In honor of Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Memorial Day, I am posting the links to six of my blog posts in which I discussed the members of my own family who perished in the Holocaust. Six to represent the six million Jews who were slaughtered by the Nazis during World War II.
These are all members of the Seligmann/Schoenfeld family. I did not even know about them a year ago. And I know that there must have been members of my other family lines who were also murdered during the war. I just haven’t found them yet. So in memory of all those who were killed, those we know about and all those we do not yet know about, please read these posts if you have not done so already. Or even if you have. We must never forget.
I have finally reached the last twig on the last branch of the Nusbaum family tree. This final chapter concerns Fanny Nusbaum, who married Jacob L. Hano. Fanny was the daughter of Ernst Nusbaum and Clarissa Arnold, the granddaughter of Amson Nusbaum and Voegele Welsch, my four-times great-grandparents.
You might recall that my family tree is doubly connected to the Hano family tree. First, I learned that Jacob Weil had married Flora Cohen, the daughter of Louise Lydia Hano and Samuel Cohen. Jacob was the son of Rachel Cohen Weil, my great-grandfather’s sister. (Samuel Cohen was not related to Rachel Cohen or any of my Cohens, however.)
Jacob Hano and Fanny Nusbaum had married on February 28, 1877, and had moved to Youngstown, Ohio, where their first two children, Louis and Ernest, were born. They had returned to Philadelphia by 1884, when their third son Samuel was born. Samuel died just fourteen days later on August 21, 1884, from inflammation of his kidneys. He died in Atlantic City, and was buried at Mt. Sinai cemetery in Philadelphia.
“Pennsylvania, Philadelphia City Death Certificates, 1803-1915,” index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:J6S5-2N5 : accessed 14 April 2015), Samuel Hano, 21 Aug 1884; citing , Philadelphia City Archives and Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia; FHL microfilm 2,069,818
“Pennsylvania, Philadelphia City Death Certificates, 1803-1915,” index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:J6S5-2N5 : accessed 14 April 2015), Samuel Hano, 21 Aug 1884; citing , Philadelphia City Archives and Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia; FHL microfilm 2,069,818
A fourth son, Myer Arnold, was born in Boston in 1885, so the family must have relocated again after Samuel’s death. And then by 1890 the family had moved to New York City, where they would have two more sons, Alfred (1890) and Clarence (1891). Their second oldest son Ernest served in the US Army in the Spanish American War in 1898; according to his nephew Arnold, Ernest was gassed while serving in the war and as a result suffered heart damage that affected him for the remainder of his life.
Indexes to the Carded Records of Soldiers Who Served in Volunteer Organizations During the Spanish-American War, compiled 1899 – 1927, documenting the period 1898 – 1903
Jacob Hano had been in the printing business on his own, but in 1892 he joined with his younger brother Philip in the printing business instead of competing with him, as discussed in the ad below.
The American Stationer, Volume 31 p. 93
I love the comment here that this reduction in competition would not result in rising prices, just better service.
As of 1900 the Hano family was living at 205 West 134th Street in Manhattan. Louis, now 22, was working as a salesman, and the other four sons were at home. Unfortunately, the family was to lose another son early in the 20th century. On April 10, 1902, Myer Arnold Hano died at age seventeen from typhoid fever. This was the second son that Jacob and Fanny lost far too early.
In 1905, the family was still living at the same address on West 134th Street, and now Ernest (25) was also working as a salesman. Alfred (15) and Clarence (13) were still in school. Jacob was in the “manifold business,” as stated in the advertisement above. From what I can gather, a manifold book is a type of form book used by businesses.
Source Citation New York State Archives; Albany, New York; State Population Census Schedules, 1905; Election District: A.D. 23 E.D. 13; City: Manhattan; County: New York; Page: 44
Louis, the oldest son, was not listed with the family on the 1905 census, nor can I find him elsewhere. However, by 1910, he was back living in the household with his parents and brothers. The family was now living at 344 St. Nicholas Avenue, and both Jacob and his son Louis were in the business of manufacturing “cravats.” Clarence was a salesman for the company, and Alfred was not employed. Alfred must have been in school because by 1910, he was employed as a lawyer.
Year: 1910; Census Place: Manhattan Ward 12, New York, New York; Roll: T624_1022; Page: 10B; Enumeration District: 0560; FHL microfilm: 1375035
Ernest, the second oldest son, was not living with his family in 1910, but was living as a lodger in the household of Madeleine McGlone at 325 West 141st Street. There were two other lodgers living there as well. Ernest was a neckwear salesman, presumably those made by his father since his father and brothers were manufacturing and selling cravats. Madeleine McGlone, his landlady, was listed as married for 14 years, but there was no husband in the household. A little research revealed that Madeleine was born Madeleine Constance Barnard in Ontario, Canada, and had married George A. McGlone in 1896; however, in 1910, George McGlone was living in the Bronx and listing himself as a widower, so it would seem that the marriage between Madeleine and George had ended. At any rate, I mention this because, as we will see, Madeleine would end up being much more than Ernest’s landlady, and perhaps already was by 1910.
Year: 1910; Census Place: Manhattan Ward 12, New York, New York; Roll: T624_1027; Page: 11A; Enumeration District: 0706; FHL microfilm: 1375040
In 1915, Jacob and Fanny still had three of their sons at home, Louis, Alfred, and Clarence, and the family had relocated to Queens. Jacob, Louis (37), and Clarence (23) listed their occupations as salesmen, and Alfred (25) was a lawyer. Ernest, meanwhile, had moved to the Bronx, where he was still listed as a boarder living in Madeleine McGlone’s household along with her mother. Ernest, now 36, listed his occupation as a collector (bills? Stamps? Coins?).
The next five years brought lots of changes, in particular, the year 1917. On June 3, 1917, Clarence, the youngest of the brothers, became the first to marry. He married Mathilda Kutes, the daughter of a Russian immigrant and an Austrian immigrant. Mathilda was born in New York in April 1897, and although she was living with her parents in 1900 in New York, by 1910 when she was not yet 13 years old, she was living as a “relative” in a household of people named Hertz of Hungarian background. I cannot seem to locate Mathilda’s parents or her siblings on the 1910 census.
Just four and a half months after Clarence married, Alfred Hano married Clara Millhauser on October 25, 1917. Clara was the daughter of Isaac Millhauser, a police officer, and Bertha Silverberg, and was a native New Yorker. According to the 1915 New York census, Clara had been working as a typist before she married Alfred.
Unfortunately, 1917 ended on an unhappy note. Fanny Nusbaum Hano, my first cousin four times removed, died on December 25, 1917, from cancer. She was 61 years old. She was the second of the Nusbaum children to predecease her mother Clarissa.
The World War I draft registrations for the Hano sons give more information about where they were in 1917-1918. Louis, now 40 years old, was living with his father Jacob in Manhattan. He was a salesman for Anathan & Co. Ernest, now 38, was living in Brooklyn, and was self-employed as a kennel owner. Both Louis and Ernest were single. Alfred was a lawyer, living in Manhattan with his wife Clara. He claimed an exemption from service based on “dependents—physical disability.” He also indicated that he had previously served as a private in the infantry for a month. It appears that instead Alfred served in the NY Guard. Finally, Clarence was living in Manhattan with Matilda and was employed as a salesman for Berg Brothers.
Registration State: New York; Registration County: New York; Roll: 1786680; Draft Board: 145
Registration State: New York; Roll: 1754135; Draft Board: 23
Registration State: New York; Registration County: New York; Roll: 1786806; Draft Board: 147
New York State Archives; Albany, New York; Collection: New York, New York Guard Service Cards and Enlistment Records, 1906-1918, 1940-1948; Series: B2000; Film Number: 10
Registration State: New York; Registration County: New York; Roll: 1786806; Draft Board: 147
Both Alfred and Clarence had sons born in 1918, named Alfred and Richard, respectively.
In 1920, Jacob, now a widower and working again as a printer, was living with Clarence, Matilda, and their son Richard in Hempstead, Long Island. Clarence was a dry goods buyer. Louis was living alone at 168 West 74th Street and working as a ladies’ neckwear salesman. Alfred and his wife and son were living on Edgecomb Avenue in Manhattan, and Alfred was working as a lawyer. Ernest was continuing to live with Madeleine McGlone. Ernest was listed as Madeleine’s “cousin” on the census. Hmmm… Madeleine and Ernest both described their occupations as dog breeders. From my cousin Arnold, I now know that they were very successful breeders of Boston terriers.
Year: 1920; Census Place: Bronx Assembly District 8, Bronx, New York; Roll: T625_1143; Page: 2A; Enumeration District: 462; Image: 438
In the next two years, both Alfred and Clarence again had sons, named Arnold and Edwin, respectively. That made four grandsons after six sons for Jacob and Fanny Hano.
Jacob Hano died on September 5, 1922. He was 72 years old and died from kidney and heart disease.
In 1925, Louis was living alone on West 73rd Street, working as a salesman. Ernest was living on Pelham Parkway in the Bronx with Madeleine McGlone, now listed as her “partner” in the dog breeding business. Alfred was also living in the Bronx on Montgomery Avenue with his wife and two sons, and he was still practicing law. Clarence was living in Inwood on Long Island with his wife and two sons, and he was still a salesman.
New York State Archives; Albany, New York; State Population Census Schedules, 1925; Election District: 32; Assembly District: 06; City: New York; County: Bronx; Page: 14
Ernest finally married his former “landlady/cousin/partner” on December 28, 1927. He was 47, and she was 51, and they had been living with each other since at least 1910. Things did not change much for the other brothers between 1925 and 1930. According to the 1930 census, Louis was still living alone in Manhattan, now on West 86th Street, and selling sportswear. Alfred was still living in the Bronx, but had changed occupations; he was now in the printing business as his father Jacob had once been. According to his son Arnold, Alfred joined his uncle Philip Hano’s printing business after he closed his law practice. Clarence was still living on Long Island, now a sales manager for a millinery business.
Sometime between 1930 and 1940, Louis Hano married a woman named Blanche, who had a son named Lewis. Blanche is listed as his wife on the 1940 census, and Lewis, 22 years old, is listed as his son. Since Louis was single in 1920 and 1930, I was fairly certain that Lewis was not his biological child. After much research, I concluded that Blanche had previously been married to Maurice Tobias and that Lewis was his biological child. After Blanche married Louis, Lewis Bertram Tobias became Lewis Bertram Hano. Whether or not he was legally adopted I cannot determine. I am in touch with a descendant of Lewis, and we are trying to learn more. At any rate, Louis F. Hano (note the different spelling of Louis and Lewis) became a husband and father for the first time some time in his fifties. Louis was a salesman for a knit goods business, and Lewis was engaged in purchasing for a specialty shop. They were living in Queens.
Year: 1940; Census Place: New York, Queens, New York; Roll: T627_2729; Page: 62B; Enumeration District: 41-449
While Louis had moved out of Manhattan by 1940, two of his brothers had moved back to Manhattan. Alfred Hano was living at 41 West 83rd Street with his wife and sons in 1940, and he was working as a salesman for an industrial company, according to the census. His son Alfred, now 21, was working as a salesman for a tonsorial equipment company, i.e., barbershop supplies.
Occupations of Alfred Hano and his son Alfred on the 1940 census Year: 1940; Census Place: New York, New York, New York; Roll: T627_2642; Page: 17A; Enumeration District: 31-801
Clarence Hano also moved back to Manhattan by 1940. He and his family were living at 465 West 65th Street. Clarence was still selling millinery; his wife Mathilda was working as a manager for a publishing company. Their sons Richard and Edwin were both working as stock clerks, one for a thread company and the other for a button company.
I cannot locate Ernest and his wife Madeleine on the 1940 census, but he and Madeleine are listed in the 1938 directory for Claremont, New Hampshire, described as “retired” and living at “Blink Cottage” on Lake Avenue. There is an identical listing in the 1942 Claremont directory, so I assume that that is where they were in 1940 as well. On the other hand, Ernest’s 1942 draft registration lists his residence as 1422 Pelham Parkway in the Bronx, so perhaps they had both a city home and a country home during this period. The draft registration confirmed that he was retired and married to Madeleine Hano.
The National Archives at St. Louis; St. Louis, Missouri; State Headquarters: New York
Louis’ World War II draft registration showed him living with Blanche in Elmhurst, Queens, and employed by the Elgin Knit Sportswear Company. He was now 64 years old. His adopted son Lewis Bertram Hano married Marion Fitz on September 20, 1942, and Lewis served in the US Navy for much of World War II.
The National Archives at St. Louis; St. Louis, Missouri; State Headquarters: New York
According to his World War II draft registration, Clarence Hano was living at 25 West 68th Street and employed by the American Straw Goods Company. He was 50 years old. His son Richard enlisted in the US Army on May 14, 1941, before the US had entered World War II. Edwin Hano also served in the US Army during the war.
The National Archives at St. Louis; St. Louis, Missouri; State Headquarters: New York
Alfred Hano was living at 41 West 83rd Street at the time of his draft registration in 1942. He was employed by the United Autographic Register Company at that time. He was 52 years old. Both of his sons also served in World War II. His younger son Arnold enlisted in the US Army on October 16, 1942, and served in the Pacific Theater during the war.
The National Archives at St. Louis; St. Louis, Missouri; State Headquarters: New York
Alfred’s older son, Alfred, had enlisted six months before his younger brother on April 10, 1942. He served in the Army Air Corps in Europe. Tragically, Alfred was killed when his plane was shot down over Germany in March, 1944. He was only 25 years old.
Publication Title: Missing Air Crew Reports (MACRs) of the U.S. Army Air Forces, 1942-1947 Publisher: NARA National Archives Catalog ID: 305256 National Archives Catalog Title: Missing Air Crew Reports (MACRs), compiled 1942 – 1947
The 1940s must have been very painful, heart-breaking years for the extended Hano family. Not only did they lose Alfred in the war and see four other young men put their lives on the line, they also lost two of the Hano brothers within just months of each other. On August 8, 1847, Ernest Nusbaum Hano died in Sunapee, New Hampshire; he was 67 years old. His wife Madeleine survived him by sixteen years, dying March 6, 1963, in Greenwich, Connecticut, where she had relocated after Ernest’s death. Then on November 30, 1947, Louis F. Hano died in Queens; he was seventy years old. His wife Blanche lived until April 2, 1965.
As for the other two brothers, Clarence died in April, 1960. He was 69 years old. His wife Mathilda died in 1976 when she was 79 years old. Both of their sons died before they were sixty years old, Edwin in 1970 and Richard in 1977.
Alfred Hano was the last surviving Hano brother. His wife Clara had died in 1953, and Alfred lived until May, 1967. He was 76 when he died. He was survived by his son Arnold, who is a very well-known and well-regarded sportswriter. His book about one game of the 1954 World Series,A Day in the Bleachers, is considered a baseball classic and innovative in the way he described in detail the play by play of the entire game. It was in that game that Willie Mays made his historic catch, captured in this video:
He has also written a number of biographies as well as a number of novels. I recently had the great pleasure of speaking with Arnold, who is now 93 years old. It was an absolutely delightful conversation in which we discussed everything from the Bronx, baseball, war, children, careers, and family. I have already added his books to my reading list for the summer. There is a documentary currently being made about my cousin Arnold, and although Arnold himself questions why anyone would be interested in his life, I know that I will be very excited to see this film when it is completed.
And so that brings me to the end of the story of not only the Hano family, and not only to the end of story of the descendants of Ernst Nusbaum, but to the end of the story of all the children and grandchildren of Amson Nusbaum and Voegele Welsch,[1] my four-times great-grandparents from Schopfloch, Germany.
[1] Voegele was most likely the person for whom all those girls named Fanny, Flora, Florence, and Frances were named for in the Nusbaum/Dreyfuss/Dinkelspiel family. I still need to find out more about the Welsch line of my family.
My Seligman-Schoenfeld family tree continues to grow, and it continues to break my heart. Thanks to my cousin Wolfgang, I now know more about another line in the family. I already knew that my great-great-grandfather Bernard Seligman, who left Germany in the late 1850s and settled in Santa Fe, had a younger sister Paulina. She was born in Gau-Algesheim in 1847, the daughter of Babetta Schoenfeld and Moritz Seligman. I had received her birth records several months ago:
I had no record for Paulina aside from this one until I connected with Wolfgang. It seems that Wolfgang’s family, like my cousin Pete’s family, had been contacted back in the 1980s by the National Westminster Bank in England, the bank handling the estate of James Seligman and looking for his heirs in order to distribute his estate after his wife died. Just as they had provided Pete’s family with a family tree showing how they were related to James, the bank also provided Wolfgang’s family with a similar tree. (I still don’t know why my father and his sister were not contacted, but that’s water under the bridge.) James was, of course, a brother of Paulina and of Wolfgang’s great-grandfather August just as he was a brother of Bernard.
You can see a PDF of Paulina’s section of the family tree provided to Wolfgang’s family by clicking here:
As you can see, it identifies the husband and descendants of Paulina Seligmann (here called Pauline).[1] Paulina had married Maier Oppenheimer, and they had had five children: Joseph (November 22, 1874), Martha (March 1, 1876), Anna (March 14, 1877), Ella (June 24, 1878), and Moritz James (June 10, 1879). Her husband Maier died on June 8, 1900; he was 51 years old. Although it is hard to read clearly, it looks like their daughter Anna died when she was only 31 years old in 1908. She had married Max Kaufman, but did not have any children. Paulina died April 10, 1926 when she was 79 years old.
Fortunately, Paulina did not live to see what happened to her children. Although the other four children survived into the Nazi era, only one of the four was alive after the war had ended. Ella, who never married, died in an “unknown concentration camp,” according to the bank’s tree. Joseph died on October 21, 1940; one record on Ancestry.com shows that a Joseph Oppenheimer with the same birth and death dates shown on the bank’s family tree died as a prisoner at the Dachau concentration camp. Joseph was married to Marie Johanna, but they had not had any children, according to the bank’s tree. Martha, who did survive the war and died in 1967 when she was 91 years old according to the tree, lost two children in the Holocaust: Trude and Paul. The bank’s tree did not include a name of a husband.
English: View of prisoners’ barracks soon after the liberation of the Dachau concentration camp Deutsch: Blick auf die Gefangenen Baracken kurz nach der Befreifung des KZs-Dachau. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Wolfgang was able to provide me with a little more information about the youngest child, Moritz James Oppenheimer, as gleaned from these two sources: a 1952 article from Der Spiegel and a website for a German company that supplies horse dressage and other equipment. (Although both articles are in German, Wolfgang translated them for me.) Moritz had owned a paper factory in Frankfort before the war as well as a successful horse stud farm where thoroughbred horses were raised and sold. I found this website about the stud farm as it exists today. Obviously, Moritz Oppenheimer was quite well-to-do. In fact, Wolfgang’s grandfather Julius had written to his cousin Moritz for financial help after he lost his store in Gau-Algesheim.
The horse farm once owned by MJ Oppenheimer as it looks today
After the Nazis came to power, Moritz had his marriage dissolved in 1936 because his wife, Emma Katherine Neuhoff, was not Jewish. Wolfgang explained that this was often done under Nazi rule to those in interfaith marriages. Then Moritz had his factory seized by the Nazis under the Nuremberg Laws, forcing him into bankruptcy. As a result, he had to sell his horse farm in order to raise money. The horse farm was sold to Baron Dr. Heinrich von Thyssen-Bornemisza, who was able to purchase the land, many valuable stallions and mares, and much more for just a few hundred thousand Deutsche marks.[2] On May 9, 1941, the Gestapo visited Moritz in his apartment in Wiesbaden; shortly thereafter he was found dead in the apartment. It was ruled a suicide.
Moritz had two children who survived him: a son Jur Georg Emil Walter Oppenheimer (born July 10, 1904) and Paula Herta Oppenheimer (April 11, 1902). The son married Elsa Lina, and they had one child, Angelika Emma Sybille, born in 1946. Paula married someone named Spiegler and was still alive at the time that the bank prepared the family tree in the 1980s.
By Karsten Ratzke (Own work) [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons
Moritz, Ella, Joseph, Anna, and Martha: These were my great-grandmother Eva Seligman Cohen’s first cousins. I wonder if she knew of them and her other German cousins. Did her sons know of them? Did they know that Hitler had murdered many of these cousins? Certainly my father didn’t know of them, nor did I. Until now.
[1] I have not yet been able to find records to verify most of the facts on this family tree, but am trying to locate sources.
Lately it’s been sort of raining Goldschlagers. First, I received an email from someone named Jeanne who matched me very distantly on the DNA testing website, but who’d spotted that one of my ancestral names was Goldschlager. Jeanne had had an aunt named Anne Goldschlager; although her aunt was an aunt by marriage only, not genetically, Jeanne had loved her greatly and wondered whether we might be related since Anne Goldschlager’s family also had ties to Romania.
According to Jeanne, Anne’s father Max had moved to Dresden in the early 20th century where Anne and her sister Sabina were born. In 1939, Max, his wife, and Sabina left Germany to go to Romania (I assume they thought it would be safer), and they left Anne behind. She was 15 years old. Somehow Anne got to England and survived the war, but her sister was killed in one of the concentration camps. Her parents survived the war and emigrated to Israel. Here is Sabina’s Page of Testimony at Yad Vashem, which includes this photograph:
Unfortunately, Anne has no biological descendants, and Jeanne knew nothing more about her family tree, so I don’t think I can get any further back to determine if her Goldschlagers were related to mine.
Then around the same time that I heard from Jeanne, my cousin Jim and his wife Jodi emailed me to say that their son Michael was in Spain for the Model UN and had met a fellow student named Eva Goldschlager. Michael wanted to know if Eva could be related to our Goldschlagers. After obtaining Eva’s father’s contact information, he and I have emailed several times. His Goldschlager family is also from Romania—from the town of Siret, which is a little more than 100 miles from Iasi where my grandfather was born. We’ve not gotten any further than that so far, but are trying to figure out how to learn more.
And then finally just the other day I received a whole bunch of new photographs from my cousin Richard, who lives in Australia but was in the US visiting his parents. Richard is my second cousin; his father Murray is the son of David Goldschlager, my grandfather’s younger brother. Although Murray changed his surname a long time ago, he is nevertheless a Goldschlager. Here are some of the photographs Richard sent me of his grandparents.
Here are three photographs of David and Becky as young people.
David Goldschlager
Rebecca Schwartz
Rebecca and David Goldschlager
Here they are with their sons Murray and Sidney at Brighton Beach probably in the 1930s:
David and Murray Goldschlager
All four Goldschlagers at Brighton Beach
The others were taken when David and Becky had moved to Arizona where Murray and his wife Edna and their son Richard lived.
Richard and his grandfather David Goldschlager
At Richard’s bar mitzvah
Thank you so much to my cousin Richard who so generously shared these photographs with me. I am so happy to have more pictures of my grandfather’s brother David and his family.
My newly-discovered cousin Wolfgang Seligmann lives close to our shared ancestral towns of Gau-Algesheim and Erbes-Budesheim. Erbes-Budesheim is where Babetta Schoenfeld was born and raised; Babetta is my 3-x great-grandmother and Wolfgang’s great-great-grandmother. Babetta married Moritz Seligmann, and together they settled in Gau-Algesheim where they had a number of children, including Bernard Seligmann, my great-great-grandfather, and August Seligmann, Wolfgang’s great-grandfather.
Here is a recent photo of Wolfgang with his wife Barbela and daughter Milena—my beautiful German cousins.
Wolfgang went to both Gau-Algesheim and Erbes-Budesheim recently to take some photographs of the towns and to look for the houses where our ancestors lived. In Erbes-Budesheim, he looked for the houses at 77 and 80 Hauptstrasse where the Schoenfelds lived almost 200 years ago, but unfortunately those houses must have been torn down, and now a new street and a factory stand where those houses must have stood. But Wolfgang took some photographs of other houses, including one at 50 Hauptstrasse, to capture what the Schoenfeld house might have looked like and also to depict the type of homes they saw on their street.
Wolfgang also visited the Jewish cemetery in Erbes-Budesheim. He reported that there were only a few headstones left and none for the Schoenfelds. Here are some photographs he took of the cemetery. It looks like such a peaceful and scenic spot.
Although Wolfgang did not locate any Schoenfeld headstones there, this older video taken in 2010 does show some headstones with the Schoenfeld name, so I wonder whether these have been destroyed since that video was taken.
Wolfgang also visited Gau-Algesheim and took some photographs there. First is a photo of Flosserstrasse, one of the main streets in Gau-Algesheim. Our ancestors Moritz and Babetta and their children lived on Flossergasse, which no longer seems to exist, but must have either been a prior name or a smaller street off of the main street.
Flosserstrasse
The other main street in Gau-Algesheim is Langgasse. The store owned by Wolfgang’s great-grandfather August and his grandfather Julius was on this street, and the house where Julius and his wife Magdalena lived until relocating to Bingen was also located on Langgasse. Because the original building is no longer there, Wolfgang also sent me this newspaper clipping which depicts on the left what Langgasse looked like in 1900 and when Julius lived and worked there.
Langgasse in 1900
Langgasse today
This is the town center where Langgasse and Flosserstrasse meet.
Finally, Wolfgang also visited the Jewish cemetery in Gau-Algesheim.
Jewish cemetery in Gau-Algesheim
There was only one headstone with the Seligmann name on it, and it was for Rosa Bergmann Seligmann, the wife of August Seligmann and Wolfgang’s great-grandmother. He must have been quite disturbed by what he saw there. Here are two photographs of Rosa’s headstone taken in the 1950s and posted on the alemannia-judaica website:
This is what the headstone looks like today as captured by Wolfgang, Rosa’s great-grandson:
According to Wolfgang, the cemetery was vandalized in 1998 by “some idiots,” as Wolfgang described them. He commented that even today there is some anti-Semitism in Germany. Although Wolfgang noted that there are not many who feel this way, it only takes a few to do damage like this.
I am so very grateful to my cousin Wolfgang for taking these photographs. There is something very touching and special about seeing these towns through the eyes of my cousin, a fellow descendant of Moritz Seligmann and Babetta Schoenfeld. I know he looks at these places with the same sense of connection that I would feel if I were standing in those places, and I look forward to standing there with him in the hopefully not too far off future.
All photographs on this post except the two from alemannia-judaica are courtesy of Wolfgang Seligmann.
In 1900 Edgar Nusbaum, the fourth child of Ernst Nusbaum and Clarissa Arnold, was living with his wife Viola Barritt, their daughter Celina[1], Viola’s sister, and a boarder at 1520 North 12th Street in Philadelphia. Edgar was working as a clerk, and Celina was a dressmaker. Celina was nineteen years old.
On November 30, 1904, Celina married Hamilton Hall Treager Glessner in New York City. He was the son of Oliver Glessner and Anna Leidigh of Philadelphia. His father was a printer. In 1900, Hamilton was nineteen and still in school. On the 1910 census, Hamilton’s occupation was reported to be an electrical engineer. On March 10, 1906, Celina and Hamilton had a daughter, Marian La Rue Glessner.
Unfortunately, the marriage did not last. By 1910, Celina and her daughter Marian were living with Celina’s parents, Edgar and Viola, at 707 Electric Avenue. Edgar was working as a clerk for the “steam” railroad, and Celina was working as a dress designer.
Although Celina gave her marital status as married, Hamilton (“Hall”) was now living with his parents in Denver, Colorado, and listed his marital status as single.
By 1915, Celina had married again, this time to Inglis Edward Daniel Cameron. In 1900, Inglis had been living in Philadelphia with his mother Mary and his two older siblings; Inglis was sixteen years old. He is listed as a student in the 1908 Philadelphia directory. In 1909, he received his law degree from the University of Pennsylvania. In 1910, Inglis was working as a lawyer and living with his mother, sister, and niece. I don’t have a marriage record for Celina and Inglis, but their son Edward James Cameron was born on June 29, 1915.
Eighteen months later, on December 19, 1916, Celina’s mother and Edgar’s wife Viola Barritt Nusbaum died at age 55 from chronic myocarditis. She was buried at West Laurel Hill cemetery.
Two years later at age 60, Edgar remarried. His second wife was Caroline Saeltzer. She had been married before and was divorced. She was 52 years old when she married Edgar on October 24, 1918. In 1920, Edgar, Caroline, and Caroline’s mother Josephine were living at 3847 North 16th Street, and Edgar was now the head clerk for the railroad’s auditing department.
In 1920, Celina and Inglis were living with her daughter Marian, their son Edward James (listed as James), a niece named Ella (presumably Inglis’ niece since Celina was an only child), and a nurse at 7433 Devon Street in Philadephia. Inglis was practicing law. As listed in the 1921 Philadelphia directory, he was working for the Cameo Dress Company.
Year: 1920; Census Place: Philadelphia Ward 22, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Roll: T625_1624; Page: 7A; Enumeration District: 617; Image: 269
In 1925 I found Inglis E.D. Cameron listed in the New York City directory with an office address at 100 East 42nd Street, but with an indication that his residence was still in Philadelphia.
After that, things get really, really fuzzy for Celina, Inglis, and their children. I have not been able to find Inglis on any record after that 1925 directory—not on a census or in a directory or in a death record or obituary. Nothing. For such an unusual name, you would think something would appear. Nothing. I will keep digging, but at the moment I don’t know what happened to Inglis.
Edgar Nusbaum died on May 14, 1924, from arteriosclerosis and bronchitis. He was 65 years old and was buried at Hillside Cemetery. His second wife, Carolyn, died at age 93 on November 10, 1959. She is buried with Edgar at Hillside Cemetery.
As for Celina, well, she seems to have married a third time after her marriage to Inglis Cameron ended either with his death or by divorce. I was quite surprised when I found this death certificate:
This is obviously the right person—her parents are Edgar Nusbaum and Viola Barritt. She obviously had changed her name to Sally. And who was Carnes? And how did she end up in Houston, Texas? The informant was Marian L. Pattison, which gave me a clue about Celina’s daughter Marian La Rue Glessner.
I was able to find a Sally Carnes married to a Donald Carnes in the 1948 Houston, Texas, city directory. I also found a Texas death certificate for a Donald Carnes dated November 6, 1948. He was killed in a car accident in Houston. There is no mention of a wife’s name, although he was married. And the informant was his son E.J. Carnes of Pasadens, Texas. Donald Carnes had been a partner in Carnes Construction Company.
Could E.J. Carnes, his son, be the same person as Edward James Cameron, the son of Celina Nusbaum and Inglis Cameron? Had Inglis died and had Donald Carnes adopted Edward James? In the 1942 Houston directory there is a listing for an Edward J Carnes, married to Margaret, working as a manager of the Carnes Service Station. Right above him in the directory is a Donald S. Carnes, a shipyard worker, but with a wife named Kath.
Ancestry.com. U.S. City Directories, 1821-1989 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011.
The 1951 Houston directory lists an Edward J. Carnes, husband of Margaret, as affiliated with Carnes Construction Company and Carnes Neon Service. There is no listing for a Celina or Selena or Sally Carnes or for Donald Carnes. I think it’s pretty clear that Edward J. Carnes was the relative of Donald Carnes, given the death certificate and the similar business line. But was this Donald Carnes the husband of Celina/Sally Carnes who died in 1966? And was this Edward J. Carnes born Edward James Cameron, son of Celina and Inglis? I don’t know for sure. What do you think? I am still searching for more clues.
Since I knew from Celina’s death certificate that her daughter Marian had taken the married name Pattison, it was not that difficult to find her marriage record. According to that record, Marian Glessner married Carl T. Pattison in 1927 in Philadelphia. In 1930 they were living at 350 East Mt. Airy Avenue in Philadelphia. Carl was a civil engineer. His father was an English-born machinist in Philadelphia, and his mother was born in Germany. Carl, who is sometimes listed as Thomas C., sometimes as Thomas K., sometimes as Karl, and sometimes as Carl T. Pattison, was their youngest child. Strangely enough, Carl’s mother was also named Selina.
Carl and Marian had two children born in the 1930s who I am trying to locate so that I can learn more. By 1940, Carl, Marian, and the children were living at 229 Sedgewick Avenue in Philadelphia, and Carl was now trading bonds. In the 1950 Philadelphia phone directory, he is listed as T. Carl Pattison at the same address on Sedgewick Avenue. I have no certain records for any of them after that. I have some possibilities, but nothing about which I have enough certainty to feel confident. I have found nothing for either of their children.
Thus, the daughter and grandchildren of Edgar Nusbaum and Viola Barritt have proven to be quite elusive. Of all the descendants of Ernst and Clarissa Nusbaum, these have proven to the most difficult to find.
That leaves me with one more child of Ernst and Clarissa Nusbaum to write about—their daughter Fanny.
[1] Sometimes spelled Selena, sometimes Lena, later Sally.
Handmade shmura matzo used at the Passover Seder especially for the mitzvot of eating matzo and afikoman. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
A year ago I was feeling disconnected from Passover until I heard my grandson tell us the story of Passover in a way that made it feel new and exciting and different all over again. This year his little brother will experience his first seder, though at only ten months, that experience will likely be short and quite unfocused. Just a lot of really noisy people sitting around a table eating food that he neither can nor would want to eat. But it’s a new reminder that every generation and every child experiences Passover as a new experience, allowing all of us who are jaded and detached to be able to relive our own early experiences with this special holiday.
Last year I entered into Passover thinking about my mother’s ancestors, the Brotmans, the Goldschlagers, and the Rosenzweigs. I focused on their exodus from the oppression and poverty and anti-Semitism of Galicia and Romania and their courage and the desire for freedom that led them to leave all they knew to cross the continent and then the ocean and come to New York City, where they again lived in poverty but with greater hopes for a life of freedom and economic opportunity. And they attained their goals if not in that first generation, certainly by the third and fourth generations.
Poor Jews taking home free matzohs, New York (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
For the last year now, I have been researching, studying and writing about my father’s paternal relatives. It has taken just about a full year to cover the Cohens, the Jacobs (with whom I actually need to do more work), the Seligmans, the Schoenfelds, the Nusbaums, and the Dreyfusses. Soon I will start my father’s maternal relatives—the Schoenthals and Katzensteins and whatever other surnames pop up along the way. Researching my father’s families has been so different from my mother’s, and I can go so much further back. I can’t get back much before 1840 with my mother’s family and have absolutely no records before 1885 or so for any of them. Although I have a number of Romanian records for my Rosenzweig and Goldschlager relatives, I have no records at all from Europe for my great-grandparents Joseph and Bessie Brotman, despite hours and hours of searching and even DNA testing.
In contrast, my father’s ancestors have provided me with a rich opportunity to learn about Jews in Amsterdam, London, and especially the towns of Gau-Algesheim, Erbes-Budesheim, Bingen, and Schopfloch, Germany. I have been able to find records all the way back to 1800 or so for almost every line. I’ve had amazing help along the way on both sides of the Atlantic, and I’ve even learned a little German to boot. My father’s families were pawnbrokers and peddlers and clothing merchants; they were pioneers and politicians and warheroes.
http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/182866324
Harrisburg Market Square with Leo Nusbaum store
They came to the United States in the 1840s and 1850s, and most of them suffered terrible heartbreaks, economic struggles, and early deaths. Most of them settled in Philadelphia and other parts of Pennsylvania and New Jersey, but there were those who went to places that I’d never think a Jewish immigrant would go: Iowa, Texas, Illinois, Michigan, California, and, of course, New Mexico. Many married outside the Jewish community and assimilated into American culture far more so than my mother’s relatives. Ultimately, the Cohens/Jacobs and Seligmans/Schoenfelds and Nusbaums/Dreyfusses were successful; they found the American dream, and they embraced it.
But there is a very sad underside to this story of American success. It’s the story of those who did not leave Europe. For the first time in my life I confronted the reality that the Holocaust did not just happen to other families, to other Jews. Not that I have not been deeply affected by the Holocaust all my life; ever since I read Anne Frank’s diary as a child, I’ve identified with and cried for all those who were murdered by the Nazis. But I never knew that I had relatives left behind in Germany who were part of that slaughter. I am still finding more, and I will write about them soon. The list of names of my cousins who died in the Holocaust grows longer and longer, and I realize more than ever how grateful I should be to Bernard Seligman, John and Jeanette (Dreyfuss) Nusbaum, and Jacob and Sarah (Jacobs) Cohen for leaving Europe and taking a chance on the new country across the ocean.
So this year for Passover I will be thinking about that first major migration of Jews from Europe to America. I will be feeling thankful for the risks my ancestors took, and I will be feeling the loss of not only all those who were killed in the Holocaust, but the loss of all the children and grandchildren who would have been born but for those deaths.
And overall I will be celebrating family, freedom, and faith—faith that the world can be a better place and that human beings can be their best selves and live good and meaningful lives. May all of you have a wonderful weekend—be it Passover or Easter or perhaps just another weekend in April for you. Celebrate all the good things in life in whatever way you can.
Two days ago, I posted what I called my final chapter of the mystery of Fanny Wiler. I had finally learned where and when and why Fanny had died after receiving her death certificate from the Carnegie Library in Pittsburgh. But I ended that post with the remaining questions that still lingered. Was the child Bertha born to a Fanny Wieler and Joseph Levi in New York City the daughter of my Fanny? If so, what happened to her? Since I could not find the family on either the 1870 or the 1880 census and since the 1890 does not exist, I didn’t know whether Bertha had died, married, or moved away between 1866 and 1900, and I could not find her in 1900 or afterwards either.
But first I had to determine whether this was in fact the child of Fanny Wiler Levy. There was no point in chasing her down if she wasn’t my cousin. I’d already spent far too many hours chasing the wrong Fanny Wiler. So I ordered the birth certificate for the Bertha Levi born in New York in 1866. It arrived hours after I posted about Fanny. And I was both excited and a bit exasperated to see that Bertha was in fact the daughter of my Fanny.
Why exasperated? Because I had no idea what had happened to Bertha. I half-wanted that baby not to have been my cousin so I could finally really put closure on Fanny Wiler. I also feared that that baby had died and would thus just be one more sad story to add to the life of Fanny WIler. But there she was—definitely their child, daughter of Fanny Wieler born in Harrisburg. It had to be the same Fanny and the same Joseph, despite the misspellings and despite the birth in New York, not Philadelphia.
So back to the books I went, now even more determined to find Bertha. It took many searches and many different wildcards, databases, and spellings, and I still could not find the family on either the 1870 or 1880 census, but I did find this:
Ancestry.com. Pennsylvania, Death Certificates, 1906-1963 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014. Original data: Pennsylvania (State). Death certificates, 1906–1963. Series 11.90 (1,905 cartons). Records of the Pennsylvania Department of Health, Record Group 11. Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
How had this not turned up before? Because Joseph Levy was indexed as “Lery.” It was only when I searched for the name as “?e?y” that I finally got a hit. At first I wasn’t certain this was the right person, given that there was no mother’s name and that it said the mother was born in Germany. But the informant was “A.J. Levy,” and Fanny and Joseph’s oldest son was Alfred J. Levy, so I felt that there was enough here to pursue this Bertha, indexed on Ancestry.com as “Bertha Gellect.”
Well, there was no Bertha Gellect, and I decided that the name Gellert was a more likely option, even though it does look more like a “c” than an “r” on the death certificate. I also knew that in 1917 Bertha Gellert was living in Pottsville, Pennsylvania. Fortunately, my hunch was right, and I soon found Bertha and Jacob Gellert on the 1900 census living in Pottsville. Jacob was a tailor, born in New York, and he and Bertha had been married for three years or in 1897. This time the birth places of Bertha’s parents were correct: mother born in Pennsylvania, father in Germany. And the final clue that I had found the correct Bertha? Their two year old daughter was named Fanny.
I laughed, smiled, even cried a bit. My poor Fanny Wiler not only had been found; she had a namesake. Her daughter Bertha had named her first born child for her mother. Bertha had only been eleven when her mother died from tuberculosis, and it must have been an awful time for a young girl, watching her mother waste away from this dreadful disease. Bertha had honored her mother by naming her own daughter Fanny.
In 1910, Jacob, Bertha and Fanny were still living in Pottsville, but Jacob was now an insurance salesman, not a tailor. Sadly, as seen above, Bertha died seven years later from diabetes. She was only 51 years old. A few months after Bertha’s death, Jacob and Fanny both applied for passports in order to take a trip to Cuba—for “pleasure and rest,” as Jacob wrote on his passport application. Attached to Fanny’s application was a letter from a doctor, attesting to the health reasons for this trip to Cuba:
By the 1920 census, however, Jacob and Fanny were back in Pottsville. Jacob was now a widower, and his daughter Fanny was living with him. Jacob had his own business selling fire insurance. The following year, Fanny married Lester Guttman Block. Lester was born in Trenton, New Jersey, in 1895, the son of German immigrants, Daniel and Bertha. (Yes, his mother’s name was the same as that of his wife’s mother.) His father was a clothing merchant. In 1920, Lester was living with his widowed mother and his sister Alice in Trenton, where he worked as a clothing salesman in a retail store.
Fanny Gellert and Lester Block had two daughters born in the 1920s. Fanny’s father Jacob died from a brain tumor on July 23, 1927; he was 55 years old. His second wife Reba H. Gellert is named on the death certificate; he had married her by 1922, as they are listed together in the Pottsville directory of that year. Max Gellert of Pottsville, Jacob’s brother, was named as the informant. Notice also that Jacob’s mother’s name is given as Fanny Cohen. Like his daughter, Jacob had married someone whose mother had the same name as his mother. Could Fanny have been named for both of her grandmothers? Probably not since Jacob’s mother Fanny was still alive long after Jacob and Bertha’s daughter Fanny was born, and ordinarily Jews do not name their children for living grandparents.
In 1930 Lester and Fanny were living with their daughters as well as Lester’s mother Bertha. One of the daughters had a name starting with B, and since Lester’s mother was still alive, I assume that the daughter was named for Bertha Levy Gellert, Fanny’s mother. Lester was in the real estate and insurance business. In 1940, the members of the household were the same, and Lester was still an insurance agent, like his father-in-law Jacob.
Lester died on December 18, 1953, and is buried at Greenwood Cemetery in Trenton. Fanny Gellert Block, the granddaughter of Fanny Wiler Levy,the great-granddaughter of Caroline Dreyfuss Wiler, and my third cousin, twice removed, died on July 9, 1977, when she was 78 years old. She is buried at Greenwood Cemetery with her husband Lester.
Trenton Evening Times, July 30, 1977, p. 31
I am currently trying to contact the descendants of Fanny and Lester. I am hoping that they also will find meaning in the lives of our mutual ancestors and cousins.
View of Pottsville, Pennsylvania. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
If you’ve been following this blog for a while, you know that one of my most challenging mysteries involves my cousin Fanny Wiler, the daughter of Caroline Dreyfuss and Moses Wiler and first cousin of my great-great-grandmother Frances Nusbaum. Caroline was my three-times great-grandaunt, the sister of Jeanette Dreyfuss, my three-times great-grandmother. Her daughter Fanny had simply vanished after the 1860 census, and I was determined to find her. As I wrote here and here and here, it was a long and twisting path involving a different Fanny who married a man who killed himself and a daughter in a fire, a mishandled estate of Fanny’s mother Caroline and ensuing litigation, and finally the discovery of Fanny and her three sons with her husband Joseph Levy.
I know now that Fanny had married Joseph in 1866 and had had three sons with him. I know that Joseph had remarried sometime before 1879 because he had a daughter Miriam with his second wife Bella Strouse. And there was a NYC birth record for a Bertha Levi, daughter of Joseph Levi and Fanny Wieler, dated November 30, 1866, but I had not been able to trace her to my Fanny.
I assumed that Fanny had died, but when and where? I had no death record for her, no burial record, no obituary. Once again she had disappeared. All I could find was an entry on FindAGrave for a Fannie Levy with the dates 1846-1877, buried at Troy Hill Jewish cemetery in Pittsburgh. There was no photo or any other information on the FindAGrave page, but something told me that this could be my Fanny. The dates and the name seemed right, and Miriam Levy, the child of Joseph and Bella, was born in Pittsburgh in November, 1879. Thus, at some point Joseph had lived in Pittsburgh, so it was not out of the question to think that Fanny had also lived and then died there.
Troy Hill Jewish Cemetery Photo courtesy of Lisa Albanese
But how could I prove that the Fanny buried at Troy Hill was my Fanny? There was no statewide requirement for the filing of death certificates before 1906 in Pennsylvania, and unlike Philadelphia, there is no readily accessible database for all deaths in Pittsburgh. I searched directories for a Joseph Levy in Pittsburgh, and although there were one or two, there was no way to tell from the directory whether those were the correct men.
I decided first to look where Fanny’s sons and her husband were buried, and almost all were buried at Rodeph Shalom in Philadelphia. The remains of those buried at Rodeph Shalom had been moved to Roosevelt Cemetery after Rodeph Shalom closed, and I emailed that cemetery, but they had no remains for a Fanny Levy. I also emailed the Special Collections Research Center at Temple University in Philadelphia, where the archives of Rodeph Shalom synagogue are now kept, to ask if they had any records for Fanny Wiler Levy, and an archivist there did a search but did not find anything. I also concluded after much searching that Fanny was not buried at Mt. Sinai cemetery in Philadelphia, where her parents and many of her relatives were buried. At that point I began to think that Fanny was not buried in Philadelphia at all if she was neither where her children nor where her parents were buried.
Rodeph Shalom Synagogue on the NRHP since August 7, 2007. At 607–615 North Broad St., in the Poplar neighborhood of Philadelphia. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Pittsburgh thus became a realistic alternative location for her burial. I searched online for sources about Jewish records in Pittsburgh and found a link to Martha Berg, who is the archivist for Rodeph Shalom synagogue in Pittsburgh (I do not believe there is an affiliation between the two synagogues). Martha did an exhaustive search for me of records, newspapers, and cemeteries, and did not turn up any identifying information that would help me establish whether the Fannie Levy buried at Troy Hill was my Fanny Wiler Levy. She did, however, find the precise burial date for the Fannie Levy buried at Troy Hill—April 17, 1877. That proved to be very helpful.
By Nyttend (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons Rodeph Shalom Synagogue in Pittsburgh
From there, I got advice from the Pennsylvania genealogy group on Facebook, suggesting I contact the Carnegie Library in Pittsburgh where they have death records for Pittsburgh dating back to 1875. I called the Carnegie Library and requested a search for a death record for Fanny Levy who died around April 17, 1877. I then sat and waited to see if they could uncover something.
Finally, a package arrived in the mail the other day, and this was inside:
This has to be my elusive cousin Fanny. She was born in Harrisburg in 1846, so would have been 31 in 1877. Her prior residence had been in Philadelphia. She was married. I am quite certain I have finally found Fanny.
So now I know that Fanny Wiler Levy died on April 16, 1877, in Pittsburgh, from phythisis pulmonalis, or the wasting form of tuberculosis. I also know now that she had only lived in Pittsburgh for a year at the time of her death, which explains why all three of her sons were born in Philadelphia. Fanny was 31 years old and left at least three very young children behind and her husband. She was one more member of my family killed by tuberculosis. It is very sad that she lies buried so far from all of her family, all of whom are buried in Philadelphia.
Finally, I have some closure on Fanny Wiler. The remaining questions? Was Bertha Levi, the child born to a Joseph Levi and a Fanny Wieler in 1866 in NYC, my Fanny’s daughter? And what happened to her? Why can’t I find Joseph and his family on either the 1870 or the 1880 census?
Myer Nusbaum, my first cousin, four times removed, committed suicide after suffering from influenza from an extended period of time, a not all that rare a consequence of severe cases of the flu, as I’ve learned. He died in the arms of his fifteen year old son, Jacob Aub Nusbaum. His wife Rosalie Aub and daughter Corinne also came to identify his body. What impact could such an experience have on these survivors?
Of course, I cannot know for sure what they felt or how this affected them. I can only report the facts as recorded in documents and let them stand for themselves. His daughter Corinne became a successful student. She attended the Philadelphia Normal School, described by the Philadelphia Times as “Philadelphia’s great training school for teachers,” and graduated in 1897 when she was nineteen years old. (The Philadelphia Times, June 30, 1897, p. 4) She was certified to teach kindergarten. (The Philadelphia Times, July 1, 1897, p. 5) On Class Day in June, 1897, she was one of the authors of the class skit entitled “The Utopian Normal School.” The paper even included a portrait of her as one of the “active participants” in the Class Day exercises.
The Philadelphia Times, June 30, 1897, p. 4
In 1900, six years after Myer’s death, Rosalie and the two children, now 22 and 21, were living together on Cedar Avenue in Philadelphia with a boarder and a servant, and Jacob (now called Jack) was working as a salesman. Despite her training to become a teacher, Corinne did not have any occupation listed on the 1900 census.
Within a year or so of the census, Corinne married Albert E. Wood. Albert was born in Boston, the son of Samuel Wood and Emma Shaw, both born in England. Samuel was a salesman, according to the 1880 US census. Albert was the youngest child, and by 1880, the family had relocated to Camden, New Jersey. In 1900 Albert was living in Philadelphia with his older brother James and James’ wife Laura. Albert Wood and Corinne Nusbaum must have married soon thereafter as on December 9, 1901, their son Albert E. Wood, Jr., was born in Philadelphia. (I cannot locate a marriage record for Corinne and Albert in Philadelphia, so perhaps they were married in New Jersey.)
Albert continued to work as a salesman, and according to the 1901 Philadelphia directory, they were living at 5020 Hazel Avenue. The 1901 directory also has Corinne’s brother Jacob listed at that address, working as a salesman, so I assume that Corinne’s mother may also have been living with Corinne and Albert and Jacob.
According to the 1910 census, Albert and Corinne and their son were still living at 5020 Hazel Avenue along with Corinne’s mother Rosalie (listed as Rose A. Nusbaum on the census report) and a domestic servant. Albert’s occupation was reported as a traveling salesman of dyes. Jacob is not included on that census record.
Year: 1910; Census Place: Philadelphia Ward 46, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Roll: T624_1413; Page: 7A; Enumeration District: 1185; FHL microfilm: 1375426
I cannot seem to locate Jacob Nusbaum on the 1910 census at all, whether I search for him as Jacob, Jack, or John, a name he seemed to adopt as an adult. I found one Jacob Nusbaum living in Bradford, Pennsylvania, but he was an oil producer with a wife, and given what I know about Jacob after 1910, that does not seem likely to be the right Jacob Nusbaum.
By 1917, however, Jacob, now using John, was living in Pittsburgh, according to his World War I draft registration. How can I be certain that this is the right person? The next of kin listed on his registration is “Roslie A. Nusbaum” of 5020 Hazel Avenue in Philadelphia. Jacob/John was working as a traveling electric salesman for the Incandescent Supply Company.
Meanwhile, back in Philadelphia, Albert Wood and his family (as well as Rosalie, apparently) were all still living at 5020 Hazel Avenue, and Albert was a salesman for a chemical company, according to his draft registration. Since in 1920, his occupation is reported as a dye salesman, I assume that that is what he was also selling in 1917. The family was still living at 5020 Hazel Avenue in 1920, including Rosalie.
There are several errors; it says his parents were born in Ohio, when in fact both were born in Pennsylvania. It says he was married, but there is no record of that. So why do I believe this is the right person? The name (albeit badly misspelled), the age (he was actually 40, not 38), and the occupation (traveling salesman). More importantly, he was a roomer at 3401 Fifth Avenue in Pittsburgh; on his 1917 draft registration his address had been 3401 Forbes Avenue. Forbes Street also appears on the same page as the listings on Fifth Avenue on the census report and is very close by.
Was the census taker confused? Was Jacob/John confused in 1917? Or did he just happen to move to a new location with the same house number a few blocks away? It just seems like too much similarity in the address to be coincidental. So given that the information might have been given by the head of household where Jacob was a roomer, someone who might not have known where his parents were born or exactly how old he was, I am reasonably certain that this is the right John Nusbaum.
Back in Philadelphia, Jacob/John’s sister and her family and his mother continued to live at 5020 Hazel Avenue. On February 5, 1929, Rosalie Aub Nusbaum died at age 74 from a cerebral hemorrhage. She had lived 35 years since her husband’s sad death in 1894. She was buried beside him at Mt. Sinai cemetery.
Description Certificate Number Range : 024001-027000 Source Information Ancestry.com. Pennsylvania, Death Certificates, 1906-1963 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014. Original data: Pennsylvania (State). Death certificates, 1906–1963. Series 11.90 (1,905 cartons). Records of the Pennsylvania Department of Health, Record Group 11. Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
Her son Jacob/John died a year later on March 3, 1930, from what was ruled an accidental poisoning after drinking a bichloride solution. There was no coroner’s inquest on this death, but given the family history, I had some questions. How does one accidentally drink a poisonous solution? According to this article from the New England Journal of Medicine published in 1951, mercuric bicholoride was “widely available to the public” in tablet form for use as a disinfectant. It was ranked sixth on a list of the most common toxic materials ingested at Boston City Hospital between 1934 and 1943, which the authors of the article interpreted as “an indication of its popularity as means of attempting suicide.”
Ancestry.com. Pennsylvania, Death Certificates, 1906-1963 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014. Original data: Pennsylvania (State). Death certificates, 1906–1963. Series 11.90 (1,905 cartons). Records of the Pennsylvania Department of Health, Record Group 11. Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
The death certificate indicates that the place of death was 5427 Kentucky Avenue in Pittsburgh. I looked up that address on the 1930 census and found that Hyman and Charlotte Grinberg were living there. They were a foreign-born retired couple in their sixties; Hyman was Russian, Charlotte was Romanian. In 1920 they’d been living at the same address with their daughter Pauline, and Hyman had been working as a merchant. What was Jacob/John Nusbaum doing at their home, and why was he drinking a bicholoride solution? Or had he ingested it days before? I was surprised not to find any news report or coroner’s inquest about this unfortunate accident.
The residence listed for Jacob/John Nusbaum on the death certificate is Montefiore Hospital in Pittsburgh. At first I wondered whether he was a residential patient at the hospital. If so, what was he doing at the home of the Grinbergs when he died? But then I looked at the 1929 Pittsburgh city directory and found a J. A. Nusbaum listed as a salesman for the Incandescent Lighting Company, living at 5427 Kentucky Avenue, the address where he died and where the Grinbergs were listed on the 1930 census. John/Jacob must have been a boarder in the home of the Grinbergs after their daughter Pauline left home. So he died at home. I don’t know why the certificate indicates his home was at the hospital. Maybe the informant didn’t know where John lived?
Title : Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, City Directory, 1929
The informant on the death certificate was not a family member, but someone named M. Newland residing at 922 Penn Avenue in Pittsburgh. It was clear that it was not someone who knew him well as neither parent’s name was included on the certificate nor did he know Jacob’s birth date. He did know that Jacob worked as a salesman and that he was born in Philadelphia. My initial guess was that Mr. Newland was either a lawyer or perhaps a friend who did not know Jacob very well. But then I looked for him in the 1929 directory and found that he was the president of the Incandescent Lighting Company, Jacob’s employer.
Jacob “John” Nusbaum was buried at Mt. Sinai cemetery in Philadelphia with his parents; he was 51 when died (not “about 45,” as indicated on the death certificate).
His sister Corinne Nusbaum Wood was the only surviving member of the family. In 1930, she, her husband Albert, and their son Albert, Jr., (now 28) were living at Rittenhouse Plaza on Walnut Street, paying $335 in rent. Albert, Sr., was still selling dye; Albert, Jr., was working in sales for an oil refinery.
In 1934, Albert, Jr., married Rachel Crownover. They were both 33 years old. Rachel was a Pennsylvania native and lived in Huntingdon as a child; her father Edgar Holmes Crownover was a hotelkeeper there. He died at age 43 in 1907 when Rachel was six; her mother Charlotte stayed in Huntingdon with the children for a number of years, but by 1920 they had relocated to Philadelphia where Rachel was working as a stenographer. In 1930 Rachel was living with her brother Charles, her mother having died the year before. Rachel was now working as an auditor for a furnace company. Four years later she married Albert E. Wood, Jr.
On April 19, 1938, Albert E. Wood, Sr., died from arteriosclerosis. He was 63 years old. He was cremated.
Ancestry.com. Pennsylvania, Death Certificates, 1906-1963 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014. Original data: Pennsylvania (State). Death certificates, 1906–1963. Series 11.90 (1,905 cartons). Records of the Pennsylvania Department of Health, Record Group 11. Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
Two years later his widow Corinne was still living where they’d been living at the Fairfax Apartments, according to the 1940 census. Albert, Jr., and Rachel were living at the Embassy Apartments on Walnut Street. Albert was working as an air conditioning engineer, and Rachel was working as secretary. They had not had any children.
Corinne Nusbaum Wood died on March 15, 1953, from heart disease; she was 74. Like her husband, she was cremated.
Ancestry.com. Pennsylvania, Death Certificates, 1906-1963 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014. Original data: Pennsylvania (State). Death certificates, 1906–1963. Series 11.90 (1,905 cartons). Records of the Pennsylvania Department of Health, Record Group 11. Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
Her son Albert, Jr., died two years later on April 1, 1955, of a heart attack. He was 54 years old. He also was cremated.
Ancestry.com. Pennsylvania, Death Certificates, 1906-1963 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014. Original data: Pennsylvania (State). Death certificates, 1906–1963. Series 11.90 (1,905 cartons). Records of the Pennsylvania Department of Health, Record Group 11. Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
His wife Rachel survived him, and since there is no death certificate for her in the Pennsylvania database that runs through 1963, she must have lived at least until 1964 (or moved out of Pennsylvania). I have yet to find a death record or an obituary for her.
Thus ended another line in the Nusbaum family. There are no living descendants of Myer and Rosalie Nusbaum and their children.
![By Karsten Ratzke (Own work) [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons](https://brotmanblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/1024px-frankfurt_schumannstrac39fe_15.jpg)
![Ancestry.com. Pennsylvania, Death Certificates, 1906-1963 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014.](https://brotmanblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/viola-barritt-death-cert.jpg)
![Ancestry.com. Pennsylvania, Death Certificates, 1906-1963 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014.](https://brotmanblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/edgar-nusbaum-death-cert.jpg)
![Ancestry.com. Texas, Death Certificates, 1903–1982 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2013.](https://brotmanblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/celina-nusbaum-carnes-death-cert.jpg)
![Ancestry.com. Texas, Death Certificates, 1903–1982 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2013.](https://brotmanblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/donald-carnes-death-cert.jpg)
![Ancestry.com. U.S. City Directories, 1821-1989 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011.](https://brotmanblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/carnes-directory-1942.jpg)
![Ancestry.com. Pennsylvania, Death Certificates, 1906-1963 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014. Original data: Pennsylvania (State). Death certificates, 1906–1963. Series 11.90 (1,905 cartons). Records of the Pennsylvania Department of Health, Record Group 11. Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania](https://brotmanblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/bertha-levy-gellert-death-cert.jpg)
![Ancestry.com. U.S. Passport Applications, 1795-1925 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2007.](https://brotmanblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/gellert-passport-application1.jpg)
![Ancestry.com. Pennsylvania, Death Certificates, 1906-1963 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014.](https://brotmanblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/jacob-gellert-death-cert.jpg)
![By Nyttend (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons](https://brotmanblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/1024px-facade_of_temple_rodef_shalom.jpg)
![Description Certificate Number Range : 024001-027000 Source Information Ancestry.com. Pennsylvania, Death Certificates, 1906-1963 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014. Original data: Pennsylvania (State). Death certificates, 1906–1963. Series 11.90 (1,905 cartons). Records of the Pennsylvania Department of Health, Record Group 11. Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.](https://brotmanblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/rosalie-aub-death-cert.jpg)
![Ancestry.com. Pennsylvania, Death Certificates, 1906-1963 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014. Original data: Pennsylvania (State). Death certificates, 1906–1963. Series 11.90 (1,905 cartons). Records of the Pennsylvania Department of Health, Record Group 11. Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.](https://brotmanblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/jacob-aub-nusbaum-death-cert.jpg)
![Ancestry.com. Pennsylvania, Death Certificates, 1906-1963 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014. Original data: Pennsylvania (State). Death certificates, 1906–1963. Series 11.90 (1,905 cartons). Records of the Pennsylvania Department of Health, Record Group 11. Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.](https://brotmanblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/albert-wood-sr-death-cert.jpg)
![Ancestry.com. Pennsylvania, Death Certificates, 1906-1963 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014. Original data: Pennsylvania (State). Death certificates, 1906–1963. Series 11.90 (1,905 cartons). Records of the Pennsylvania Department of Health, Record Group 11. Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.](https://brotmanblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/corinne-nusbaum-wood-death-cert.jpg)
![Ancestry.com. Pennsylvania, Death Certificates, 1906-1963 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014. Original data: Pennsylvania (State). Death certificates, 1906–1963. Series 11.90 (1,905 cartons). Records of the Pennsylvania Department of Health, Record Group 11. Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.](https://brotmanblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/albert-wood-jr-death-cert.jpg)
Brotmanblog: A Family Journey 