Family Business

Joe Graziose and his family have recently moved into their fourth home at the same location — the Ritz-Carlton Residences along Baltimore's Inner Harbor. "We've tested locations on all fronts of the building," he said. "Our last unit overlooked Federal Hill. " It is not that the Grazioses are fickle or hard to please. On the contrary. As senior vice president of RXR Realty, developers of the Ritz-Carlton Residences in Baltimore, as well as one of its investors, Graziose has always opened his and wife Jackie's home to prospective buyers looking for a unit in the upscale complex.

I wish I had met Bosley Wright three years earlier. Back in 2008, I embarked on a do-it-mostly-myself kitchen renovation that included adding architectural millwork around the door and window frames. Easy enough, except that I wanted to match the existing original millwork installed in 1918. They didn't have anything even close at Lowes or Home Depot. Faced with what I thought was no other inexpensive option, I purchased raw lumber and then cut, chiseled, planed, and sanded the lumber to match.

Their great-grandfathers each founded Baltimore companies, a publisher and a printer, and their families have built close ties working together since the 1950s to produce the venerable Baltimore Jewish Times. But Andrew Alter Buerger and Charles M. Roebuck III have been doing most of their talking in the last few years through lawyers — through bankruptcy filings, lawsuits both corporate and personal, through legal motions and appeals to the state's second-highest court. What had appeared to be a successful business relationship has become a "nasty, 50-year-old marriage," as Buerger put it. Things had gotten so bad between Buerger, publisher of the Jewish Times and Style magazine, and Roebuck, president of H.G. Roebuck & Son Inc., his former printer and now a key creditor, that a U.S. Bankruptcy Court judge said from the bench last month that the case looks less like a bankruptcy than a divorce.

Many of you may recognize the name Ralph Walls because his family has been a steadfast part of Harford County for over 90 years. His parents came to live and work in the county as dairy farmers in 1919. Ralph, 83, graduated from Bel Air High School in 1945 and he ran a successful business for over 50 years. After high school, Ralph worked briefly for Harford Mutual Insurance Company, but soon found his true calling at the Central Motor Company in Bel Air, which is today's Plaza Ford, Inc. “I started out as a bookkeeper and became office manager, then general manager and finally in 1962, my wife and I bought in. Those were good years, I enjoyed the business, and it was rewarding,” says Ralph.

August Ernest "Bud" Eckels Jr., former president and general manager of a family-owned Baltimore ice cream manufacturing plant, died Thursday of a hemorrhage at a Leesburg, Fla., hospital. He was 88. Mr. Eckels, whose father established Eckels Ice Cream & Dairy Co. in 1918 and whose mother was a homemaker, was born in Baltimore and raised on Mayfield Avenue in the city's Arcadia neighborhood. He was a 1940 graduate of Polytechnic Institute. His college studies at the University of Maryland were interrupted when he enlisted in the Army Air Corps during World War II. Mr. Eckels, who was trained as a bombardier, flew 50 missions while based in Italy with the 15th Air Force's 464th Bomb Group.

Most of John Harbaugh's fondest childhood memories revolve around football. Playing in a pole vault sand pit next to the football field at an Ohio high school where his father, Jack, was putting the team through its summer practices. Being taped to the goal posts — along with his brother, Jim — by players at Michigan when their father was a member of legendary Wolverines coach Bo Schembechler's staff. Todd Haley has similar recollections. Growing up in Pittsburgh, where his father, Dick, was player personal director for the Steelers during their run of four Super Bowl championships in the 1970s, Haley often watched tape of college players his father was scouting, spent his summers in various roles at training camp in Latrobe and, when he was old enough, helped move the chains at Three Rivers Stadium.

Bettye J. Nelson, who co-founded Andy Nelson's Southern Pit Barbecue three decades ago, died Monday of lung cancer at Stella Maris Hospice in Timonium. The longtime Glen Arm resident was 77. Bettye J. Bryan, the daughter of a judge and a homemaker, was born and raised in Memphis, Tenn., where she graduated from Central High School in 1951. She met her future husband, Andrew V. Nelson Sr., when the two were students at Memphis State College, now the University of Memphis.

President Obama singled out a Mount Airy businesswoman, Theresa Alfaro Daytner, for her inspiring work building her business, during a speech honoring women in business this week. "I love Theresa's story," the president said before an audience that included billionaire investor Warren Buffett, hundreds of women entrepreneurs and 75 girls who aspire to become engineers, U.S. senators or professional race car drivers. The event in the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium in Washington was Fortune Magazine's "2010 Most Powerful Women Summit," and Daytner was named one of the periodical's 10 most powerful women entrepreneurs this year.

Nearly 40 years ago, I learned that Baltimoreans never tire of tales about the stores where they shopped. At that time, I made a small career out of writing about the Bernheimer-Leader retailing empire at Howard and Fayette streets. The building is now an apartment house called the Atrium. About a year ago, I was contacted by Michael Lisicky, whose book on Hutzler's came out last year and whose John Wanamaker ( Philadelphia) opus is due for publication in a few months. A Fells Point resident and member of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Lisicky is writing a history for the Fells Point newsletter about a place called Hecht's Reliable, on the east side of Broadway between Eastern and Fleet streets.