James S. Rigberg and the Flying Saucer News Bookstore – Update 2
Last month I received the following very short teaser comment from a reader regarding my blog reminiscences about Jimmy Rigberg and his fabulous Flying Saucer News Bookstore in New York City:
“James Rigberg was the son of my grandfather’s sister and my father’s first cousin. So I do know a little about his origins. You can contact me for more info.”
Build it and they will come. The message was sent by Fran Rigberg Baker, a technical editor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She was conducting online research on Jimmy and came across my blog. Well you can imagine my reaction. I contacted Fran the same day and encouraged her to tell me all she knew.
Here is Fran’s very detailed and interesting response, edited to include some updated information.
Hi Rick,
My information is limited, but you probably won’t hear it from anyone else!
Jimmy was the child of a sister of my grandfather, Morris Rigberg. Their parents were Alexander and Barucha Batsheva (Viseltier) Rigberg. Morris’s siblings were Mike, Jake, Lizzie, Jenny, and Sam. I believe this is the birth order, with Morris being the eldest. I believe Lizzie was Jimmy’s mother. Jimmy’s father was a physician; I don’t know his name. Lizzie was about 18 or 19 when she had Jimmy in 1914.
Alexander and Barucha Rigberg (Jimmy’s grandfather and grandmother) were already living in the US when at least some of their children were born. However, around 1900, Alexander drowned while swimming in a reservoir, possibly from a cramp, as he was a good swimmer. The reservoir was drained to find his body. Morris was about 12. Alexander is buried a Jewish cemetery in Shenandoah, PA. BTW, the entire family is Jewish. After this, Barucha returned home to Europe with all her children, I am not sure exactly where, but possibly Romania. She subsequently died of breast cancer not long afterward. A childless uncle, Albert Rigberg (also my father’s name), a shoemaker, and his wife, Rosie, took in all the orphans, along with some other orphaned cousins, and brought them back to the US in around 1906 or 1907 using what remained of the $5K insurance money from Alexander’s death.
This man, generally referred to as “The Uncle,” finished raising the cousins and set them all up in small businesses, primarily shoe stores; he even played matchmaker to some of them. This all occurred in Pennsylvania, but the uncle and aunt and some of the orphans ended up in Toronto, Canada. Since Morris and his next younger brother Mike were the oldest of the orphans (around 16-18 years old) on arriving to the US, they opened a little grocery store in Port Carbon, PA along with their sister Lizzie (who was around 13), who kept house for them. I do have some pictures of the Rigberg Brothers’ horse-drawn delivery carts (see below) from around that time. My son has Alexander’s pocket watch, which we treasure. When Morris got married, around 1909, his brother and sister moved out, and Morris and his wife Anna (my grandparents) ran the store and lived upstairs. The corner where the store was located was still referred to as Rigberg’s Corner in the 1950s. Morris and Anna are buried in a Jewish cemetery in Pottsville, PA.
At some point, Lizzie became pregnant out of wedlock (or so I was told) and came to Morris for help. He was upset with her for letting down the family in this way (it was around 1914), but my grandmother Anna did offer to raise the baby (Jimmy!). His mother refused and took her baby with her to, I think, Philadelphia, but it could have been NYC. I was told that she became a nurse and successfully supported herself and her child. I have since found out from the 1920 census that in 1920 Lizzie was working as a housemaid in the home of a family in Lancaster, PA, and her child is not mentioned. In the 1930 census, I found a James Rigberg, age 16, residing in the B’nai B’rith (Jewish) Orphanage in Fairview (near Erie), PA. So perhaps Lizzie and Jimmy did not fare so well.
Even more recently, I found in the 1940 census that an Elizabeth Rigberg, a practical nurse and divorced, lived in Lancaster, PA, on her own but had a lodger (no one we know). Here it says her age at first marriage was 16. So perhaps Jimmy was not born out of wedlock after all! Still, it seems likely he had a hard-knock childhood.
My dad knew about James, as he called him, and I think may have had some contact with him, but Jimmy remained kind of a family outcast, and I never heard anyone else in the family even mention him. Also, his father may not have been Jewish, which was a bigger deal back then in some families, though the family was not very observant. I definitely thought of Jimmy as kind of the black sheep and a colorful character, but I never saw or met him. In my memory, one time while visiting New York in the 50s, my father took us to Brooklyn to Jimmy’s store. We got there, but it was closed. Recently I did find a copy of Flying Saucer News on eBay and bought it.
I hope this is of some help to you. It may explain some things, I don’t know. Feel free to keep in touch.
All the best,
Fran
Here some photos Fran was kind enough to share with us.
This was taken around 1912. This is my grandmother Anna with her daughter Betty and son Albert (my father). Anna is the one who offered to take in and raise Jimmy in 1914, but his mother didn’t want that.
Here’s my grandfather, Morris Rigberg (beside the front horse), and his brother Mike (beside the rear horse). This was in Port Carbon, PA, probably around 1909. The brothers (orphans) were Jimmy’s uncles. On coming (back) to America in their teens, they started up a little grocery business called Rigberg Brothers that made deliveries using these carts. They lived in Port Carbon (near Pottsville) with their sister Lizzie, who kept house for them. This sister was Jimmy’s mother. I don’t think she is in the first picture, though there is a woman in the background. The three siblings were on their own.
My grandfather, Morris Rigberg circa 1909.
Making a Spectacle of Myself 