Finding The Unknown

I know very little about my grandfather, Sam. There was only one picture of him that used to sit at the table near my Nana’s chair in our home.

He was the first of his family to come to Pittsburgh. He opened a bar in Harwick, Pennsylvania. He sponsored his younger brother, Jake, a sister and a half-sister. One sister died tragically in Pittsburgh, the other went back to Europe and died in the Holocaust.  Jake took over the bar when Samuel died. He was married to Frances and had three girls. The oldest one, lives in the same building as my oldest daughter.

Sam died of some kind of cancer. Someone told me once it was colon cancer. He was lucky to have a wife with a big family home on Portland Street in the East End of Pittsburgh. It appears from the obituary he went there for treatment and subsequently died there.  I wish I knew more.