Rosberg's Shaggy Dog Sale, 1960
Under Joseph and Harold’s leadership, the company initiated many innovative ways to promote their goods. Rosberg's Shaggy Dog Sale was one of these events.
Courtesy of the Niagara Falls (Ontario) Public Library, #98674

The Rosberg department store stood in its original location on the corner of Queen Street and Erie Avenue for almost seven decades, from 1918-19 to 1988. The pre-history of this business began when Jacob Rosberg decided to abandon his attempt to make a living as a farmer and walked his cow into Toronto to sell it in the Kensington Market. The proceeds of the sale allowed him to start a store in Toronto and then, when he heard of an opportunity, to move on. Rosberg’s next success was in peddling work clothes to the men working on a big hydroelectricity project in Queenston, near Niagara Falls. After this, in 1918, Jacob and his wife Mary decided to set up a men’s wear store in Niagara Falls. The couple worked as a team and built up the business.

When Jacob died in 1954, his sons Joseph and Harold took over, helping the store to grow along with the town. They expanded its offerings to include furniture, appliances and other items. A branch was also opened in Welland, run by Gertrude (Rosberg) Carrel and her husband Harry. The Carrels’ son Don started working at odd jobs in the store at age the age of seven. When his uncles died, Harold in 1969 and Joseph in 1972, Don Carrel returned to Niagara Falls to manage the store there. Under his leadership, Rosberg’s evolved into a full family department store, including a restaurant, bridal department, drugstore, credit department and shoe department. By 1988, Don Carrel decided it was time for him to move on. Aware that this was the end of an era, he discussed the situation with his mother, who had continued to be a trusted consultant. Gertrude Carrel gave her blessing, saying “Why should you be the richest man in the cemetery?” and Don Carrel subsequently pursued a successful career in real estate.

Abe Bogomolny (far left) with the staff of the Niagara Rug Co. on Centre Street, 1941
Ontario Jewish Archives, accession 2009-3/1

Brothers Abe and Hymie Bogomolny landed in Canada from Russia in the 1920s. Starting out in Winnipeg, they moved through northern Ontario in pursuit of business opportunities. In 1939, in the wake of the Great Depression, they accepted an invitation to join a commercial rug-making company even though they had no knowledge of that business. At that time, it was difficult to find ways to make a living. They began by making small scatter rugs, but after six months and a lot of hard work, they only managed to net $5 each. The two original partners abandoned the business as unprofitable but Abe and Hymie stuck with it. When they began making braided rugs instead of only woven ones, their business picked up. Using leftover strips from the ends of 100 yard bolts of acetate and nylon material, one inch wide and 100 yards long, they created both round and oval braided rugs that sold in department and furniture stores across Canada. Over the four and a half decades of its existence, the company moved from a private house on Drummond Road to expanded new premises on Centre Street. When this new store was destroyed by fire on June 6, 1944, they moved to 4850 Victoria Avenue. On May 20, 1968, the business suffered another fire, which gutted the company’s warehouse and offices, engaging more than 40 fire fighters and injuring four of them in attempts to quell the blaze. Despite the difficulties, Abe and Hymie Bogomolny were able to develop the Niagara Rug Company Limited into the largest manufacturer of braided rugs inCanada. In 1977, Michael J. Collins purchased the company. Hymie left due to ill health, but Abe continued as a consultant for two years. The economic recession of the early 1980s was hard on the company, as it was forced to lay off 28 of its employees and then to close its doors for good.

Brochure produced for the Houdini Magical Hall of Fame, 1969
Courtesy of the Niagara Falls (Ontario) Public Library, #D12691B-C

Harry Houdini, the famous magician and escape artist, had bequeathed his professional paraphernalia to his brother Theodore (known professionally as the magician Hardeen) with instructions that the items be burned upon Theodore’s death. Houdini’s instructions were not followed and his effects were placed in storage for over 40 years until they were finally put up for sale around 1967. Henry Muller learned about the sale from an article in a Toronto newspaper. After purchasing the items, Mr. Muller, Mr. Delorenzo and their partners renovated a former meat packing plant on Centre Street near Clifton Hill and opened the museum. In the first year of the museum’s operation, there were a series of fires, a robbery and a freak accident in which one of the museum’s directors walked through a plate glass window. Some speculated that Houdini was expressing his displeasure from beyond the grave. During a seance held in 1974 on October 31st, the anniversary of Houdini’s death, medium Ann Fisher asked the great magician to make his presence known, at which time a pot of flowers and a book about Houdini fell from a shelf. The book fell open to a page featuring a Houdini poster titled Do Spirits Return? In 1995, a spectacular fire destroyed the museum and most of its contents; it seemed Houdini’s wishes were finally carried out. All was not lost, however, as Ripley’s Entertainment took over the business in 1996.

Eddie and Brian with Eddie Dobkin at his home in Wheeling, West Virginia, ca. 1950
Ontario Jewish Archives, accession 2008-8/21, #3

Highly regarded, internationally-known criminal lawyers Eddie and Brian Greenspan were born into one of the founding families of the Niagara Falls Jewish community. Their grandfather, Morris Greenspan, arrived from Poland in 1927 and became a dealer in scrap metals. The next year he brought his wife, Faige Bracha, and their four children, among them Eddie and Brian’s father Joseph, who was then 13 years old and who would become an inspiration to his sons in their choice of career. Speaking no English upon arrival, Joseph learned the language so quickly and so well that by the end of his first year in Canada he spoke without an accent and went on to win several oratorical contests. Joseph Greenspan graduated from the University of Toronto with a B.A. in law in 1939 and then went on to law school. At the same time, he was articling in the offices of J. J. Glass, one of Toronto’s first Jewish lawyers, where his future wife Emma was working as a legal secretary. Joseph’s dream of a legal career was cut short when his own father, Morris, had a heart attack and Joseph had to return to Niagara Falls to take over the family business.

Emma and Joseph Greenspan married and had three children in Niagara Falls: Eddie, born in 1944, Brian, born 1947 and Rosann, born 1950. Tragedy struck the family when Joseph died of a heart attack in 1957, just a month after Eddie’s bar mitzvah. Emma was left to provide for the family. The community rallied around the family and showed their support in different ways, including offering Eddie and Brian a summer at Camp Shalom in Gravenhurst. Eddie was moved by the Zionist ideals the camp promoted to start a Young Judaea chapter in Niagara Falls, while Brian went on to serve as regional president of Ontario and Quebec Young Judaea. The close-knit nature of the Niagara Falls community and the Greenspans’ large extended family continued to be important as the children grew. Eddie and Brian fondly remembered family seders at which some 40 people would be present. Their father’s legal ambitions inspired his children. While Rosann studied criminology at Yale and the University of Toronto and received her doctorate in jurisprudence and social policy at Berkeley, both boys pursued law as a career. As Brian put it, “When he died, we assumed his dream.” Half in jest, Eddie added that Niagara Falls was a rough and tough border town, and the brothers felt sure that as criminal lawyers, they would find plenty of business there. Both boys studied at the University of Toronto and later Osgoode Hall. Both also articled at the Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General before setting out on their own.

Not long after leaving law school, Eddie Greenspan began to garner media attention thanks to his style and his successes in the courtroom. Known for his meticulous preparation, requiring long working days and nights, and for being quick on his feet, he also developed a reputation for being a lawyer to the rich and famous, as well as the notorious. Among those he has defended include Helmuth Buxbaum and Peter Demeter, who were accused of murdering their wives; the scandal-ridden former premier of Nova Scotia, Gerald Regan; press baron Conrad Black; media mogul Garth Drabinsky; and Robert Latimer, the Saskatchewan father who was convicted of euthanizing his severely disabled daughter. Further raising his public profile, Eddie Greenspan developed a TV show with a docudrama format together with writer George Jonas. The show, Scales of Justice, ran on CBC from 1991-95. Starting in 2007, he was involved with another television show shown on CourtTV Canada. Reel Justice featured Eddie Greenspan introducing classic courtroom movies and then discussing them with studio guests. He wrote his own casebook memoir, Greenspan: the Case for the Defence (1987). Finally, a documentary entitled A Criminal Mind: The Life and Times of Eddie Greenspan was made about him by Barry Avrich in 2005.

Edward Greenspan, 2002
Photo Credit: Al Gilbert
Ontario Jewish Archives, accession 2007-12/18, #32

Barbara Frum, 1975
Courtesy of Dr. Murray Frum

Barbara Frum was born on 8 September 1937, the eldest of Harold and Florence Rosberg’s three children. When Barbara was about to be born, it was Shabbat. Due to their religious convictions, her grandparents, Jacob and Mary Rosberg, would not allow their daughter-in-law to drive to Niagara Falls, New York, where she was from and where her doctor was located. As a result, Florence Rosberg had to walk across the border to the United States to give birth to Barbara.

As a girl growing up in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Barbara Rosberg attended Jewish camps and was part of the B’nai Jacob synagogue youth group. She was a strong-minded girl (possible Okun clip about her chutzpah as a precocious 2-ear-old) who loved to engage in discussions with her mother, an educated woman with a keen intellect. Florence Rosberg passed along her love of Shakespeare and her passion for examining issues to her children, thus instilling patterns of thought and behaviour that Barbara would develop later on in her career as one of Canada’s most respected journalists. Her sister Susy Okun, speculated that both the strong family background as well as the close-knit character of their Jewish community, contributed to the powerful drive to excel that characterized Barbara along with others of her generation from Niagara Falls.

At age 18, Barbara Rosberg enrolled in University College at the University of Toronto. There she met Murray Frum. They married the next year, when she was just 19. Through most of her twenties she devoted herself to starting a family, raising three children and doing volunteer work. Her first ventures into journalism came in the mid-1960s, when she began freelancing as a writer and radio commentator. Frum’s talent was soon recognized and she became a host on CBC Television's The Way It Is. In the fall of 1971, she co-hosted As It Happens, a then-new news magazine show on CBC radio, which followed the 6:00 p.m. news, and was based on in-depth interviews. Her talent and passion for her profession helped make Barbara Frum a tough, incisive, well-informed and engaging interviewer of national politicians and world leaders. She was honoured with many awards for her radio work, including the National Press Club of Canada Award for Outstanding Contribution to Canadian Journalism in 1975; Woman of the Year in literature, arts and education category of the Canadian Press in 1976; and the Order of Canada in l979. Barbara Frum made the move from radio to television in 1982, when the CBC initiated a new current affairs program called The Journal, which she co-hosted along with Mary Lou Finley. Frum’s interview work quickly made this program the most-watched and respected show of its kind in the country.

Her sudden death in 1992 at the age 54, due to chronic leukemia, was very upsetting to those Canadians who followed her career and enjoyed her show. Two expressions of the esteem in which Barbara Frum was held are that the atrium in the Canadian Broadcasting Centre in Toronto was named in her honour, as was the North York branch of the Toronto Public Library. Frum's three children are David, Linda and Matthew. Her son David was a presidential speech writer for George W. Bush and is currently a researcher with the American Enterprise Institute. Her daughter Linda is the author of Barbara Frum: A Daughter’s Memoir.

The Negotiator

Susie Rosberg Okun, sister of Barbara Frum, relates a story that reveals Barbara’s early skills in logic and negotiation.

Interview with Susie Rosberg Okun, 24 September 2007, Sharon Gubbay Helfer, OJA, Oral History #351

Click here to watch the video

Myer Salit and his staff in front of his company, 1935
Courtesy of the Niagara Falls (Ontario) Public Library, #248568

Myer Salit was born in the town of Brest Litovsk, on the border between Poland and Lithuania, on October 2, 1880. He was the son of Israel Label Salit, a rabbi and bookkeeper. Myer Salit received a secular education and worked as a mechanic before deciding, at age 23, to seek better prospects in America. On June 28, 1904, he set sail from Copenhagen on board the ill-fated Danish steamer, the Norge. This ship struck an underground rock off Rockall Reef, near the Hebrides Islands off the west coast of Scotland and sunk. Of the roughly 725 emigrants and 68 crew on board, some 150 passengers survived along with 24 crew. Survivor accounts of the tragedy vividly convey scenes of terror and trauma. Salit’s grandson Larry Cohen recalled that his grandfather steadfastly refused to speak of the incident.

Following his rescue from the North Sea, Meyer Salit again set out, this time landing safely in New York. After working for a time in Port Elizabeth, New Jersey, and then in St. Catharines and Toronto, Ontario, he moved to Niagara Falls and got into the scrap metal business. Thanks to his talent and diligence, he built up a highly successful scrap metal and, following the Second World War, steel, business called Meyer Salit Steel

Salit also worked hard to integrate into Canadian life. His daughter Frances remembered that he hired Elizabeth Reilly, an Irish Catholic school teacher, to teach him English, politics and history. Proud to be a Canadian, Salit was known as “Honest Mike” among his business associates. Apart from his business activities, Salit was involved with the Jewish community, primarily through the B’nai Jacob Synagogue. He was also a member of the Rotary Club and the Scottish Rite Masons, where he received one of the highest possible ranks, the 32nd degree. Myer Salit married Emma Pearl Shustrin and they had five daughters: Jeanne, Rose, Edythe, Miriam and Frances. He died in 1958.