SAN ANTONIO – When Susan Alpert first heard the scrapbook belonging to her Uncle Leon had been discovered at an estate sale in San Antonio, she said, “It was mind-boggling.”
Alpert said she immediately wondered, “How did it get there from Nyack, New York, to San Antonio, Texas, 60 years later?”
Her late uncle, Dr. Leon Goldberg, had been a prominent cardiologist who also specialized in geriatric medicine.
The scrapbook’s gold-embossed cover caught Lisa Jackson’s eye at an estate sale behind a restaurant east of downtown. Its pages were filled with photos, clippings and mementos documenting Dr. Goldberg’s life, most with carefully handwritten descriptions.
Intrigued and eager to find Dr. Goldberg’s family, Jackson, who is a public relations executive, knew a news story about her discovery would trigger a response.
Soon after it aired that night, Jackson said a KSAT 12 viewer contacted her on Facebook, who said his great-aunt’s family had owned a funeral home long ago, at what is now the restaurant where Jackson found the scrapbook.
Word eventually reached Dr. Goldberg’s niece.
“I was totally astonished,” Alpert said.
Jackson said when Alpert contacted her, “I just kind of squealed. I was so excited, so excited.”
Adding to the mystery, Alpert and Jackson believe the KSAT viewer’s great-aunt in San Antonio, at one time, may have been Dr. Goldberg’s housekeeper.
“She was with the family forever,” Alpert said. “She took care of the family in the house and everything, and it was like she was a member of the family.”
Jackson said that adds credence to what the KSAT viewer on Facebook told her about Dr. Goldberg buying a house in San Antonio for his great-aunt and her husband.
However, Jackson said she plans to research deed records, and she’s trying to reach him for more information.
If the great-aunt and her uncle’s former housekeeper are the same person, Alpert said she doesn’t know why she would have had his scrapbook.
Alpert said she and her cousins are just grateful Jackson retrieved the scrapbook, moments away from being tossed in the trash.
Jackson said it was obvious looking through its pages that Dr. Goldberg had an amazing life.
“He was like the guru of the family, and being the oldest son in an Orthodox Jewish family, he was king,” Alpert said.
She said her uncle lived next door to Helen Hayes, who was considered the “First Lady of American Theatre,” Ben Hecht, one of America’s greatest screenwriters, delivered Dr. Goldberg’s eulogy, and he was a close associate of Dr. Paul Dudley White, who was President Dwight Eisenhower’s personal physician.
But Alpert said she’s not aware of any connection her uncle may have had to San Antonio.
“I’m learning and I want to know more and more,” Alpert said.
She and Jackson agree many unanswered questions remain.
“It’s a mystery, but it’s a great mystery,” Jackson said.
Jackson said she plans to personally return the scrapbook to Dr. Goldberg’s family as soon as possible.