My four-times great-uncle Meyer Goldschmidt and his wife Lea Katzenstein had seven children, six of whom lived to adulthood. I’ve already written about the oldest three: Ella, Sarah, and Jacob Meier. Now I turn to their fourth child, third daughter, Amalie. She was my great-grandmother Eva Goldschmidt Katzenstein’s first cousin.

Amalie was born in Grebenstein, Germany, on June 19, 1826. When she was twenty-six years old, she married Juda (Julius) Callman Katzenstein, the son of Callman Katzenstein and Jettchen Wertheim. He was born May 1, 1824, in Eschwege, where they were married on June 7, 1853, and where they settled.

What I’ve not been able to determine is whether Juda Katzenstein was related to his mother-in-law Lea Katzenstein, who was born in Grebenstein, a town 45 miles from Eschwege. I also have not found any connection to my Katzenstein relatives from Jesberg from either Juda’s family or Lea’s family; Jesberg is about 50 miles from Grebenstein and about 63 miles from Eschwege. Perhaps Katzenstein was just a popular name. Since I can trace all three lines back to before 1800 when surnames were first adopted by Jews, I am not sure there is any way to figure out whether these three lines are genetically connected or not. They may have just adopted the same surname.

Amalie Goldschmidt and Juda Katzenstein had five children, four daughters and one son. Their first born was Helene Katzenstein; she was born on April 21, 1854, in Eschwege.

A second daughter, Fredericke or Rickchen, was born in Eschwege a year later on July 18, 1855.

Amalie and Juda’s third child Regine died in infancy. She was born on January 1, 1857, and died six days later on January 7, 1857, in Eschwege.

A fourth daughter Henriette was born a year later on February 13, 1858, in Eschwege.

Finally, Amalie and Juda’s last child and only son Meyer (presumably named for Amalie’s father Meyer Goldschmidt) was born August 9, 1860, in Eschwege.

Thus, Amalie and Juda had four children who survived to adulthood.

By the 1880s, all three surviving daughters—Helene, Fredericke, and Henriette—had married and had children.

As discussed by her cousin Julius Loewenthal in his memoir, as we saw here, Helene Katzenstein was first married to Moritz Brinkmann, the brother of Levi Brinkmann, who was married to Lina Stern, Helene’s first cousin. Lina was the daughter of Sarah Goldschmidt Stern, the sister of Malchen Goldschmidt Katzenstein.

Helene married Moritz on November 19, 1872, in Eschwege, where he also was born. Moritz was born on October 15, 1846, to Susskind Brinkmann and Goldchen Plock.

Sadly, Moritz did not live long after their marriage. He died less than six years later on September 8, 1878, when he was not yet 32 years old. Helene and Moritz had not yet had children.

Helene remarried three years later. Her second husband Max Werner was Levi Brinkmann’s partner in LS Brinkmann in Eschwege, the knitwear company later run by Julius Loewenthal. Max was born in Muensterberg, then part of Prussian territory, now in Poland, on August 11, 1849. He and Helene were married on February 7, 1881. They would have five children: Henriette (1882), Elsa (1883), Rosa (1885), Moritz (1888), and Karl (1894). More to come on the children in my next post.¹

Helene’s sister Fredericke married Leopold Goldmann on November 16, 1875, in Eschwege. He was also a native of Eschwege, born in 1849 to Philipp Goldmann and Zerlina Jaffa. They would have three children, Clementine (1876), Karl (1878), and Meta (1884).

Henriette, the youngest of the three surviving daughters of Amalie and Juda, married Simon Schnadig on August 20, 1877, in Eschwege.  Simon was the son of Joel Schnadig and Johanna Ebertshausen and was born in Heddernheim, a district of Frankfurt, on October 10, 1849.

Henriette and Simon had three children, Julius (1878), Helene (1881), and Elsa (1890). Sadly, Julius died when he was only two years old.

As for Amalie and Juda’s only son, Meyer (sometimes spelled Meier or Meir), he left Germany for the United States in 1888, arriving in New York City on October 10 of that year.² He settled in New York where he married Emma Bachrach on October 27, 1891.³ Emma was also a German immigrant; she was born in Mainz on July 5, 1869, to Jakob Bernhard Bachrach and Sophia Pfann, and had immigrated to the US in the fall of 1889.⁴ Meyer and Emma had one child, a daughter Sophia, born in New York on August 19, 1892.⁵

Thus, by 1892, Amalie and Juda had eleven surviving grandchildren, including one born and living in the US. The family had grown steadily since their marriage in 1853, but suffered two losses in the 1890s. Juda Katzenstein died on September 27, 1896, in Eschwege; he was 72 years old and was survived by his wife Amalie, his four surviving children, and his grandchildren.

Then three years later Fredericke Katzenstein Goldmann lost her husband Leopold Goldmann on January 12, 1899. He was only 50 years old; he was survived by Fredericke, who was only 44, and their three children.

Thus, at the turn of the century, Amalie had lost one child in infancy, one grandchild as a toddler, her husband Juda, and her son-in-law Leopold. She herself died in Eschwege on January 7, 1903, at the age of 76.

She was survived by four children and eleven grandchildren. Their lives in the 20^th century will be told in the posts that follow.