The J. N. Chester Club
The J. N. Chester Club was created on Thursday, May 5, 1927, when a group of boys met on the stone steps at the foot of Avalon Street in Herron Hill.

We know the place and the time of that meeting because the J. N. Chester Club cared greatly about its history. In fact, of the hundreds of Jewish youth clubs in Pittsburgh, the J. N. Chester Club seems to have been the most diligent and obsessive about documenting, sharing, and preserving its history.

They created two beautiful scrapbooks. One is hand-illustrated and provides a history of the club through 1932. It has biographies of each member and an overview of five years of club activities. The other dates to the early 1940s. Its cover is a vibrant, textured collage made from hand-cut pieces of cork. Inside is a decade of club ephemera, from High Holiday greeting cards and menus from club dinners, to bank statements and newspaper clippings and photos.


[IMAGE: (Left) The cover of "Our Book," created by the J. N. Chester Club in 1932. It features an Art Deco illustration of a mythic figure holding a lamp. A beam of light from the lamp is illuminating a ship at sea, called "J. N. Chester." (Right) The cover of the "J. N. Chester Club Scrapbook," with a collage of letters hand-cut from cork. Manny Gold Papers, 2019.0196.]
They also saved meeting minutes, broadsides announcing social functions, correspondence with other clubs, and newsletters that documented club life.

The scrapbooks are sometimes hard to decipher. They pulse with inside jokes and references. But the spirit of friendship and youth is easy to recognize.


[IMAGE: (Left) A page from the J. N. Chester scrapbooks showing cartoons of several members of the club, each featuring captions based on inside jokes. (Right) A page of photographs from the J. N. Chester scrapbooks, showing scenes from the social lives of members. Manny Gold Papers, 2019.0196.]
J. N. Chester Past President Manny Gold held onto these treasures for decades and later stored them for safekeeping at the Jewish Sports Hall of Fame at the Jewish Community Center. They were later given to us for preservation.

Even though the J. N. Chester Club became less active during World War II and eventually stopped meeting, its members stayed in each other's lives.

Manny Gold arranged an "Old Time Herron Hill Boys" reunion in 1951. The reunion brought together all living members of the J. N. Chester Club, as well as their friends from the Hill District—particularly those from the upper Hill District, which had a culture somewhat distinct from the rest of the Hill.


[IMAGE: (Left) An invitation to the 1951 "Old Time Herron Hill Boys" reunion, including a list of invitees. (Right) The cover of a small notebook created by the planning committee for the reunion. Manny Gold Papers, 2019.0196.]
They held another "Herron Hill Reunion" in 1976 at the Holiday House.

"It is time for us to get together to renew those old friendships, to talk and to break bread with the friends that we have not seen for as long as 50 years," Manny Gold wrote in an invitation sent to dozens of his longtime friends.

He went to great lengths to track some of them down. Hearing that one lived in the same building as Lawrence Welk, he wrote a letter to the famous bandleader—not for any celebrity reason, just to get a lead on his old friend.


[IMAGE: (Top, Left) An announcement of the 1976 Herron Hill reunion, featuring an illustration of the corner of old-time Herron Avenue and Centre Avenue. (Top Right) A letter from Manny Gold to Lawrence Welk Enterprises. (Bottom) A photograph from the 1976 reunion, showing five men seated at a long table at the Holiday House. Manny Gold Papers, 2019.0196.]
Manny Gold arranged a third reunion in 1990. He made lists for all the attendees, many, many lists—lists of those old-time Herron Hill friends were "Gone But Not Forgotten," lists of all the Herron Hill streets where those friends used to hang out, lists of all the old shuls and old restaurants and old pharmacies, plus groceries, bookstores, theaters, and schools.

The Herron Hill boys probably would have held another reunion in 2015, if their lifetimes had permitted it. Manny Gold died in 2005 at the age of 93.

Manny Gold also obsessively documented these reunions, just as he had documented the events of the club. He saved all his planning documents, all his receipts, and all his correspondences. In later years, he hired a photographer to snap pictures of all the attendees. His records suggest that he even considered hiring an audio crew to tape-record the reunion, although—unfortunately—it doesn't appear he followed through with those plans.

Manny Gold went to all this trouble because he believed his experience as a Jewish boy growing up in Herron Hill in the 1930s was important. It mattered. And because it mattered, it should be preserved, so that other people could appreciate it, long after he was no longer around to tell them about it.


[IMAGE: (Left) A page of blank stationery from "The 'Hill' Boys Reunion" committee in 1990. (Right, Top) A save the date announcement for the reunion, with a note proclaiming "Another Stag in Pittsburgh!" (Right, Bottom) A photograph from the 1990 reunion, showing seven men at a table, including Manny Gold, second from right. Manny Gold Papers, 2019.0196.]
In the next issues of the newsletter, we'll continue looking at the afterlife of Jewish youth clubs by considering the story of the legendary Coffey Club.
This year, the Rauh Jewish Archives is highlighting stories of Jewish club life in Western Pennsylvania. If you would like to donate records of a local Jewish club, or just chat about clubs, contact the archive or call 412-454-6406. 
March 16: The Jewish social justice movement in Pittsburgh
Rodef Shalom Congregation's local Jewish history series continues on Tuesday, March 16 at 7 p.m., when Rauh Jewish Archives Director Eric Lidji will look at members of the congregation who were involved in social justice activities in the Pittsburgh area in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The remaining sessions, held the third Tuesday of each month, will look at the art and architecture of the Rodef Shalom's landmark Fifth Avenue synagogue.
March 21: Who's Cooking, What's Cooking
One of the biggest culinary challenges at Passover time is finding easy and novel recipes that fit the dietary requirements of the holiday. In this free online webinar, you’ll learn about two great Passover desserts, one new and one old. 
 
On Sunday, March 21 at 11 a.m., area chef Jill Pelchen of Chow Bella will demonstrate an elegant Passover dessert that comes together surprisingly quickly. The Rauh Jewish Archives will tell the story behind a historic Passover recipe from Westmoreland County, found in the archive’s cookbook collection.
 
This program is a partnership between the Westmoreland Jewish Community Council and the Rauh Jewish Archives. For more information, please email the WJCC or contact the Jewish archives by email or by calling 412-454-6406.
 
Live captioning will be provided at this virtual program.


[IMAGE: Black and white image of the “Matzah Mall” at Ohav Sholom Congregation in Donora, Pa., in April 1962. An unidentified man stands at a register behind a table piled with boxes of matzah and other Passover supplies. Bottles of Passover wine line the floor in front of his register. From the Ohav Sholom Congregation (Donora, Pa.) Photographs, MSQ 16.]
March 24: JGS Pittsburgh Presents: Crista Cowan
With more than 24 billion online records, Ancestry.com has a lot to offer Jewish family history researchers. Join Crista Cowan for a look at records in the United States, Canada, and England specific to Jewish immigrants, as well as tips for researching the millions of JewishGen records, Holocaust records, and other European records from the 18th and 19th century for those of Jewish descent. She’ll add a few tips for successful searching as well.

The program is on Wednesday, March 24 at 7 p.m. It is free for JGS-Pittsburgh members and $5 for the general public. Please register online.
Crista Cowan has been employed by Ancestry.com since 2004; her involvement in family history, however, reaches all the way back to childhood. From being parked under a microfilm reader at the Family History Library in her baby carrier to her current career as a professional genealogist, Crista has spent thousands of hours discovering, documenting and telling family stories.

In her time at Ancestry, she has been a European Content Acquisition Manager, the Digital Preservation Indexing Manager, and the Community Alliance Manager for the Ancestry World Archives Project. For the past several years she has been the Corporate Genealogist, with responsibilities for speaking and teaching at genealogy conferences around the world and helping with family history research for public relations stories. Known online as The Barefoot Genealogist with a weekly internet show designed to help people discover their family history.
Spread the Word!
If you like this newsletter, why not forward it to a friend? We want to share the story of Western Pennsylvania Jewish history with as many people as possible.

If you've received this newsletter from a friend or neighbor, and you want to read more, just click on the link below to start receiving future editions.

[IMAGE: Marian Schreiber and employees at the Schreiber Trucking Company, c.1943—Schreiber Family Papers and Photographs, MSS 846.]
The Rauh Jewish History Program & Archives was founded on November 1, 1988 to collect, preserve, and make accessible the documentary history of Jews and Jewish communities of Western Pennsylvania. You can help the RJHPA continue its work by making a donation that will directly support the work being done in Western Pa.
Plan a Visit

Senator John Heinz History Center
1212 Smallman Street
Pittsburgh, Pa. 15222
412-454-6000

A proud affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution, the Senator John Heinz History Center is the largest history museum in Pennsylvania and presents American history with a Western Pennsylvania connection.