Ramsey County History – Winter 2003: “Growing Up In St Paul: Diamonds, Gravel Roads, and a Little Chevrolet—The Life and Times of a Venture Capitalist”

Growing Up In St Paul: Diamonds, Gravel Roads, and a Little Chevrolet—The Life and Times of a Venture Capitalist
Author: Alan R. (Buddy) Ruvelson

This article begins with the author’s family background and the arrival of his great grandfather in St. Paul in the 1870s, where he lived at 545 Sibley, near the synagogue on College Street. His father, Phillip, who grew up in Frogtown, was not strongly religious, and didn’t get a bar mitzvah ceremony. Neither did the author. His parents were Reform Jews. Buddy Ruvelson was born in 1915, and he eventually went to work for his father traveling the country. He began to work in the diamond trade and became quite successful. Ruvelson never ran for public office but was a moderate Republican who was active in supporting political candidates. He served for a time on an advisory board of the Small Business Administration. When his first wife died in 1966, Ruvelson married a German Catholic at a time when mixed faith marriages were uncommon.
PDF of Ruvelson article