand.

Speaker2: That's right. But was a big influence to the people.

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.

Speaker3: And it was open to the whole community, I.

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.

Speaker1: Mean, they were more sympathetic to the people. I mean.

Speaker3: Is this the United Jewish Federation? It was the.

Speaker1: Because I remember it was a federation.

Speaker2: Jewish Federation.

Speaker3: Jewish Federation.

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.

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?

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.

Like of the. We're all a community.

Speaker1: That's all. Jews are off the farm and every merchant there. So bad.

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.

Speaker1: Father's sisters. They were the biggest delicatessens.

Speaker2: Response. One of the biggest.

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.

Speaker2: By the way, a.

Speaker1: Real good one.

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.

Speaker3: Is that so?

Speaker1: Well, that's the way it goes. That's a long, long time ago.

Speaker3: What do you think of intermarriage, Ruby?

Speaker2: I'm opposed to it. Why assure him?

Speaker3: But do you have any. Any reasons?

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.

Speaker3: That's what I say too. That's what I think. Have your views on Zionism changed? Have they become stronger? It has.

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.

Speaker3: I remember that too. Are you active in any Zionist? No. Work at the present.

Speaker2: I remember. I don't remember that at all.

Speaker3: Did you ever belong to an an organization specifically for national Jews? I guess they mean Zionist.

Speaker2: Veterans and the Zionist organization. I don't think that's specifically for a Jewish organization.

Speaker3: In the 19 tens, the Jewish Philanthropies became a federation. What changes occurred in this organization?

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.

Speaker3: Do you remember anything about that from 1910?

Speaker2: I used to remember the National. International now. In as much as it used to be. I think just for Pittsburgh. I remember.

Speaker1: I worked.

I did the books for the. For France's only Jewish transients.

Speaker3: Well, what do you mean? They came into Pittsburgh.

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.

Not just have meetings. You have to be. Appointed elected from different organizations.

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.

Speaker3: It used to be on Locust Street. Well, was this for someone like a salesman out of New York? No, no.

Speaker2: No, no, no. Poor translation.

Speaker3: Oh.

Speaker1: A poor man that couldn't find a place to sleep or to eat. And they fed them there.

Speaker3: Oh, it was a charitable organization.

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.

Speaker3: I never knew of such a thing. It's very interesting.

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.

Speaker3: On what neighborhoods in Pittsburgh have you lived in?

Speaker2: Mostly in the Hill District, the youngster and Squirrel Hill.

Speaker3: Whereabouts and Squirrel Hill.

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.

Speaker3: And you remarried, and now you're living in Green Tree?

Speaker2: No, this is Scott Township.

Speaker3: Oh, excuse me. Scott Township. My building half is in Green Tree, and.

Speaker2: Uh, I didn't know that, but it's all in Green Street.

Speaker3: What other groups for Jewish people did you join?

Speaker2: No other group that I knew. I belong to the winemaker one time.

Speaker3: How long were you a member there?

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.

Speaker3: Did you ever drop out of membership from any organization? Yeah. What did you drop out of From.

Speaker2: For my breath. Oh.

Speaker3: Particular reason or just lack of interest.

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.

Speaker1: That doesn't that doesn't make the organization.

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.

Speaker3: Where are your parents buried?

Speaker2: Mother buried here in Pittsburgh.

Speaker3: Do you know the name of the cemetery?

Speaker2: The policy? Sure. Whatever that is. Mccarrick.

Speaker3: How do you spell that?

Speaker2: It's called Say it again. It's a Polish Jewish cemetery where she buried.

Speaker3: Do you own a cemetery plot for yourself? Yes. Which cemetery? Sarah?

Speaker2: Sarah? Sure.

Speaker3: Are there any other activities of this burial organization? This. None that, you know.

Speaker2: They have they have they have this cemetery, shul, synagogue and the cemetery and this cemetery.

Speaker3: Because we heard that there are professional mourners years ago. There'd be some people I don't know whether years.

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.

Speaker3: And no professional mourners or anything like that.

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.

Speaker3: Oh, well, I know when you go to the cemetery, you can hire someone who will.

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.

Speaker3: Uh, do you belong to anything like a family club? You know.

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.

Speaker3: Even that A Jewish or nonsectarian. Oh, honorary.

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.

Speaker3: Do you have any friends or acquaintances who might be able to give us further information about the old Pittsburgh old organizations?

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?

Speaker3: I've only been here about 16 years now.

Speaker2: That became after the after they started fixing up the city of Pittsburgh.

Speaker3: Yeah. And any of your brothers, what were their occupations? I have one.

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.

Speaker3: And the occupation of their husbands.

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.

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.

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.

Speaker3: This is all from your plumbing business?

Speaker2: Yes, sure. I was doing I'm making I had several men working for me. I was doing good.

Speaker3: How old were you at this time?

Speaker2: About about 30. My 31. 30.

Speaker3: And you were going at night?

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.

Speaker3: Do you remember his name?

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.

Speaker3: With a law degree.

Speaker2: With a larger. I'm graduate from a law school. Graduated their passed my bar exam.

Speaker3: You took the bar exam?

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.

Speaker3: The room in which the interview took place is a very average middle class type of Jewish home plants, old knick knacks.

Belonging to the family. This couple.

Speaker3: Uh, Reuben Corn remarried about four years ago. And part of the interview, you will notice his second wife fan contributed her part.