I have already told in two earlier posts the beginning of the story of Sarah Goldschmidt, my three-times great aunt and oldest child of my three-times great-grandparents Seligmann Goldschmidt and Hincka Alexander, but that was almost nine months ago. I had moved away from Sarah to tell the story of her younger siblings who had immigrated to the US thirty or so years before Sarah arrived. Now it is once again Sarah’s turn. But first a brief refresher on those earlier posts. Some of this material is covered in more depth in those earlier posts, and some is newly updated.

Sarah Goldschmidt was born December 1, 1818, in Oberlistingen; she married Abraham Mansbach on October 31, 1843.

Sarah Goldschmidt and Abraham Mansbach had ten children: Breine (1844), Hewa “Hedwig (1846), Leiser “Louis” (1849), Jacob (1851), Merla “Amalie/Amelia” (1853), Berthold (1856), Hannah (1858), Meyer (1860), Kathinka (1862), and Julius (1865).¹

Jacob, the fourth child, born on June 23, 1851, died on September 13, 1853. He was just two years old.

Hedwig was born on November 20, 1846. On February 16, 1875, she married David Rothschild of Zierenberg, Germany. Sadly, Hedwig died nine months to the day later on November 16, 1875.

All but one of Sarah and Abraham’s eight other children emigrated to the United States.  The one who remained in Germany was their oldest child, Breine. She was born on September 27, 1844, and she married Jacob Bensew on February 3, 1870; Jacob was born on January 15, 1840, in Malsfeld, Germany, the son of Heinemann Bensew and Roschen Goldberg.

Breine and Jacob had eight children—six sons and two daughters: Roschen (1870), William (1872), Lester (1873), Julius (1875), Siegmund (1877), Heinemann (1879), Max (1882), and Frieda (1886). Siegmund died in 1882 when he was five, but the six of the other seven Bensew children would eventually immigrate to the United States. Breine and Jacob stayed behind, however, and lived the rest of their lives in Germany, as did their daughter Roschen. Breine died in Melsungen, Germany, on May 31, 1922, and her husband Jacob in Kassel, Germany, on April 25, 1925. More on the Bensew family in posts to come. ²

This post will now focus on the seven children of Sarah Goldschmidt and Abraham Mansbach who immigrated to the US: Louis, Amalia/Amelia, Berthold, Hannah, Meyer, Kathinka, and Julius.

Thanks to my cousin Art Mansbach, I have some photographs of Sarah and Abraham and their family.  Here is one of Sarah and Abraham and their youngest child, Julius in about 1870:

The photograph below is of Sarah with her two youngest sons, Julius and Meyer, taken in about 1874, when Meyer would have been fourteen and Julius nine:

It was about this time that Abraham and Sarah’s older children began immigrating to the US. Although I was unable to find passenger manifests for all the Mansbach children, the earliest one I could find was for Merla/Amalie/Amelia. She was born December 10, 1853, in Maden, Germany. She (as Amalie) sailed to the US in 1872 with my great-great-uncle Henry Schoenthal and his new wife Helene Lilienfeld, as I discussed here.

I have no record of Amalie from the time of her arrival until the 1880 census, but I assume she must have been living in Pennsylvania, probably in Philadelphia, because according to the 1900 census, in 1879, she married Henry Langer. Henry was 22 years older than Amalie, born in 1831 in Austria; he had immigrated to the US in 1856, and in the 1870s he was living in Philadelphia, working as a furrier, according to the Philadelphia directory for 1870 and a newspaper listing in 1877.³

Amalie and Henry relocated to Denver by December 17, 1879, when their first child, Joseph Henry Langer, was born.⁴ According to the 1880 census, Henry continued to work as a furrier in Denver:

Amalie and Henry’s second child, Lester Sylvester Langer was born in Colorado on January 1, 1884.⁵

Berthold may have been the next child of Sarah and Abraham to arrive from Germany; he was born on February 23, 1856. Although I cannot find a passenger manifest for him, the 1920 census reports that he immigrated to the US in 1874.⁶ In 1877, he is listed in the Philadelphia directory working as a clerk.⁷ But by 1880, he  had relocated to Trinidad, Colorado, where he was living with his cousin, who was also named Abraham Mansbach and was the grandson of Marum Mansbach. Abraham  was a merchant, and Bert was working as a clerk, presumably in his cousin’s store.

But not all the Mansbach siblings chose to settle out west. Sarah and Abraham Mansbach’s oldest son Leiser/Louis Mansbach, who was born on March 10, 1849, came to the US on December 16, 1876:

(The long note to the left of the birth record is extremely difficult to read, even by those used to reading German script, but thanks to the efforts of Cathy Meder-Dempsey and a man from the German Genealogy Transcriptions group on Facebook, I now believe that it merely says that the date of birth was provided by the synagogue.)

In 1880, Louis was living with my great-great-grandparents, Gerson Katzenstein and Eva Goldschmidt; Eva was his aunt, his mother Sarah’s sister. My great-grandmother Hilda, who was then sixteen, was also living at home and thus must have known her first cousin Louis quite well. Louis was 31 years old and was a veterinary surgeon.

For Hannah Mansbach, I was unable to locate a birth record, but other records establish that she was born on February 6, 1858. I also have no ship manifest, and census records indicate three different years of arrival: 1880 on the 1900 census, 1881 on the 1920 and 1930 census records, and 1885 on the 1910 census. Usually I’d assume the one closest in time, the 1900 census, would be the most reliable, but at best I can say she arrived sometime between 1880 and 1885.  Since the rest of the family had arrived by 1882, I think 1880-1881 is more likely.⁸

Census records also conflict regarding the arrival date for Meyer Mansbach. He was born on June 21, 1860. The 1900 census reports that he arrived in 1879, but the 1910 and 1930 census records both report 1882 as his date of arrival.⁹

For Julius, who was born on November 7, 1865, I found information about his arrival on his passport applications, of which there were three—in 1900, 1903, and 1908. Although all three provide the same date of arrival (June 12, 1881) and the same port of departure (Bremen), they each have a different name for the ship.¹⁰ Julius would have been not yet sixteen when he immigrated, perhaps explaining why he didn’t remember the name of the ship. This photograph of Julius at age 13 may capture how young he was only three years later when he left home by himself:

It thus seems reasonable to conclude that Hannah, Meyer, and Julius had all arrived by 1881-1882.

On October 23, 1882, they were joined by their parents, my three-times great-aunt Sarah Goldschmidt and her husband Abraham Mansbach, and their youngest sister Kathinka.

Given that all four sons are adults in this photograph, I believe it was taken shortly after Sarah and Abraham had immigrated to the United States:

The next post will pick up with the Mansbach siblings and their parents between 1882 and 1900.