NAME(S) ON TILE: EMANUEL ACKERMAN
ESTHER HARRIS ACKERMAN
DONOR NAME(S): ALAN L. ACKERMAN
BARBARA A. BERMAN
EMANUEL (MENDY) ACKERMAN was born in Philadelphia on December 22, 1896, to Max and Bella Ackerman, who had immigrated to the United States in the late 1880s from Eastern Europe. When Mendy was a child, his parents moved to Pittsburgh with all their children: Rose, Abraham, Mendy, Saul, David and Fan. His father, who operated a dairy store, wanted to join his sister Jennie, married to Abraham Reichbaum, who was in the grocery business on Logan Street in the Lower Hill.
In Pittsburgh, the Ackermans owned and operated a wholesale food business known as Max Ackerman & Sons from their home and warehouse on Bedford Avenue in the Hill District. They specialized in cheese and butter, but soon expanded into fish and processed meats and later into other grocery items. Basically, father and sons would drive out each morning to different sections of Allegheny County to service the small grocers in the small towns around Pittsburgh. It wasn’t long before Abraham (later Al), Saul and David tired of that business. When Max retired, Mendy was the last member of the family to carry on the business, which he continued until his retirement about 1970.
Meanwhile, Mendy’s Uncle Abe Reichbaum and Cousin Ike Reichbaum engaged in the retail grocery business, part of the time as competitors, until Ike formed a partnership with one Max Perl to form one of Pittsburgh's premier grocery stores, Perl-Reichbaum, which continued for many years at the corner of Bartlett Street and Murray Avenue in Squirrel Hill. Later Perl-Reichbaum acquired and operated George K. Stevenson Co. (formerly Stevenson-Chislett), another premier grocery store, in East Liberty. Together, those two companies dominated the quality food business in Pittsburgh until about 1975-1980, when both ceased to operate as a result of supermarket competition.
Meanwhile, the Ackerman/Reichbaum family was busy marrying the Harris family. ESTHER HARRIS was born on March 21, 1898, and lived on Robert Street in the Hill District, around the corner from the present Hill House (formerly the Irene Kaufmann Settlement). Her parents were Jacob and Hanna Harris. Hanna was the oldest daughter of Louis Frankel, who settled in Pittsburgh in the early 1880s after numerous trips back and forth to Poland and England, beginning in 1866. Jacob, a slipper maker, died relatively young, but not before fathering four daughters (Rebecca, Anne, Dora and Sarah), in addition to Esther, and three sons (Henry, Abraham, who died young, and David), all born in Pittsburgh. [Both the Ackerman and Harris families each lost a young son to accident or illness.] In addition to the marriage of MENDY and ESTHER, Ike Reichbaum married Dora Harris and Henry Harris married Rose Reichbaum, Ike’s sister.
OVER
ESTHER was employed, prior to her marriage, as the private secretary and bookkeeper for Morris Balter, founder and President of the Balter Paper Company on the lower North Side. During that time, she participated in civic and charitable activities for the poor and children on the North Side.
MENDY ACKERMAN and ESTHER HARRIS were married on June 5, 1923, in Pittsburgh by Rabbi M.S. Sivitz. They had two children, Barbara, born September 4, 1925, and Alan, born October 20, 1934. They were happily married for 53 years and lived in only one marital residence for more than 50 years at 4109 Murray Avenue, in Greenfield. Mendy died in 1976, almost 80, and Esther died in 1993 after her 95th birthday. In addition to their children and a good reputation, they left six grandchildren.