Background on Ozer Family
Abe and Ruth Ozer in Virginia, 1951
Both children of Jewish Eastern European immigrants, and born five days apart in the same Manhattan hospital in June 1920, Abraham Jay Ozer (born Abraham Ozersky) and Ruth Sydell Ozer (born Ruth Sydell Newman) married in 1947 after Abe returned from his Army service in Australia, New Guinea, and the Philippines. Abe served in the 311th and then 168th Ordnance Depot Company during World War II, and received the Purple Heart after being wounded by shrapnel from a kamikaze attack on his ship, while anchored off the coast of the Philippine island of Leyte following the Battle of Leyte Gulf in 1944. Returning to New York, Abe and Ruth began their romance, after being friends before the war as part of a teen group of Workmen's Circle, a progressive Jewish community group. They lived almost the entirety of the rest of their lives in the Amalgamated Housing Cooperative in the Bronx, the country's oldest nonprofit housing cooperative.
The Ozers were involved in the social, cultural, and financial community of the cooperative, originally founded by Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union members, and decidedly Jewish and progressive in its early decades. Working as a press agent for RKO Pictures Inc., and as a substitute teacher at Walton High School, Ruth also volunteered at the local Amalgamated nursery school, which her daughters Alison and Stephanie attended as children. Self-employed in the insurance business, Abe served on several of the community's boards and societies, and after early retirement volunteered as a dispatcher for ambulances in the Amalgamated, and as a tour guide at the Bronx Zoo.
The Ozers were also able to pursue their passion for travel, after being unable to take the intercontinental honeymoon of their dreams (making it only as far as Montreal), and having other commitments earlier in their lives. The couple finally began their travel adventures in 1969 with a trip to the United Kingdom. Over the next thirty-five years they would take more than fifty international and national trips, with Ruth writing as early as 1982,
"We've roamed the globe. Europe, Eastern Europe and Russia, Central Asia, North Africa, the near East. We've visited ancient historic capitals, modern picturesque cities, jet-set resorts and spas and thousands of slides recall the sights, the sounds and encounters of our travels there."
The stories of the greater Ozer family provide the context around those of Abe and Ruth. These figures include Abe's parents Sadie Uretsky and Hyman Ozersky, and their families in Belorussia; Abe's brother Bernard Ozer, an important figure in fashion forecasting and purchasing, and former vice-president of Associated Merchandising Corporation; Ruth's parents Lou and Mollie Newman; and Abe and Ruth's daughters, Alison, born in 1953, and Stephanie, born in 1956, as well as their children and families.
