Mollie Lyon and Olga Dobo
The Jewish Encyclopedia
of Western Pennsylvania
A project of the Rauh Jewish Archives at the Heinz History Center
The Millstone family immigrated to Pittsburgh from Russia in the early 1900s. The family settled in the Hill District, where Abraham Millstone peddled for a living.
Mollie Millstone (1899-1991) worked at the Irene Kaufmann Settlement House as a young woman and eventually became its executive secretary. A vibrant personality and a highly regarded public speaker, she sold war bonds during World War I by riding around downtown Pittsburgh in the back of a truck equipped with a piano, singing to passersby. Following the war, she became active in many local Jewish organizations, particularly those with a Zionist mission. She was the president of the local Hadassah chapter from 1943 to 1946 and also served in national positions with the group through the 1970s and 1980s. She is credited with starting the local Israel Bonds Drive in 1951. She was a long time member of the National Council of Jewish Women, Pittsburgh Section.
As a young woman, Millstone was a member of the Philomatheans Club, a local literary society. At a November 1922 meeting devoted to Leo Tolstoy, Millstone spoke on Tolstoy’s “conception of art,” and Maurice Lyon of Coraopolis discussed “the life and philosophy of Tolstoy.” Maurice and Mollie Lyon married in May 1924. They had three daughters, Shirley Lyon Zionts, Grace Lyon Lenk and Mimi Lyon Halpern.
In the early 1930s, Lyon hosted a lifestyle program on KQV called “The Woman’s Home and Style Service,” among the first radio programs in Pittsburgh to be hosted by a woman. Her sister, Ruth Millstone Karlin, hosted a similar program on WJAS radio.
