This story was written by Francis Cohen, my mother, soon after she and my father moved into Coburg Village in 2006 and my mother joined a writing group.

The story of Pearl’s Department Store is a very interesting one as it involves so many of my mother’s family, the Pearls.

Let’s start at the beginning. Uncle Paul, my mother’s twenty- year-old brother, was living on the lower East Side in New York City with his family in a crowded flat. With very little education and a short, skinny build, he was only able to get a job in a sweatshop making $7 a week. After seeing a doctor for a persistent cough, Paul was diagnosed with consumption, a direct result of poor working conditions and a poor diet. It was suggested that he leave the city.

My grandmother Vichna had a sister Ittel, and she, her husband Archik Perelman, and their family lived in Burlington Vermont. Lil encouraged him to pay them a visit. Paul liked the North Country, and his health improved in the country air near Lake Champlain. With Lil’s financial support, Paul started in the peddling business, learning the trade from Archik and initially following his routes.

Paul went door to door with a pack on his back peddling his wares throughout Vermont and Upstate New York. He soon expanded the business so that it would not compete with Archik’s territory. After saving enough money, Paul managed to get a horse and wagon. Since he was doing well, he asked his brother Joe to join him in his rounds.

As the two brothers peddled their way through Vermont, they realized that the farmers and families to whom they sold merchandise found it difficult to pronounce their last name, which was Ossovitz. The customers, who knew Paul and Joe as the nephews of the peddler Archik Perelman from Burlington, Vermont, referred the two of them as the “Perelman Boys.” For simplicity’s sake, my uncles gave their last name as Perelman.

A year after they started their partnership, Uncle Paul and Uncle Joe decided to open a store in the small village of Alburgh, Vermont. They bought a piece of land with a barn on it. While the store with its second- floor apartment was being built, Paul and Joe slept in the barn with the horse and wagon. Many years later, Paul related to me that they didn’t need an alarm clock as the horse would wake them. Simplifying their name even more, Paul and Joe named the new store “Pearl’s Department Store,” and the family legacy began. Three of the brothers, Joe, Paul, and Morris, eventually legally changed their name to Pearl. Sam, the oldest, was the only brother to keep the surname Ossovitz. Thereafter, however, all the relatives identified themselves as part of “the Pearl family.”

Paul and Joe soon established a second store in Swanton, Vermont. When war was declared in 1917, Uncle Paul was drafted into the Navy. Joe ran the store while Paul served his country. When the war was over, Paul was happy to come back to Alburgh. Soon after Paul’s return, Joe announced that he and his wife Leona wanted to go back to New York City.

In 1923, Paul married Bertha Leibesman, the second cousin born the year Lil came to America. They lived in the apartment over the store. “Birdie,” as she was known by her family, was very bright and was a big help in making Pearl’s Department Store a success. Within a few years, they were owners of a chain of twenty-two stores in upstate New York and in Vermont. They became very wealthy, the most successful of the nine Ossovitz children.

In the 1930s, the country was in the midst of The Great Depression. Many members of the family needed help, and Uncle Paul was in a position to do so. Uncle Paul’s philosophy was, “Helping someone with a handout only helps them temporarily. It’s more important to give a man a job.”

Over the years, many family members came to work for Pearl’s Department Store. Six of his siblings and/or their husbands worked for the chain, as did fourteen of the grandchildren. My husband Bill and I were one of the first grandchildren to work for Uncle Paul. Uncle Joe and his family also moved back up from New York City and resumed management of the Swanton, Vermont, store

All the stores were successful. The people in these small villages loved to shop at Pearl’s. The managers and their staff were friendly, and the store carried clothing and a great deal of other useful merchandise at prices the average family could afford. Stores were scattered throughout Vermont and New York. The central store and warehouse were in Glens Falls and were eventually run by Paul’s son Elliot and his family.

By the 1960s most of my aunts and uncles had retired.Most of the grandchildren had left Pearl’s to open their own businesses, and local people continued managing the stores. When Paul died in the 1990s, his son Elliot took over the management of the stores.

Time brings many changes. By the 1970s, many superhighways were completed, including the Northway. The small towns became bedroom communities. It brought an end to the small-town, family-owned stores. People now preferred to travel on the superhighways and shop in big malls.

The last Pearl’s Department Store went out of business in 1983, seventy years after who once was known as Pesach Israel Ossovitz had first started peddling with a pack on his back. But the Pearl family will always be grateful to our Uncle Paul for his setting up businesses for so many and supporting many others when they opened their own stores.

For more information about Pearls and similar businesses, check out #afamilyofstores.com. Managed by my brother, Jay Cohen, the website gives a detailed description of many of these stories, inlcuding those in Upstate New York and Vermont.

A version of this article originally appeared in the Jewish World News, a bi-weekly subscription-based newspaper in upstate New York.