Swissvale official, entrepreneur exhibited strong work ethic
In the mid-1980s, Swissvale Councilman Alvar “Ollie” Erlandson was looking for young people to hire for his newspaper distribution business. He was having a hard time finding kids to take over a paper route in Turtle Creek.
Mr. Erlandson told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette he was considering recruiting at the local video arcades, where he figured a few empty pockets might be found.
A native of Swissvale who lived most of his life at the same address, Mr. Erlandson knew a little bit about being an entrepreneur and working hard at whatever opportunities were at hand.
After finishing high school and serving a stint in the Navy in World War II, he had learned accounting at business school, according to his son, Jeffrey Erlandson of Murrysville. For much of the rest of his life, he would work in numerous jobs, keep his own books and prove himself anatural networker.
Mr. Erlandson, 91, died Sunday at Golden Heights Personal Care Home in Penn Township.
His time as a Republican member of the Swissvale borough council in the 1980s might have raised his profile in the community, but then again he might have already known almost everyone in town, according to the stories told by his son and his daughter, Susan Doyle of Forest Hills.
In addition to growing up in Swissvale, his professional life included work in sales of different sorts. After selling dry cleaning supplies for a while, he bought a dry cleaning business, his son said. Eventually, he had more than one, among them Cameo Cleaners in Swissvale.
His children recall the summer of 1969, when they worked with their father, picking up clothes from the stores and taking them to his dry cleaning plant in Clairton, where they pressed pants and dresses surrounded by machines pumping out heat.
Susan Doyle estimates she lost 10 pounds that summer.
“He paid us minimum wage,” said Jeffrey Erlandson, a distribution center coordinator for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
From 1976 to 1992, he owned Turtle Creek News, which distributed the Pittsburgh Press newspaper through neighborhoods including Turtle Creek, Wilkins, West Wilmerding, Chalfant and East Pittsburgh, according to his son, who also worked in that business.
That meant employing hundreds of kids over the years as newspaper carriers, including some stationed outside the Westinghouse plant, where workers leaving in the afternoon might buy 100 copies of the daily paper at one gate and 150 at another.
The distribution business required dealing with a lot of cash — including stacks of quarters piled on dining room tables — and visiting a lot of homes, said Jeffrey Erlandson. “He enjoyed getting to know the families and the kids,” Mrs. Doyle said.
Long after he retired, people would mention he had coached them during his many years with the Swissvale Little League, his son said. He also worked as the borough secretary for a while, sold Christmas trees on lots in town, even picked up jobs doing painting at times.
“He was a person that could never sit still,” said his daughter.
A heart attack in 1988 convinced him it was time to retire. All those jobs hadn’t really produced a pension, so he invested in real estate to keep some income coming in, his son recalled. That included owning a Swissvale building that houses a hardware store.
Understanding the value of real estate may have come through his parents, immigrants from Sweden. They built a bungalow on a lot in Swissvale, then later added a duplex in the front of the property that allowed rental income to help pay the mortgage.
Mr. Erlandson grew up in those homes and then stayed for most of his life, taking his bride there and raising his children there.
He was preceded in death by his wife, Lois (Jones) Erlandson and another daughter, Linda Saulle. In addition to his two children, he is survived by 10 grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.
Visitation is from 2 to 4 p.m. and 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday at the Thomas L. Nied Funeral Home Inc. in Swissvale. The funeral is at 11 a.m. Friday at the funeral home.