One of Pittsburgh’s qualities is its rootedness. Things have been here for a while. It can be comforting to live in a place where so much is so familiar.
But many newcomers struggle with that rootedness.
It can take a while to find a place for yourself within those firm patterns of communal life and to feel at home among the long-standing customs.
Pittsburgh's rootedness comes, in part, from those years when more people were leaving town than coming. A culture developed around those who stayed.
It wasn’t always that way.
In the early decades of the 20th century, Western Pennsylvania saw more people coming than leaving. This region was the kind of place that attracted people looking to change their lives, improve their fortunes, or test new ideas.
The Olbums are one of those sprawling, multi-generational Pittsburgh families that seem to be related to everyone. But the “Autobiography of Aaron Olbum” spends half its 10 pages describing scenes and events outside Pittsburgh.
Meyer and Gusta Olbum left Europe in 1883 with three children and arrived in Dayton, Ohio some months later with four children. Meyer Olbum started out peddling. He carried a pack on foot throughout the countryside of Ohio. Soon he bought a horse and cart and could huck fruit and vegetables in the city.
Concerned about the lack of Jewish amenities for their children in Dayton, the Olbums moved to “the metropolis,” Cincinnati. Several branches of the family remained in Cincinnati for decades. But one of the children, Ike Olbum, relocated to Pittsburgh. He later convinced his brother Aaron to join him.
Then came the rest of the family. All told, Pittsburgh became home to parents Meyer and Gusta, along with their nine children and their children's growing families. Within the span of a few years, the Olbums were a Pittsburgh family.
The short memoir shows how transplants become part of a place and then improve it. One example: in Cincinnati, Aaron Olbum was an early member of a group for young Jewish men called the Sir Montefiore Association. Although short lived, the group left an impression. Once in Pittsburgh, Olbum became active in the Young Men’s Hebrew Association, serving as its president from 1919 to 1925. Those were crucial years when the YMHA was recovering from World War I and was raising money towards its new Bellefield Avenue building.
