This is Part VI of an ongoing series of posts based on the family album of Milton Goldsmith, so generously shared with me by his granddaughter Sue. See Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV and Part V at the links.
Now that we have seen the pages Milton devoted to his maternal and paternal grandparents, we can turn our attention to those devoted to his parents, Abraham Goldsmith and Cecelia Adler.
First, there is this page:Although they are not labeled, the paired photographs at the bottom must be Cecelia Adler and Abraham Goldsmith. I know this because the photograph on the upper right is one I’ve seen before—I received it from my cousin Julian Reinheimer over a year ago, labeled as Julian’s great-grandfather, Abraham Goldsmith. So I know that the upper photograph is Abraham, and he is certainly the same man as the man in the photograph at the lower right.
I also know that the woman on the left is Cecelia because Julian also sent me this photograph of his great-grandmother Cecelia, and she is the same woman as the woman on the left in the photograph above:
Could the two framed photographs be their wedding photographs?
Cecelia was only nineteen in 1858 when they married, Abraham was six years older or twenty-five. Somehow they look older than that in these photographs, but I am terrible at determining age in these old photographs when people dressed so formally and posed so stiffly without smiling. It’s obvious, however, that these two photographs were taken at the same studio and likely at the same time, given that the same table appears in both. I wonder if there was a date on the reverse, but it is not worth trying to remove the photograph from the album to check.
According to Milton, his grandfather Samuel Adler was not successful in business, but Cecelia certainly is dressed very well in this photograph and is wearing what appears to be a large cameo pendant, similar or perhaps the same as the one in the photograph I received from Julian, seen above. Was this taken after she married Abraham, who was in fact very successful in business? Which photograph appears to be earlier?
Finally, there is the photograph labeled “The Homestead in Oberlistingen.” This must have been the house where Abraham and his family lived before he and almost all his siblings immigrated to the United States beginning in the 1840s. So who is the woman standing on the stairs in front of the house? My first hope was that this was Hinka Alexander Goldschmidt, my three-times great-grandmother and Abraham Goldsmith’s mother, Milton’s paternal grandmother.
But then I realized this could not be Hinka. She died in 1860. This looks like a casual snapshop, and thus not something that could have been taken in those early days of photography. In fact, according to the Smithsonian:
Photography emerged in the early 19th century, but well into the 1880s it was a difficult, ponderous thing to do. The reigning forms of photography recorded onto chemically treated plates and paper. Taking a picture required the subjects to sit still for a half minute or more—“torture,” as the social critic Walter Benjamin recalled. Families trooped into studios to get portraits taken, but they were a study in stiffness: everyone sitting ramrod straight, afraid to move—or even to change their expression—for fear of blurring the photo.….Things changed dramatically in 1888 when George Eastman introduced the Kodak camera. A small hand-held box, it cost only $25—about the price of a higher-end iPad in today’s money, which put it in the range of the well-off middle class. And it offered simplicity…
So much to my disappointment, I concluded that this was not Hinka, but some other woman posing on the front steps of what had been the Goldschmidt home in Oberlistingen.
Milton did not write much about Hinka, mentioning her only to say that several girls in the family were named for her (including my great-grandmother Hilda Katzenstein Schoenthal, who was the daughter of Eva Goldschmidt Katzenstein and granddaughter of Hinka Alexander Goldschmidt). Milton obviously never met his grandmother Hinka, who never left Germany and died a year before Milton was born. And unlike the heroic war stories passed down about his grandfather Seligmann Goldschmidt, there were likely no such stories shared about his grandmother. Like women of those times, her life was not in the public sphere, but in the home. So all we know about her is when she was born, who she married, what children were born to her and raised by her, and when she died.
It’s thus not surprising that my heart wanted that to be a photograph of Hinka standing in front of her home, but alas, my brain knew otherwise. I do, however, have this photograph or drawing of Hinka, provided by David Baron and Roger Cibella, who is also her descendant:
What wonderful treasures!
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I agree! Thanks, Leslie–always good to hear from you. Hope all is well.
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The framed photographs of the couple are fantastic. So nice to see they kept them in the hinged frame. I’m sorry you were disappointed the woman wasn’t Hinka.
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Actually, I wonder if Sue has the originals in the frame or only these photos of the photos in the album. Hmmmm.
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The album, from what you’ve shared so far, looks like a scrapbook. It could be they are photos of the originals.
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Right, that’s what I think. But I wonder if Sue has the actual framed photos.
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Wow, that would be awesome.
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I am leaning towards the older picture of Cecelia being the one with her hair up. A more youthful style seems to me to be with the hair down. This album of photo’s has been a treasure trove of family history for you…I really enjoy your Monday postings 🙂 Sharon
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Thanks, Sharon, for your thoughts. That does make sense. Glad you are enjoying these posts! I am also. 🙂
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Very interesting regarding the story of photography (Smithsonian) I can’t work out which photo
would be the younger version of Cecelia, she looks composed on both.
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I know—people were so mature looking back then!
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I’d frame the ‘Homestead’ photo! How wonderful!
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Yes, and now I have to go back to Oberlistingen and find it!
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These photos, Amy! And that one of the stairs in the front of the house! So do you think that is a photo or drawing/sketch of Hinka? And why?
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I can’t tell but to me, it seems sort of sketch-like. And she died in 1860 so it would have been an early photograph, if it was a photograph. I am not sure since I’ve only seen this scanned version.
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Here is my 1.5cent worth: that it’s a scan of a copy of a tintype.
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I’ll buy that. And it could be a scan of a scan of a copy of tintype….
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Pingback: Milton Goldsmith’s Family Album, Part VII: Abraham Goldsmith and Cecelia Adler Get Married | Brotmanblog: A Family Journey
Lovely collection of photos Amy. I can understand your disappointment that the woman outside the house isn’t Hinka.
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Yes, but it wasn’t very realistic of me to think that it was!
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Pingback: Milton Goldsmith’s Family Album, Part VIII: Birth Records | Brotmanblog: A Family Journey
I am so behind on my reading 😦 I love Cecilia’s cameo – it reminds me of one my grandmother passed on to me.
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Thanks—there’s always time to catch up! 🙂
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Pingback: Milton Goldsmith’s Family Album, Part IX: The Missing Babies | Brotmanblog: A Family Journey
Pingback: Milton Goldsmith’s Family Album, Part X: A Son’s Loving Tribute to His Mother | Brotmanblog: A Family Journey
Pingback: Milton Goldsmith’s Family Album, Part XI: Tributes to His Father Abraham | Brotmanblog: A Family Journey
Pingback: Milton Goldsmith’s Family Album, Part XII: The Mystery of His Stepmother Francis | Brotmanblog: A Family Journey
Pingback: Milton’s Family Album, Part XIII: The Creative Talent of Milton Goldsmith Himself | Brotmanblog: A Family Journey
Pingback: Milton’s Family Album, Part XIV: Teasing His Little Brother | Brotmanblog: A Family Journey
Pingback: Milton Goldsmith’s Family Album, Part XV: Childhood Memories | Brotmanblog: A Family Journey
Pingback: Milton Goldsmith’s Album, Part XVI: His Beloved Sister and Fellow Author, Emily | Brotmanblog: A Family Journey
Pingback: Milton Goldsmith’s Album, Part XVII: The Contrasting Lives of His Sisters Rose and Estella | Brotmanblog: A Family Journey
Pingback: The Things You Can’t Learn from Genealogy Records Alone: Milton Goldsmith’s Family Album, Part XVIII | Brotmanblog: A Family Journey