“I Was There”

“I Was There,” by Israel Oseroff. Author discusses family, professional, and communal experiences from 1890s through 1970s. Topics include family grocery business in the Hill District and lower Fifth Avenue and the Strip District produce yards and establishing the Penn Trouser Company, childhood friendship Rabbi Benjamin Lichter, early memoirs of religious observances, Jewish and secular education, attendance at Beth Jacob Congregation and Rodef Shalom Congregation, fandom of Pittsburgh Pirates and local track and field athletes, careers of brother Abraham Oseroff and wife Pauline Oseroff, support of the Y Music Society and the Hebrew Free Loan Association, critiques of Henry Ford and local real estate brokers, recollections of 1936 flood, urban renewal activities in the lower Hill District, and the death of his daughter to multiple sclerosis. Typescript, spiral bound, 49 pages.