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Dr. Benjamin GoldbergMy father, Abe Goldberg, my aunt, Sarah Brym (his sister) and my uncle, Yankel Goldberg all came from Bodzanow, Poland in the 1920s. They left their parents, Ozer and Miriam Goldberg and seven siblings who died in the Holocaust. The Jews from Bodzanow were marched to Treblinka. There are no marked graves there, but my grandchildren who have visited Treblinka have brought me a picture of a stone with the Bodzanow marked on it as the only memorial to my family. All the villagers who died in Treblinka have similar cairns. Now with 14 grandchildren, my late father would say, "Am Yisrael Chai" (Israel Lives On!)
[Abe Goldberg was a tailor in Saint John with his business on Princess Street. He is buried in Saint John.]
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Yehuda Goldberg Family1900s
Saint John, New Brunswick
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Morris GordonMy grandfather came to Saint John in 1903. About 1907 he started to do business (wholesale meat) in the City Market. A reporter once asked him what he considered a fair market was in percent. He answered 1 %. The reporter didn't believe. Then my grandpa answer "Boy for I sell for 2 - that's 1%"
He also bought a moose head and hung it in the City Market. I wonder if it is still there. It would be almost 100 years old.
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Morris Gordon's stall in the Saint John CIty Market1940s
Saint John, New Brunswick
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Reta Gold Tobin[My parents, Aaron and Lana Gold] resided together in Saint John from 1921 to the time of our father's death in 1955.
Both parents were active in the Jewish community. Our father as a president of the congregation and our mother was active within the Sisterhood of the community.
Lana and Aaron Gold brought up five daughters Faye, Helen, Alice, Gertrude, Reta in Saint John where they attended school. All graduated from Saint John High School and the girls moved on in their different vocations.
I am also enclosing a copy of a write up of our father that was in the Telegraph Journal in 1949 and a write up of his obituary in 1955. We had our father buried in Montreal and our mother moved to live in Montreal, where a few of her daughters lived.
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Lana Gold and Daughters1940s
Saint John, New Brunswick
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Reta Gold TobinGarment Manufacturer
Not long before the First World War, a young man from Poland arrived in Canada to seek his fortune. He spoke little English, had only a few dollars in his pocket, and knew nobody in Montreal - the port where he stepped ashore from the ship which brought him across the Atlantic. But Aaron Gold had heard so much about the abundant opportunities awaiting those who came to this county that he was full of hope and confidence. He had left his wife behind in Europe. In a very short time, he was sure, he would have enough money to send for her, and they would have a fine house in this new land.
Now Mr. Gold's father had been in the garment business. He wanted to get in it too, and he had his heart set on being a designer and cutter - designing and cutting being the most highly skilled and best paid branches of the trade.
His hope and confidence faded a bit as he went from one clothing manufacturer to another without finding employment. But his spirits rose when he met a man who agreed to give him a job if he'd work a month for nothing. In the third week his boss put him on the payroll at three dollars a week. When he'd had some experience at cutting, he switched to another plant, to a job that paid eight dollars a week. He began saving, to bring his wife to Canada.
For Aaron Gold, 1925 was a memorable year for two reasons. First, there was the reunion with Mrs. Gold. Second, he founded his own firm - the Gold Crescent Manufacturing Company [in Saint John]. His original establishment was on Waterloo Street and his equipment consisted of half a dozen sewing machines.
Gold Crescent Manufacturing Company in the next dozen years moved three times, each time to larger quarters, finally winding up in the building it now occupies on Canterbury Street. Today, besides making overalls, it makes all kinds of trousers, from work trousers to dress trousers, as well as hunting jackets, windbreakers and sport shirts. Contract work is a thing of the past, and Gold Crescent's output is marketed under its own trade name.
So far as soft-spoken, pleasant Mr. Gold knows, he was the first garment manufacturer in Canada to make dungarees like those worn by sailors. These lace up the back. He invested in a pair himself. he ripped them apart, copied the pattern, and produced several dozen pairs. He was convinced that they would appeal to many people, but he had great difficulty in convincing retailers. None of the retailers would give him an order.
Now dungarees are one of the most popular types of work pants and Mr. Gold figures that he has helped at least one style - even if dungarees are not what the well-dressed man wears to a wedding.
A successful manufacturer, with an up-to-date plant and a solid demand for his products, Mr. Gold is convinced that the stories he heard long ago in his native Poland weren't exaggerated - the stories about Canada's abundant opportunities.
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Aaron Gold1930s-1940s
Saint John, New Brunswick
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Anita Babb BrownsteinIsaac Babb arrived in Saint John in 1904 from Pinsk, Russia. He was on his way to Chicago, where his relations were, but stopped in Saint John to collect money from a man who borrowed from him in Pinsk. It took so long to collect the money that he started to work in a foundry, saved his money, bought a horse and wagon, became a peddler (junk). Now he was able to send for his wife, Sarah, who arrived in 1906 with Mary, aged 6 and Abe, age 4.
They rented a place on Main Street for a short time, then they moved to a house on the West Side, shared this place with a Jewish family. Not too long after he bought a duplex connected by an arc to another identical duplex. The lower part of one house was converted into a second hand store. The family lived on the top floor of the other duplex. When you went through the arc there was a yard and a large barn, where my Dad kept his junk, horse and wagon.
My father was doing well and after a few years he purchased a very large home on Union and King Street, West Side. We lived in the top two floors and the first floor was made into a store with a shoe department and clothing, "Babb's Department Store". I was born here. Now we were 9 children.
My father was a very successful man, but unfortunately passed away in 1927, he choked on a fish bone. From age 8 to 17 I lived in our other house on Rodney Street (still there). The house on Union Street and the duplexes were sold to the city to make room for the railway tracks that are there today.
This is a little information about Isaac Babb and Sarah, my wonderful mother who passed away at age 59.
It was a gift to have lived in Saint John, a great city with great people.
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Babb Sisters1920s
Saint John, New Brunswick
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Michelle Green EchenbergMy grandfather, Pinchas Fivel (Philip) arrived in Saint John approximately 1906. His family name was CHAIYAT (tailor) but as happened to others, the name was foreign to the custom official who changed the name to GREEN (!). His wife, Rose Vangar was the sister of Ethel Budovitch, married to Meyer. At first Philip worked as a peddler and then as a tailor. My mother Bella met my father Bobby on a visit from Long Island, New York to her aunt Annie Garson. They had three daughters, myself (Michelle), Phyllis and Miriam.
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Green Family1910s
Saint John, New Brunswick
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Sammy, Maurice and Robert Green1940s
Saint John, New Brunswick
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Michelle Green Echenberg1990s
Saint John, New Brunswick
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