My family is full of enterprising brothers.  Like the other immigrant and first-generation American brothers I have written about before, my great-grandfather Charlie and his brothers built something out of nothing.  Or really, in their case, junk.

In about 1910, according to their promotional literature produced in the 1940s, Louis S. Rosenstein founded the Cleveland Wrecking and Contracting Co. in Minneapolis, Mn.  Lou was one of the middle brothers in a family that originally included 7 boys (Joseph, the oldest, was killed by a kicking horse in 1906) and in the early years of the company, held other jobs and owned other businesses.  In the 1914 Minneapolis city directory, for example, Lou and older brother Mose were part of the Tire Supply Association, while Mose and William Aaron (usually just called Aaron, the third brother in the birth order) both operated saloons.  By the late 1920s, though, the business was well established with offices in Cincinnati, Minneapolis, St. Paul, and Los Angeles, and by the 1940s, the brothers employed a veritable army of cousins, nephews, and in-laws in managerial positions across the country.  The company wrecked a huge number of buildings all over the United States, and later, all over the world.

My grandfather, who married into the Rose family, and my father were later parts of the company until it was sold to a multinational corporation about 15 years ago.  I am not sure that Charlie and his brothers would know what to make of my (still) wearing t-shirts emblazoned with the company logo and sayings like, “Destructive Tendencies,” “No. 1 Homewrecker,” and other slogans that are not appropriate for family occasions, but I hope they would at least appreciate the fact that their legacy lives on, somehow.

Above, from tall to short (and youngest to oldest):

Sidney Gordon (1898-1968), John M. (1896-1944), Charles Harold (1894-1964), Louis S. (1890-1965), William Aaron (1886-1950) and Mose J. (1881-1923)