Samuel Reingold and Anna Spiegle
The Jewish Encyclopedia
of Western Pennsylvania
A project of the Rauh Jewish Archives at the Heinz History Center
Chaim and Bertha Kwait Reingold immigrated to Pittsburgh from Ukraine in 1912. After Chaim Reingold died, his son Samuel Reingold (1898-1960) supported his mother and sister by managing the Puritan Confectionery at 568 Homewood Avenue and later by selling ice cream to drug stores for Tech Food Products Company, a Prohibition-era subsidiary of the Pittsburgh Brewing Company that Borden Inc. would acquire decades later.
As Reingold made the rounds selling ice cream, he became familiar with his customers’ businesses. Starting in the 1920s, he used the classified section of the Jewish Criterion to broker real estate deals, focusing primarily on drug stores and grocery stores. “BUSINESS SEEKERS: I have several good confectionery, grocery and drug stores for sale,” he advertised in January 1926. “Prices $1,000 up. If you are looking for a good business, see me at once.” By 1937, he was able to open a real estate office in the Bakewell Building, downtown, with his brother-in-law Leo Spiegle.
Samuel Reingold and Anna Spiegle met one another through social activities with the Young People’s Zionist League and the Irene Kaufmann Settlement House. They married in 1921 and lived in the Hill District for a time before moving to Squirrel Hill in the early 1930s. They had three children, Herbert, Vernon and Benita, known as “Bunny.”
Herbert Reingold served in the U.S. Army in France and England during World War II before joining the family real estate business. An avid violinist in his youth, he later sat on the Y Music Society Committee with, among others, Lillian Adelman, Anna Perlow and Belle Rubenstein. Vernon Reingold attended Bucknell University and the University of Pennsylvania under the Navy V-12 college training program. He continued to serve in the U.S. Naval Reserves into the mid-1950s, while also working as a broker for the family business. In 1957, he married Claire Hope Itzkovitz of Aliquippa.
Benita “Bunny” Reingold graduated from the University of Pittsburgh, where she covered women’s sports for The Pitt News and was active in Hillel during its early years on campus. She was the only woman among the inaugural three-member graduating class of the College for Jewish Studies after the University of Pittsburgh accredited the program in the mid-1950s. After graduation, Reingold spent 30 years as physical education instructor and supervisor for the Pittsburgh Public School system. Bunny Reingold married Marvin Morris of Aliquippa in 1959. They had two children, Stacey Bea and Burton. Burton Morris became a successful commercial artist, producing distinctive pop art illustrations for events such as the 76th Annual Academy Awards and the 2006 Major League Baseball All-Star Game and for companies including H.J. Heinz and Absolut Vodka.
