Sheftel & Malenovsky

In 1920, two brother- in-laws bought a truck and started dealing in cloth scraps from the many sewing factories in the Lehigh Valley. By 1950 the firm was called A. Sheftel and Sons, but scattered throughout the valley were still buildings with the older Sheftel and Malenovsky banner painted on the side. Other families also traded in the by-products from the large local needle trade industry, mainly the Levines and Pearlmans. Although the sewing factories declined locally, the Sheftel sons grew the business nationally, and today it is operated by the third generation. In the minds of old timers, the Sheftels and Malenovskys are still linked. By coincidence, less than 24 hours after a previous posting concerning my maternal grandfather's citizenship paper, I received a call from the Sheftel family. They had no real knowledge of me, much less my blog. They had discovered that in their possession was a copy of my paternal grandfather's citizenship paper, Aaron Moloviensky. My family in the 1930's had attempted to "Americanize" our name, by changing it from Moloviensky to Molovinsky, it didn't work. Apparently, at sometime in the past  after a local Jewish History exhibit, someone had placed the Moloviensky document in the Sheftel-Malenovsky folder.

reprinted from 2007 and 2010