As Told by Dr. Stuart Gottlieb M.D.
Since I grew up in Camden and worked with my dad at the family business on Mt Vernon St. from the time that I could hold a knife, about age 7 (1947),the site visit was particularly nostalgic. I will be happy to tell you more about the Gottliebs since the story is typical of the immigrant and particularly the Jewish immigrant family. I am the eldest child of four of Leon Gottlieb who assumed ownership of the Daniel A. Gottlieb and Sons, Inc., dba "Gottlieb Meats." My mother, Blanche, brothers, Fred and Steve and sister Frances all, as might be expected, worked in the”business.”
My grandfather Daniel was the eldest of five brothers (Daniel, Louis, John,Herman, Jack) who came from Russia in the 1890’s and early 1900’s. After establishing themselves in Philadelphia, in the "rag" business they brought their parents Samuel and Pearl Gottlieb to this country. My great-grandfather Samuel had no trade or saleable skills spending his time in religious study. There are stories about my great-grandmother suggesting that she would dive off and swim around the Steele Pier in Atlantic City. I cannot verify this tale, but several of the older members of the family have stated that it is true. My grandfather bought a farm in Porchtown, N.J. and subsequently started the meat business in Camden. Stores in Pennsgrove and Mt. Holly were run by my uncles Gerald and Jim respectively.
Since it was the responsibility of the eldest to help the family get their start, as many as twenty-three family members worked in the meat business at one time. My great-uncle Lou (Daniel’s youngest brother) made and lost large businesses before finally successfully settling in Charlotte, N.C. in the Army-Navy surplus business with more than twenty outlets in the South. Each time fate would deal Lou and Cele (his wife) a financial blow, they would return to Camden and the meat business on Mt. Vernon Street before setting out again.
I remember coming in to work each day after school and during vacations and summers accompanying my father to the stockyards in Lancaster, PA,and to the livestock auctions in Mt. Holly and "Cowtown" NJ.
The retail part of the business boasted many loyal and colorful customers sharing the same South Camden origins, but whose careers markedly diverged. It was an experience to see these customers, many of whom are listed elsewhere in your website, chatting in front of the long line of meat cases. Judges, senators, doctors, principals and reputed mob bosses all seemed to declare this neutral territory. I remember well a robbery occurring in the early 1960's resulted in the cash taken on Saturday night being deposited on the front step of our home on Marlton Ave. on Sunday morning.
My dad once asked customer, a Mrs. Teffeau, how long she had been shopping at Gottlieb's. Her reply was that she was a "new bride" when she started and had just celebrated her 50th wedding anniversary. The "business" served a first job for many, including several immigrants surviving the Holocaust like "Sam" and"Isaac" whose family members were not so fortunate. Father, son and sometimes grandsons worked in "the business" such as Bob and Henry Edmondson and John DeFelice, his son Pat and his grandson.
My sister Frances, my brothers and I went to Cramer Elementary, the Davis School, and then Woodrow Wilson High. Fran was editor of the high school yearbook while Fred and I were Presidents of the student government under the supervision of Mrs. Jean Baltimore. Some of my fondest memories are of time spent in the Woodrow Wilson High School Glee club under Mrs. Miriam Gilbert Hoffmeister, a truly inspired and inspiring person. I subsequently went to Franklin and Marshall College followed by University of Pennsylvania Medical School. Fred went to Dickinson College and Jefferson Medical School. I worked in the business during my “free time” until after I finished my internship at Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia.
A true and funny memory of those days occurred while working in the emergency room one evening. An auto accident victim customer of our meat business, was brought into an Emergency Room cubicle. I was the intern on call and she looked up at me in my white jacket from her stretcher and in a loud voice moaned "Oh my God, it's the butcher."
In 1971 I moved to Miami to complete a fellowship and remained at the University of Miami, School of Medicine as Professor, founder and Director of the Nuclear Cardiology and Echocardiography Laboratories for several years prior entering private practice. Recently retired from the practice of medicine, I continue to live in Coral Gables, Florida. I have two sons, Daniel, a medical student at Emory University, and Andrew, a Ph.D. biologist in Lake Worth, Florida. My wife Dianne is a retired nurse-midwife. My sister Frances has two daughters,Melissa, an attorney/housewife and Debbie, a senior VP for the Gray advertising firm in Manhattan. Brothers Fred, a retired urologist lives in Hallandale, Florida and Steve owns a food distributorship based in Birmingham, Alabama.
By the way, my Mother's family owned Fayer's Pure Foods on Haddon Avenue in Camden until relatively recently. This "mom & pop"store started by maternal grandparents, Abram and Rose Fayer, around the mid-1920's at the Dock Street Marketplace in Philadelphia where they sold butter and eggs, was moved to Camden, and later grew under the management of their sons Eugene and Emanuel (Mendel) Fayer to a full service super market. But this is another story.
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