If you haven't heard of the name Irving Bell, you almost certainly have heard of Bell's Clothing, the Ottawa store bearing his name.
Irving opened the store in 1922, just nine years after emigrating from Lithuania to the United States.
While Irving was building his clothing store business in Ottawa, his first cousin from Waukegan was honing comic skills that would eventually catapult him to stardom.
Irving Bell was born in 1899 in Lithuania to parents Moses and Dora Kubelsky. Just prior to the outbreak of the First World War, Irving — at the insistence of his mother, who worried about his safety — set off alone at age 14 and traveled to America.
Irving's daughter, Marcia Levine, now living in Highland Park, told the Times, "my father boarded one of the last boats out of Germany in 1913 before they (the government) stopped the boats from leaving — things were getting pretty hot in Germany at that time."
Upon arriving in America, "my father went directly to Waukegan to live with his Uncle Meyer Kubelsky and Meyer's son Benny," Marcia said.
While going to school, Irving Kubelsky — who later shortened and Americanized his name to "Bell" — worked at his uncle's haberdashery in Waukegan.
Irving's cousin Benny Kubelsky, who would later change his name to "Jack Benny," was spending a lot of time playing the violin, much to the chagrin of his father.
Marcia remembers a favorite story.
"My father would tell me about Jack's father saying, 'Why can't you learn to sell like Irving instead of playing that stupid violin?' " she recalls.
But Benny kept playing while Irving learned the clothing business from Uncle Meyer and both boys, of course, became successful in their own trade.
By the mid-1940s, Jack Benny was becoming more and more famous, moving from the NBC Radio Network to the CBS Network. By this time Benny's persona was entrenched as the suave, sophisticated, penny-pinching comic.
Meanwhile, Irving Bell continued growing his clothing store business. By 1946 Irving and his wife Bernice had an 8-year-old daughter named Marcia, and business was good.
Marcia helped her dad out at the store from time to time.
"My dad used to let me and my girlfriends work at the clothing store. I always took the cash and made change (at the register) while my girlfriends sold because my dad didn't think I was very good at selling, and he was right," she laughed.
But selling wasn't the only thing that brought Marcia and her friends to Bell's Clothing. She recalls with great delight one memory in particular,
"I remember my dad had these little dressing rooms in the store. When we lived on the South Side (of Ottawa) and I had girlfriends from the West Side when I was 9 or 10 years old, we used to have a club meeting in one of his little dressing rooms once a week. He would let us do that — my dad was a great guy," Levine said.
It was about 1945 that Paul Baker began working at Bell's.
"I started working at Bell's Clothing as a senior in high school, then started working steady when I graduated in 1946."
Baker worked his way up to manager and eventually bought the store from Irving — retiring himself in 1991, then selling the store to Pat Graham.
In regard to Irving and Jack Benny, Baker said, "he went to Chicago a couple of times and saw Jack. They weren't real close as such, but he (Irving) always made a point of going wherever he could. I remember he went one time to Chicago when I was working at the store — he went into Chicago when Jack was there.".
Jack Benny had one of the most popular shows on television from 1955 to 1965. He passed away in 1974, but leaves a legacy of laughter for all those who heard and saw his shows.
Jack's cousin, Irving "Bell" Kubelsky leaves a legacy as well.
"Over the years when I've gone back to reunions or when I run into people who happen to have some connection with Ottawa — they all seem to know my father," Marcia Levine said.
"They remember what a wonderful man he was. Some told me how they didn't have any money and my dad would give them the clothes and then — when they could — they would come and pay him".
Two cousins, both giving of their own unique talents, touched people's lives.