Remembering my Grandfather, Philip J. Knoblock

Howard Matson, a member of the JHSNJ, has written our July 2019 newsletter.

In last January’s newsletter, I had the privilege to write the history of my great-grandparents, Morris and Fannie Knoblock, early Passaic settlers, and some memories about their five children who made their homes in Passaic.

This month, I have the opportunity to write about someone who had a profound influence upon my upbringing and shaping my philosophy.  He also instilled the sense of adventure, the necessity of increasing knowledge and setting the framework for the importance of family and friends.

That would be Morris and Fannie’s oldest surviving son, Phillip J., who was my grandfather.

His father, Morris, was born in the province of Galicia in 1847 and married Fannie Klein, a native of Hopgart, a province of Hungary in 1873.  Phillip was born February 3, 1887; his mother’s sixth pregnancy and he was a twin.

Phillip’s parents and their seven children immigrated to the United States in August, 1891, where they spent twelve years living in Manhattan’s lower eastside and in Brooklyn. Morris owned a butcher shop and a tobacco factory and later a saloon in Brooklyn.

The family relocated to Passaic in 1903.  Morris had accumulated a “nest egg” which allowed him to purchase the corner buildings at Monroe Street and Hope Avenue.  Morris opened a saloon and a social hall.  Phillip, although a teenage, frequently worked there as one of the bartenders.  Grandpa’s first non-family job was at the Thomas Edison Labs in West Orange where he was one of the manufacturers making phonograph needles.

In the fall of 1907, President Theodore Roosevelt had the idea of showing the world the might of American naval power by dispatching America’s naval fleet on a cruise around the world.  Grandpa Phil enlisted in the Navy and joined the crew of the USS Kansas that sailed in December, 1907 for South America, cruised through the Straits of Magellan, visited Australia, Japan, the Philippines, Singapore, Ceylon, and then sailed through the Suez Canal into the Mediterranean Sea. The fleet was notified when Mount Etna erupted in Sicily and Grandpa’s ship was diverted to Messina to assist in disaster relief.  He returned to Passaic in February, 1909.

Grandpa soon left to explore the American West.  He was probably the first Jewish ranger at Yellowstone National Park.  From there, he traveled to San Francisco and sailed to Alaska aboard a schooner where he worked in a cannery.

The commencement of World War One brought Grandpa back to Passaic to reunite with his parents and siblings.  With the advent of the Great War, he enlisted in the United States Army Air Corp and was stationed in San Antonio Texas where he was an instructor in a flying school.  He flew biplanes. The story he told to me was that the motor would occasionally fall out; but, the plane was designed to be a glider which saved his life.

After his return to Passaic, he opened and operated an “open-air” theater on Jefferson Street.  The influenza epidemic of 1918-1920 forced it to close.

Phil’s most exciting stories to his grandchildren were related to the fact that he was one of Passaic’s premier bootleggers during the “Roaring Twenties.” He founded the New York to ‘Miami Bus Company’ which carried passengers on a three-day trip from New York City’s ‘Astor Hotel’ to the ‘Dolphin Hotel’ in Miami.  The northbound passengers didn’t know that the primary revenue of the bus company was derived from kegs of “bootleg” liquor that were being transported north under each passenger seat!  Grandpa also related that one of his best customers was Passaic’s Commissioner of Safety, Abe Preiskel.  Bob Rosenthal’s 2011 book, “Bootleggers, Mobsters and My Mom”, recounts stories of Passaic’s position during Prohibition in the 1920s.

In the fall of 1921, Grandpa attended a party at the home of his brother-in-law’s nephew, Irving Stein, on Harrison Street.  There he met Kitty Schlenger, a native of Mount Carmel, Pennsylvania, whose beauty and joie-de-vivre brought her to New York City where she had a career modelling furs.  Six weeks later, Phil and Kitty were engaged and January 8th, 1922, they were wed.  After a wedding trip to the Willard Hotel in Washington, D. C., they sailed to Europe for the summer.

In the late 1920s, Grandpa Phil acquired land on the Newark Pompton Turnpike (now Route 23) in the Mountain View section of Wayne. This was the beginning of “The Brass Rail.”  The first building erected was a roadstand (famous for its hotdogs) and a room in the rear that served liquor and had a few slot machines.   Each year it was enlarged.  A dining room was added. A roller skating rink, a cider mill and an archery range were all integral parts of the complex. 

After the end of prohibition in 1933, the bar became “legal” and a dance floor was added.  Popular orchestras appeared Friday and Saturday evenings.

On the domestic front, my grandparents had two daughters.  My aunt, Elaine, born in 1922 and my Mother, Rita, born in 1925.  My grandparents built a home at 425 River Road and early in the 1930s they moved to 277 Howard Avenue facing Passaic Park.

Phillip and Kitty were active in Passaic’s Jewish community.  They were among the original members of ‘Temple Emanuel’ and were early benefactors of the Beth Israel Hospital.  My grandmother and my grandfather’s sister, Mrs. Harry (Bertha) Stein was among the charter members of the ‘Daughters of Miriam Home for the Aged’ and my grandmother chaired many of the Passaic Auxiliary’s charity events benefitting the home.  During World War II, my grandmother was among a group of women who prepared and served breakfast for departing Passaic troops at the bus depot.

I learned the importance of friendships from them.  All of their close friends were measured in decades.  They socialized for forty years with Mr. and Mrs. Harry Hecht, Mr. and Mrs. Saul Goldstein, Mr. and Ben Krones, Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Brumberg and Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Glass.  Indeed, my grandmother formed a bridge club in 1925 with Sophie Hecht, Anna Riskin and Ida Krones and these four women were still meeting weekly for lunch and cards forty years later.
The ‘Brass Rail’s’ season lasted from late April until late November.  My grandparents wintered in Miami Beach each year starting in about 1928.

Phillip had his hand in various enterprises.  He owned a car dealership for ‘Willys-Knight’ and in 1928 he received a patent for an electrical device.

In the early 1940s, my grandfather opened ‘The Dolphin Seafood Restaurant’ on Prospect Street and a Chinese restaurant on Broad Street in Philadelphia.   By the 1950s Grandpa owned two manufacturing firms, ‘Kay Metal Casters’ and ‘Elrie Products’.

They retired permanently to their Miami Beach home in the mid 1960s.  Grandma Kitty died suddenly of a stroke in 1970 and Grandpa was active until his demise in 1975.

Phillip was a dynamic influence on everyone he met.  He was a straight forward and had a no-nonsense attitude in his view of life.  My memory of him is that he dressed daily in a suit, put on his hat and went out into the world to accomplish the day’s goals.  He did not retire in the evening until everything he wished or needed to complete was finalized.

This did not detract from family obligations.  As a kid, I frequently sat in the front seat of his car and accompanied him on his business functions.  If he visited one of his client’s offices in the ‘Ironbound’ section of Newark, he stopped to have a cup of coffee with his elder sister, Lena.  He would not drive past his twin sister Rose’s home on Howe Avenue without stopping in for a few minutes.  Lunch was usually at the ‘Ritz Grill’ or ‘Wasser’s’ or ‘Pop’s Restaurant’ on Jefferson Street where there would inevitably be a table of his friends that he joined.

My great-grandparents. Morris and Fannie Knobloch, both lived to 98 and were married for 72 years.  They bought the home at 305 Madison Street in 1912 and resided there until their deaths in the winter of 1945-1946.  My grandfather visited them daily and they also wintered in Miami Beach.  Great-grandpa Knoblock was a founder of the ‘Congregation Hungarian Hebrew Men’ on Dayton Avenue and until he was 95 walked the mile each way to make the synagogue’s daily minyan. My grandfather was an honorary “gabbai” at his father’s shul and occasionally accompanied him.

Grandpa was a voracious reader and he was my introduction to the Forstman Library.  We visited the library twice a week and he checked out an armful of books on each occasion.
All five of Phillip’s grandchildren held him in awe and respect.  He regaled us with his stories about the Jewish lower eastside, Thomas Edison, his voyage around the world, Yellowstone Park, Alaska, the ‘Roaring Twenties’ and of all the characters; famous and infamous, in Passaic’s history.

If a grandchild (including me) said to Grandpa, “I want to meet the governor,” off we went to Trenton where we met Governor Robert Meyner. If you requested a “congressman” then you travelled to Paterson to meet Congressman Charles Joelson.  Doors seemed to be open for Grandpa.

We were lucky to have a deep relationship with him and hopefully we have carried on his heritage.

Howard Matson, JHSNJ member. Howard lives in Westport, Connecticut.  He is a senior vice-president with a multi-national financial firm.  A past International President of the 117-year old Circumnavigators Club; he currently serves as an officer and on the board of directors of the organization’s educational foundation.  Last year, he privately published a book about the Knoblock Family for family members.