BRONZVILER STOLYER (BER GRINFELD)

BRONZVILER STOLYER (BER GRINFELD) (March 8, 1868-May 21, 1948)

He was born in Zhmerynka, Podolia region.  He hailed from a family of carpenters (stolyers) for generations.  He studied in religious primary school.  At age nine he was already working in carpentry.  Several years after the pogroms, he emigrated with his father to the United States at the age of eighteen.  He lived in Philadelphia and worked as a peddler.  He also worked in a leather factory and in a factory that made wheels for train cars.  He later settled in Chicago and became interested in the anarchist movement.  Under the influence of Yankev Gordin’s articles and of his acquaintance with Yehoash, he began to write.  His first publications were humorous sketches in Forverts (Forward), writing under the pseudonym “Bronzviler stolyer” (Brownsville carpenter).  He subsequently published semi-fictional and fictional items in Fraye arbeter shtime (Free voice of labor), Varhayt (Truth), Ditroiter shtime (Voice of Detroit, edited by H. Royzenblat), and Keneder odler (Canadian eagle), among others.  In the 1930s he settled in California.  There, a “Brownsville Carpenter Writings Committee” brought out his Hublshpener (Plane chips), vol. 1 (New York and Los Angeles, 1933), 224 pp., and vol. 2 (1946), 235 pp.

Sources: Shmuel Niger, in Tog (New York) (July 2, 1933); B. Batshevis, in Fraye arbeter shtime (New York) (July 23, 1948); Sh. Tenenboym, in Fraye arbeter shtime (April 11, 1947).