Staff at Fogell's bakery and grocery shop in Hospital Street in the Gorbals, 1962. The shop closed seven years later, in 1969.
The Fogell family probably opened their shop in 1901 or 1902, although it does not appear in the Post Office Glasgow Directory until 1913. The business was originally run by Max Fogell (1875-1947) and his wife Yetta (1876-1954). Yetta was from Latvia and could chat to her customers in Yiddish, Polish and Russian as well as English. Many of the Jews living in the Gorbals at that time had emigrated from Eastern Europe and enjoyed gossiping or reminiscing about der heim (home) in a familiar language.
Fogell's was famed for its black bread, made on the premises, but also sold groceries. In the early days, barrels of schmaltz herrings and pickled cucumbers were put out on the pavement in front of the shop and customers picked their purchases out of the barrels with their bare hands.
Reference: PHO.F.0003
Reproduced with the permission of the Scottish Jewish Archives Centre
Keywords:
bakers' shops, black bread, Fogell's Bakery Shop, grocers' shops, immigrants, Jews, Latvians, pickled cucumbers, schmaltz herrings, women, Yiddish