College students who met working for the union became devoted partners in a belts and handbags business … and in life.
Murray L. Nathan (1914-2011) and Belle Calderon Nathan (1916-2004)
Murray Nathan and Belle Calderon were college students, working part-time for the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, when they met in the mid-1930s. They shared a passion for education, social and economic justice, and the arts. They married in 1938 and moved in with his mother in the Bronx. During Murray’s noncombat service in World War II, he took up leather crafts to keep busy, and Belle sent him fabric swatches from New York.
After the war, they reinvented their wartime “hobby,” working side by side for the next four decades to build Calderon Belts & Bags, a thriving manufacturing company on Greenwich Street in Manhattan’s Tribeca neighborhood. Belle’s brothers Ben and Samuel also joined the family business. At one point, they employed 500 workers and had a successful collaboration, Anne Klein for Calderon.
Belle was born January 1, 1916, the daughter of David Calderon and the former Sol Candiotti, Turkish immigrants. She grew up in Queens and attended Richmond Hill High School. Murray was born December 27, 1911, in Poughkeepsie to Abraham and Rae Nathan. When he was a teenager, the family moved to New York City, and he attended Townsend Harris High School in Queens.
As a self-taught designer, Belle won several awards from Leather Industries of America for her handbags. A number of their bags and belts are part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute Collection. And dozens of vintage Calderon accessories and newspaper ads are for sale online at such sites as eBay and Etsy.
Murray and Belle sold the company in 1989. In their long retirement, they continued to travel and devoted themselves to philanthropy. Well into advanced age, Murray enjoyed reading, finishing The New York Times crossword puzzles, and family visits. Up to the end, he maintained his compassion for others and his kind, gentle manner, spiked with quick wit, according to tributes from family and friends. Belle died December 18, 2004, at age 88. And Murray passed away October 11, 2011. He was 96.
Today, their fund in The New York Community Trust supports education and arts-in-education in New York City public schools, including travel enrichment programs. DreamYard Project, Dancing Classrooms, and Studio in a School are a few of the fund’s grantees.