By 1950, the three surviving children of Friederike Blumenfeld and Mannes Schoen, Auguste, Moritz, and Isaak, were all living in the United States. But none of the three lived past the age of 66.

Auguste died in 1951 at the age of 65. Although I don’t have an official death record, I do have a photo of her gravestone from FindAGrave. Also, there is an “Augusta Speyer” listed in the New York, New York Death Index, who died at age 64 on March 24, 1951; this could be Auguste, given that the age and year of death almost match, even if the name is misspelled.¹

Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/236656909/auguste-speier: accessed 9 September 2023), memorial page for Auguste Schoen Speier (1886–1951), Find a Grave Memorial ID 236656909, citing Cedar Park Cemetery, Paramus, Bergen County, New Jersey, USA; Maintained by dalya d (contributor 46972551).

Auguste was survived by her husband Willi Speier, who died in New York City on January 1, 1964, at the age of seventy,² and by her son Julius and his wife Hildegard. I was unable to find any further information about Julius and Hildegard’s lives once they got to the US. I do not even know whether they had children. All I know is that Julius died in Florida on November 22, 1992,³ when he was seventy, and Hildegard died two years later in Florida in August 1994.⁴ Aside from a brief death notice for Hildegard in the Miami Herald on August 13, 1994,⁵ there are no obituaries to provide more information about their lives.

UPDATE: Thank you to the amazing researcher, Barbara Zimmer, on Tracing the Tribe, I now have a bit more information about Julius and Hildegarde. Barbara found documents online in Florida that show that Julius and Hildegard moved from New York City to Miami in 1987 and that they had no children. See the search engine here.  Also, Michael Rosenberg, whose father Walter was a second cousin to Julius, recalled a couple by that name being friends of his family in New York.

As for Auguste’s brother Moritz and his family, I again have relatively little information about their post-war years in the US. As I mentioned in my earlier post, his daughter Alice married Albert Schwarz in 1943, and they had three children and were living in New York City. Alice’s brother Manfred Schoen married in 1951; as his wife is still living, I will not disclose her name or details, and I do not know whether they had children.⁶ Kurt, the youngest sibling, married Berta Cooper in 1955. They had three children, according to his interview with the US Holocaust Memorial and Museum.⁷

Moritz Schoen died in New York City on January 23, 1957. He was 66 years old.⁸ He was survived by his wife Else Freimark Schoen, who died April 20, 1982, twenty-five years after her husband.⁹ She was 86. They were both survived by their three children, Alice, Manfred, and Kurt, and their grandchildren.

Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/230090815/else-schoen: accessed 9 September 2023), memorial page for Else Freimark Schoen (1896–1982), Find a Grave Memorial ID 230090815, citing Cedar Park Cemetery, Paramus, Bergen County, New Jersey, USA; Maintained by dalya d (contributor 46972551).

Isaak Schoen, the youngest of the children of Friederike Blumenfeld and Mannes Schoen, also died before he turned 70. He died when he was 66, just like his brother Moritz, on May 21, 1960, in New York City.¹⁰ Isaak had never married or had children and was survived by his niece and nephews and their children.

Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/247906520/isaac-schoen: accessed 9 September 2023), memorial page for Isaac Schoen (1893–1960), Find a Grave Memorial ID 247906520, citing Beth-El Cemetery, Paramus, Bergen County, New Jersey, USA; Maintained by dalya d (contributor 46972551).

Moritz’s three children lived longer lives than their father or their aunt and uncle. Manfred was seventy-seven when he died in Florida on January 20, 2004.¹¹ Alice lived to 91; she died on June 9, 2015.¹² Her husband Albert Schwarz predeceased her; he died on August 5, 2010.¹³ They were survived by their three children. And Kurt Schoen died just last year on February 24, 2022, at the age of 94. His children survive him as well as his grandchildren. His wife Berta predeceased him on May 26, 2016.¹⁴

Thus ends the story of the family of Friederike Blumenfeld and Mannes Schoen. Sadly, their sons Jakob and Isaak have no living descendants, nor does their son Willi, who died as a boy. I don’t know whether their daughter Auguste has any descendants. But I do know that their son Moritz had six grandchildren and that this line continues at least through those grandchildren and their descendants.

And not only does this bring me to the end of Friederike’s story; it also brings me to the end of the long saga of her father Isaak Blumenfeld I, the second child of Moses Blumenfeld I. I started Isaak’s story and those of his ten children on January 25, 2022, over a year and a half ago.

I can now turn to the story of his younger sister Gelle Blumenfeld Rothschild. Like her brother Isaak, she had ten children. I may still be telling her story a year and a half from now. Imagine April 2025—what will the world be like then? I just hope it’s still here and that Jews and Israel are still here also.

In the meantime, I hope everyone has a good Thanksgiving. I am going to try to focus on the many things for which I am grateful and on all the good I see in most people. It will be a challenge, but surrounded by my family, it will be very doable.

See you the week after Thanksgiving!