LIVING HISTORY
worked in Key West and then two opened a store in Cocoa.
Then, one of the brothers, Ralph, settled in Fort Pierce and
turned Holtsberg’s Dry Goods into Rubin’s.
We stayed at that location from 1927 until we closed in
1987,’’ Arthur Rubin said in an interview with Fort Pierce
Magazine in January, a few weeks before his death.
Arthur, 83, son of Ralph and Ida, joined the business after
serving in the Army Air Corps during World War II and
graduating from the University of Florida in 1948.
“At that time, my parents and a brother were still active in
the business,” he said. “In 1948, we decided to enlarge and
expand the store. We modernized it and made it a top-class
Fred Holtsberg squats next to the soap display at his grocery store in downtown.
Fred Holtsberg, far left, with customers and workers at his store in downtown. Holtsberg was the first of Fort Pierce’s three Jewish mayors.
44
He later became mayor of Fort Pierce.
>>