BROIDA Family

Since this is Memorial Day weekend and people will be remembering those who fought for our freedoms and even gave their lives so that democracy could prosper, we thought we would share some photos of celebrations with the Leonard Broida family.

The above picture is from 1945, and it would be interesting to know what they were celebrating. World War II may have still been going on- the Germans surrendered on 8 May 1845, the Japanese on 15 August, and the Japanese surrender documents were signed on 2 September 1945.

 

Perhaps this was not a celebration of good news during the war, however. Anita had a coat on in the above photo, so it likely was earlier- or after the surrender- when the photo was taken. This is also suggested by another group photo:

Do you notice anything about this photo?

1. Look at the window and door- same place in the photo, so looks like the same room (For keen observers, you may also notice that the pin-up girl picture that is in the top photo is either covered up by a man standing in front of it, or else it has been removed.)
2. Check out the people- a lot of the same faces are in this photo.

These similarities suggest (to me) that the photo was taken in a place of business, such as an office, and these are co-workers. Anita worked with Leonard, so that adds more weight to this hypothesis.

Maybe the photos were to celebrate a lucrative contract, or completion of a big job? Maybe it was a holiday celebration- note the ceiling decorations? Leonard was a successful architect, so those are real possibilities.

 

As for the pin-up, well, my heart goes out to the women who had to work day after day in an office with that sort of “art” on the wall. There is a family story that Leonard’s office was actually in a building that had housed a, well, umm, “house of ill repute.” Maybe it was just left over and they wanted to maintain the historical legacy??

 

Notes, Sources, and References: 

1. Photos from the family treasure chest. A special thanks to the kind cousin who scanned and shared them!
2. Please use the “Related Links” at the bottom of the post, click on Leonard’s name at the bottom, or use the search function on the left side of the page to see other posts on Leonard Broida and his family.

 

Click to enlarge any image. Please contact us if you would like an image in higher resolution.We would love to read your thoughts and comments about this post (see form below), and thank you for your time! All comments are moderated, however, due to the high intelligence and persistence of spammers/hackers who really should be putting their smarts to use for the public good instead of spamming our little blog.

Original content copyright 2013-2019 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.

Family history is meant to be shared, but the original content of this site may NOT be used for any commercial purposes unless explicit written permission is received from both the blog owner and author. Blogs or websites with ads and/or any income-generating components are included under “commercial purposes,” as are the large genealogy database websites. (Please add a link to this blog post on the genealogy websites to show the origin/source of your information.) Sites that republish original HeritageRamblings.net content as their own are in violation of copyright as well, and use of full content is not permitted. Descendants and researchers MAY download images and posts to share with their families, and use the information on their family trees or in family history books with a small number of reprints. Please make sure to credit and cite the information properly, i.e, reference this blog. Please contact us if you have any questions about copyright or use of our blog material.

We have some identifications of persons in the July 11, 1937 group photo. Please contact us if you can identify other family members.

Broida Family

Broida Family (Click for Family Tree)

Leonard L. Broida was a successful architect who trained in the US and studied architecture in Europe; he definitely had artistic talent. For those of a younger generation, all the drawing for buildings was done by hand back then- no CAD software. (!!) A very large piece of paper, pencils, erasers, India ink, and a large, slanted and adjustable drawing table were the tools of an architect’s trade. Sometimes those erasers were electric- imagine having to erase a whole side of the building after the client says it is too small, or they don’t like it that way, or…

Also, an architect would draw renderings by hand- that is, they took the technical drawings such as floorplans and turned them into a beautiful concept drawing of what the building would look like from different vantage points. An architect would sketch in trees and other landscaping, cars, hardscape like sidewalks and parking areas, and maybe even a person walking a dog.

When Leonard and his wife Anita retired to Bird Key in Sarasota, Florida in 1965, Leonard decided he wanted to create fine art instead of technical drawings. So he became an artist, mostly self-taught from books. He worked with a variety of different media including watercolor, oil, ceramic, and copper sculpture.

We are so fortunate to have these family treasures shared with us today!

 

Notes, Sources, and References: 

1. Image and information from a Leonard L. Broida descendant.

 

Click to enlarge any image. Please contact us if you would like an image in higher resolution.

We would love to read your thoughts and comments about this post (see form below), and thank you for your time! All comments are moderated, however, due to the high intelligence and persistence of spammers/hackers who really should be putting their smarts to use for the public good instead of spamming our little blog.

 

Original content copyright 2013-2017 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.

Family history is meant to be shared, but the original content of this site may NOT be used for any commercial purposes unless explicit written permission is received from both the blog owner and author. Blogs or websites with ads and/or any income-generating components are included under “commercial purposes,” as are the large genealogy database websites. Sites that republish original HeritageRamblings.net content as their own are in violation of copyright as well, and use of full content is not permitted. 

Descendants and researchers MAY download images and posts to share with their families, and use the information on their family trees or in family history books with a small number of reprints. Please make sure to credit and cite the information properly.

 Please contact us if you have any questions about copyright or use of our blog material.

Broida Family (Click for Family Tree)

Newspapers are such a wonderful way to learn more about family and the everyday- and special!- activities of their life. Don’t forget to look for a variety of spellings when looking at newspapers, because:

1) Spellings of names were a bit looser in earlier times; and

2) Newspapers use OCR (optical character recognition) software to try to find the words on the page. As newspaper ages and is folded and exposed to light, parts of the letters may fade or be lost and thus be read as a slightly different letter. Hyphenation may also decease your expected ‘hits’ in an OCR search. As an example, a search on “Broida” may not pick up the name if it is hyphenated and a syllable sent to another line, as in

Broi-

da.

Leonard Broida has been harder to find in the Pittsburgh Jewish Newspaper Project than anticipated. This may be because sometimes he is listed as “Broido” instead of Broida. There are clues it is the right person, though, as when his wife or other family names are mentioned. But there is also a Broido family living in Pittsburgh during these years. There is a Leonard in that family too, but he is often noted as “J. Leonard Broido.” Not always though, so use the address too as  a clue to help differentiate Leonards.

Some search engines, like that of the Pittsburgh Jewish Newspaper Project, require that one enclose words in a phrase in quotes in order to not get thousands of hits with just one of the words. Remember to try different combinations of a name- going from “Leonard Broida” to “Leonard L. Broida” provided more and different results.

A search for Leonard’s wife Anita using her maiden name picked up a number of additional articles. Don’t forget to try a woman’s name with “Mrs.” in front of it, using her own first name (“Mrs. Anita Broida”) and then again with just the surname (“Mrs. Broida”). “Mrs. Leonard L. Broida” should get picked up also when you search under his name so no need for a separate search. You might even try “Leonard L. and Anita Broida”- making a list of possible search terms and spellings can be quite helpful.

We did leave a few articles for you, dear reader, to find in the Pittsburgh Jewish Newspaper Project, but here is one last tidbit related to Leonard and Anita (Meyer) Broida:

 

Notes, Sources, and References: 

1. Citations per captions. With special thanks to the Pittsburgh Jewish Newspaper Project for their generous permission to post articles from their digital collection. https://digitalcollections.library.cmu.edu/portal/collections/pjn/index.jsp

 

Please contact us if you would like higher resolution images. Click to enlarge images.

We would love to read your thoughts and comments about this post (see form below), and thank you for your time! All comments are moderated, however, due to the high intelligence and persistence of spammers/hackers who really should be putting their smarts to use for the public good instead of spamming our little blog.

 

Original content copyright 2013-2016 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.

Family history is meant to be shared, but the original content of this site may NOT be used for any commercial purposes unless explicit written permission is received from both the blog owner and author. Blogs or websites with ads and/or any income-generating components are included under “commercial purposes,” as are the large genealogy database websites. Sites that republish original HeritageRamblings.net content as their own are in violation of copyright as well, and use of full content is not permitted.

 

Descendants and researchers MAY download images and posts to share with their families, and use the information on their family trees or in family history books with a small number of reprints. Please make sure to credit and cite the information properly.

 

Please contact us if you have any questions about copyright of our blog material.

Broida Family (Click for Family Tree)

Weddings are a wonderful start for a new family, and can be quite the social event, especially in days gone by. The parties start before_♥♥♥

_♥♥♥ and a spectacular honeymoon is sometimes in the plans after the special ceremony.

Of course, setting up housekeeping is the next order of the marriage business_♥♥♥

And then comes the all-consuming but totally wonderful part of a marriage_♥♥♥

Leonard and Anita were married almost 52 years- what a lovely legacy to the Broida family!

PS- If anyone out there has some wedding pictures of Anita and Leonard, we would love to share them through the blog.

 

Notes, Sources, and References: 

1. See captions for citations.

 

Please contact us if you would like higher resolution images. Click to enlarge images.

We would love to read your thoughts and comments about this post (see form below), and thank you for your time! All comments are moderated, however, due to the high intelligence and persistence of spammers/hackers who really should be putting their smarts to use for the public good instead of spamming our little blog.

 

Original content copyright 2013-2016 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.

Family history is meant to be shared, but the original content of this site may NOT be used for any commercial purposes unless explicit written permission is received from both the blog owner and author. Blogs or websites with ads and/or any income-generating components are included under “commercial purposes,” as are the large genealogy database websites. Sites that republish original HeritageRamblings.net content as their own are in violation of copyright as well, and use of full content is not permitted.

 

Descendants and researchers MAY download images and posts to share with their families, and use the information on their family trees or in family history books with a small number of reprints. Please make sure to credit and cite the information properly.

 

Please contact us if you have any questions about copyright of our blog material.