[1][2][3] After one year in college, he was enlisted in January 1943 to serve as a weather observer,[4][5] graduated from Columbia Business School with an MBA and became a firm manager.
[13] In 1959 Oster went with New Orleans jazz historian Richard B. Allen[14] to the Louisiana State Penitentiary, also known as Angola prison, to record African American Blues, Spirituals sung by choirs and soloists, Sermons and personal interviews.
It was a labor Oster carried alone, packaging and sending the records to buyers and reviewers, with artworks lithographed by hand.
Other artists of the label included Reverend Pearly Brown, Louisiana Honeydrippers and the duo Butch Cage and Willie B. Thomas.
[21] The family home in Oak Lawn Avenue, Iowa City, was dotted with a collection of musical instruments, farm tools, quilts and antique furniture, some which he repaired on his own.