Category Archives: Goldschmidt/Goldsmith

Sarah Goldschmidt’s Sons 1910-1930: Years of Comfort, Years of Loss

Posted on by
25

We saw that the family of Sarah Goldschmidt and Salomon Stern’s daughter Keile Stern Loewenthal experienced much growth and prosperity during the 1910s and 1920s. This post will focus on their two sons, Abraham and Mayer, and their lives between 1910 and 1930.

As of 1910, Abraham (known as Adolf) Stern and his wife and first cousin Johanna Goldschmidt had four grown children: Siegfried, Clementine, Sittah Sarah, and Alice. I am so grateful to Siegfried’s grandson Rafi Stern, my fifth cousin, who kindly shared the photographs that appear in this post.

This photograph shows the house where Abraham and Johanna lived and raised their children in Frankfurt. As you can see, the family was quite comfortably situated as Abraham was a successful merchant in Frankfurt.

Home of Abraham Adolf Stern and Johanna Goldschmidt in Frankfurt. Courtesy of their great-grandson, Rafi Stern.

Their son Siegfried Stern married Lea Hirsch on June 4, 1912, in Frankfurt.1 She was born in Halberstadt, Germany, on April 10, 1892, to Abraham Hirsch and Mathilde Kulp.2 Siegfried and Lea had two sons, Erich Ernst Benjamin Stern, born March 27, 1913, in Frankfurt,3 and Gunther Stern, born May 5, 1916, in Frankfurt.4

Siegfried Stern, courtesy of Rafi Stern.

Siegfried, Lea, and Erich Stern c.

Siegfried, Lea, and Erich Stern, 1913. Courtesy of Siegfried’s grandson, Rafi Stern.

Home of Siegfried Stern as it looks today. Courtesy of his grandson, Rafi Stern.

Abraham and Johanna’s second child Clementine Stern was married to Siegfried Oppenheimer, a doctor, and had a daughter Erika, born in 1909, as seen in my earlier post. Clementine would have two more children, William Erwin Oppenheimer, born on October 29, 1912, in Frankfurt,5 and Sarah Gabriele Oppenheimer, born July 20, 1917, in Frankfurt.6

Clementine’s sister Sittah Sarah Stern married Abraham Albert Mainz on October 3, 1911, in Mainz. He was born in Paris, France, on May 31, 1883, to Leopold Mainz and Hermine Straus.

Marriage record of Sarah Sittah Stern and Abraham Mainz, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930

Sittah Sarah and Abraham Mainz would have two children, Marguerite Wera Mainz, born in Frankfurt on October 22, 1913,7 and Helmut Walter Solomon Mainz, born April 13, 1918, in Frankfurt.8 The photograph below depicts their home in Frankfurt on the first and second floors of the building.

Building in Frankfurt where Sittah Sarah and Abraham Mainz lived. Courtesy of Rafi Stern.

Abraham and Johanna would lose their two oldest children in the next several years. First, Clementine Stern Oppenheimer died on January 18, 1919, in Frankfurt. She was only 29 years old and left behind three young children, Erika (ten), William Erwin (seven), and Sarah Gabriele (two). Like millions of others, Clementine died from the Spanish flu epidemic, according to her great-nephew, my cousin Rafi.

Clementine Stern Oppenheimer death record, Personenstandsregister Sterberegister; Bestand: 903; Signatur: 10812, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Deaths, 1851-1958

A year later, as so often happened in Jewish families back then, Clementine’s younger sister Alice Lea Stern married Clementine’s widower Siegfried Oppenheimer. They were married on October 6, 1920, in Frankfurt.

Marriage record of Alice Lea Stern to Siegfried Oppenheimer, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 903, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930

Alice and Siegfried would have five children together in the 1920s.

Just two years after losing Clementine, Abraham and Johanna lost their first born, Siegfried Stern. He died on July 9, 1921, in Oberursel, Germany. He was only 32.  He died at the Frankfurter Kuranstalt Hohemark, a psychiatric hospital.  According to his grandson Rafi, Siegfried had suffered a business failure and become despondent. He was hospitalized and tragically took his own life. He left behind his wife Lea and their two young children Erich (eight) and Gunther (five).

Siegfried Stern death record, Personenstandsregister Sterberegister; Bestand: 908; Signatur: 3821, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Deaths, 1851-1958

Below is Siegfried’s gravestone, one of the most beautiful I’ve ever seen, and the inscription is heartbreaking to read, knowing Siegfried’s story. I am grateful to the members of Tracing the Tribe for this partial translation:

Here lies buried Mr. Shlomo son in Mr. Asher Avraham STERN “shlita” (indicates that his father was alive at the time of the sons death).
A man who feared G-d, he revived the hearts of the downtrodden in secret.

He was pure in his thoughts and pure in his body, and all his purpose was the returning of his soul, pure, to his maker.

He respected his father and his mother with all of his ability.

He respected his wife more than his own body.

He died with a good name at the age of 32 to the sorrow of all that knew him, on the holy day of Shabbos, 3 Tamuz, and was buried with crying and eulogies on Monday the 5th of the same month. (5)681 (according to the small count) (1921).
May his soul be bound in the bonds of life.

 

Gravestone of Siegfried Stern, courtesy of his grandson Rafi Stern.

Siegfried’s widow Lea remarried a few years after Siegfried’s death and would have two more children with her second husband, Ernst Sigmund Schwarzschhild.9

Not long after losing his children Siegfried and Clementine, Abraham Adolf Stern himself passed away. He died on December 29, 1925, at the age of 67. He was survived by his wife/cousin Johanna and his two remaining children, Sittah Sarah and Alice Lea, and his grandchildren.

Abraham Stern death record, Personenstandsregister Sterberegister; Bestand: 903; Signatur: 10909, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Deaths, 1851-1958

The kind people at Tracing the Tribe translated Abraham’s gravestone for me:

Here is buried
Asher Avraham son of Shlomo called Adolf Albert Stern
a great man and a leader of his people
complete in his deeds and of good discernment.
The beginning of his wisdom comes from his belief in God

He oversaw his children and descendants

His house was a house of the righteous and a dwelling place of Torah
His soul is entwined in that of his humble wife.
You are gone and caused the middle of the day to turn dark. From heaven you are alive with us.

Died 12 Tevet and buried 14th of the month, [year] 5686 / [abbreviation]

May his soul be bound in the bond of life.

 

Abraham Adolf Stern gravestone. Courtesy of his great-grandson, Rafi Stern.

Abraham’s brother Mayer Stern and his wife Gella Hirsch had two children born in the 1890s, Elsa and Markus. Elsa married Jacob Alfred Schwarzschild on January 22, 1911, in Frankfurt. Jacob was the son of Alfred Isaac Schwarzchild and Recha Goldschmidt and was born February 12, 1885 in Frankfurt.  Jacob was Elsa’s second cousin. His mother Recha was the daughter of Selig Goldschmidt, and Elsa’s father Mayer was the son of Sarah Goldschmidt, Selig’s older sister. Once again, the family tree was bending around itself.

Marriage record of Elsa Stern and Jacob Schwarzschild, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930

Elsa and Jacob had one child, Elizabeth, reportedly born July 26, 1915, in Frankfurt.10

Elsa’s marriage to Jacob did not last, despite the cousin relationship. The marginal comment on their marriage record attests to their divorce. Thank you to the members of the German Genealogy group who provided the translation of this comment:

Certified transcript
By decree nisi of the Regional Court at Frankfurt on Main, which became final at the end of 27 June 1920, the marriage between the banker Jakob Alfred Schwarzschild and Else Sara Schwarzschild née Stern has been divorced.
Frankfurt on Main, 13 October 1920
Civil Registry Clerk
pp. Dippel
Certified
Frankfurt on Main, 9 February 1921
[Signature]
Court Clerk

On August 18, 1920, just months after the divorce became final, Elsa Stern Schwarzschild married Alfred Hirsch.  Alfred was born in Hamburg to Esaias Hirsch and Charlotte Wolf on May 19, 1890.  Together, Alfred and Elsa had three children born in the 1920s.11

Marriage record of Elsa Stern to Alfred Hirsch, Year Range and Volume: 1920 Band 03
Ancestry.com. Hamburg, Germany, Marriages, 1874-1920

Mayer and Gella’s son Markus married Rhee (Rosa) Mess on August 25, 1923, in Frankfurt. She was born in Radziwillow, Poland on July 25, 1898, to Samuel Mess and Ester-Raza Landis.12

Thus, as the family approached the 1930s, Sarah Goldschmidt’s surviving descendants were living comfortable lives, but had suffered a number of terrible losses between 1910 and 1930, including two of Sarah’s children, Keile and Abraham, and three of her grandchildren, Abraham’s children Clementine Stern Oppenheimer and Siegfried Stern, and Keile’s daughter Martha Loewenthal Wolff.

But Lina and Mayer were still living as of 1930 as were eight of Sarah’s grandchildren. All of them would see their comfortable and prosperous lives as German Jews upturned by the rise of Nazism in the coming decade.

 

  1. The marriage date comes from the Cibella/Baron research; I have no primary source for this specific date, but it is clear that Siegfried and Lea married before 1913 when their son Erich was born. ↩
  2. Certificate Number: 98, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 903, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930. ↩
  3.  The National Archives; Kew, London, England; HO 396 WW2 Internees (Aliens) Index Cards 1939-1947; Reference Number: HO 396/89, Ancestry.com. UK, WWII Alien Internees, 1939-1945 ↩
  4. The National Archives; Kew, London, England; HO 396 WW2 Internees (Aliens) Index Cards 1939-1947; Reference Number: HO 396/197, Ancestry.com. UK, WWII Alien Internees, 1939-1945  ↩
  5. Application for Palestinian Citizenship, Israel State Archives website found at https://www.archives.gov.il/en/archives/#/Archive/0b07170680034dc1/File/0b071706810638e5 ↩
  6. SSN: 121546243, Ancestry.com. U.S., Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007 ↩
  7.  The National Archives; Kew, London, England; HO 396 WW2 Internees (Aliens) Index Cards 1939-1947; Reference Number: HO 396/222, Description
    Piece Number Description: 222: Dead Index (Wives of Germans etc) 1941-1947: Eastw-Fey, Ancestry.com. UK, WWII Alien Internees, 1939-1945 ↩
  8.  The National Archives; Kew, London, England; HO 396 WW2 Internees (Aliens) Index Cards 1939-1947; Reference Number: HO 396/58, Ancestry.com. UK, WWII Alien Internees, 1939-1945 ↩
  9. Marriage record of Ernst Schwarzschild and Lea Hirsch Stern, Certificate Number: 98, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 903, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930 ↩
  10. This is the date provided by Cibella/Baron. I also found one record for an Isabel Schwarzschild Weil born on that date: The National Archives at Washington, D.C.; Washington, D.C.; NAI Number: 2848504; Record Group Title: Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, 1787 – 2004; Record Group Number: 85; Series Number: A3998; NARA Roll Number: 701, Ancestry.com. New York State, Passenger and Crew Lists, 1917-1967. I believe this is for Elsa and Jacob’s daughter. I am still looking for additional records. ↩
  11. Application for Palestinian Citizenship, Israeli State Archives, at https://www.archives.gov.il/en/archives/#/Archive/0b07170680034dc1/File/0b07170680fd6abf ↩
  12.  National Archives and Records Administration; Washington, DC; NAI Title: Index to Petitions for Naturalizations Filed in Federal, State, and Local Courts in New York City, 1792-1906; NAI Number: 5700802; Record Group Title: Records of District Courts of the United States, 1685-2009; Record Group Number: RG 21, Description
    Description: (Roll 1256) Petition No· 352904 – Petition No· 353350, Ancestry.com. New York, State and Federal Naturalization Records, 1794-1943 ↩

Sarah Goldschmidt’s Daughters and Their Children, 1910-1930: The Calm Before The Storm

Posted on by
23

In this post, I will focus on the two daughters of Sarah Goldschmidt and Salomon Stern, Lina and Keile, and their lives and the lives of Keile’s family between 1910 and 1930 in Germany.

Lina Stern Brinkmann

We saw last time that Lina lost her husband Levi Brinkmann on September 14, 1907, when she was fifty-five years old. Lina and Levi had not had children, and the only other record I have for Lina is her death record. She died on January 31, 1935, in Frankfurt, Germany. She was 84 years old. Lina experienced the first few years of Nazi reign in Germany. I wonder if in some way it hastened her death.

Lina Stern Brinkmann death record, Personenstandsregister Sterberegister; Bestand: 903; Signatur: 11044, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Deaths, 1851-1958

Keile Stern Loewenthal

We also saw last time that Lina’s sister Keile had lost her husband Abraham Loewenthal in the first decade of the 20th century.  He was survived by Keile and their five children: Selma, Julius, Helen, Siegfried, and Martha.

Selma Loewenthal was married to Nathan Schwabacher and had three children: Alice, Julius, and Gerhard.

UPDATE: Thanks to the generosity of her great-granddaughter Carrie, I am able to share these photographs of Selma, Nathan, and their children and grandchildren.

Selma Loewenthal younger

Selma Loewenthal Courtesy of her family

Nathan Schwabacher

Nathan Schwabacher

Alice Schwabacher younger

Alice Schwabacher

Gerhard Paul Schwabacher

Gerhard Schwabacher Courtesy of the family

Fred Wenten Julius Alfred Schwabacher

Julius Schwabacher

Wolfgang Schwabacher and dog

Wolfgang Weinstein and dog

IMG_0320

Eva Lore Schwabacher Courtesy of the family

Selma Loewenthal Schwabacher

Selma Loewenthal Schwabacher Courtesy of the family

Alice Schwabacher married David Weinstein on October 7, 1912, in Frankfurt. David was the son of Cappel Weinstein and Cecelia Weinstein and was born in Eschwege on December 19, 1885.

Marriage record of Alice Schwabacher and David Weinstein , Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 903, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930

Alice and David had one son, Wolfgang Carl Weinstein, born in Eschwege on November 9, 1913. He was Keile’s first great-grandchild.1

Julius Schwabacher married Margarete Wurtemberg on September 20, 1920, in Erfurt Germany.  Margarete was born in that city in 1894; I could not find the names of her parents.2 Margarete gave birth to Eva Lore Schwabacher on June 11, 1921, in Frankfurt.3 But the marriage between Julius and Margarete did not last, and they were divorced in 1928.4

Julius Loewenthal and his wife Elsa Werner, had two children before 1910, Ruth and Herbert, and two more before 1920.  Hilda Henriette Loewenthal was born on October 22, 1911,5 and Karl-Werner Loewenthal, who was born on February 14, 1918, in Eschwege.6 Only Ruth married before 1930. She married Leonhard Fulda on March 16, 1928, in Eschwege. Leonhard was the son of Isaac Fulda and Johanna Rosenblatt, and he was born May 2, 1898, in Mainz, Germany.

Marriage Record of Ruth Loewenthal and Leonhard Fulda, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 923; Laufende Nummer: 1913
Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930

Marriage Record of Ruth Loewenthal and Leonhard Fulda, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 923; Laufende Nummer: 1913 Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930

Helene Loewenthal had married Eduard Feuchtwanger in 1897, but it appears that that marriage did not last. On October 9, 1913, Helene married Oskar Friedrich August Heinrich Maximilian Schultze. As you can see from the marriage record, Oskar was not Jewish, but “evangilische,” Protestant.

Helene Loewenthal Feuchtwanger marriage to Oskar Friedrich August Heinrich Maximilian Schultze, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 925; Laufende Nummer: 2493, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930

Helene and Oskar had one child, Elisabeth Auguste Aloysia Schultze born on December 3, 1914, and baptized on May 12, 1915, in Koblenz, Germany.

Birth record of Elisabeth Schultze, Description: Taufen, Heiraten u Tote 1869-1920
Ancestry.com. Rhineland, Prussia, Lutheran Baptisms, Marriages, and Burials, 1533-1950

Siegfried Loewenthal’s family also continued to grow in the 1910s. He and his wife Henriette Feuchtwanger had two more children in that decade, following the births of the first three children, Rosel in 1908 and Albert in 1909, and Louise Sarah Loewenthal in 1910, all in Frankfurt. Grete was born on April 16, 1913, and lastly, Lotte Loewenthal was born on October 3, 1914.7

UPDATE: Aaron Knappstein located Grete’s birth record.

Grete Loewenthal birth record from AK

Martha Loewenthal, Keile’s fifth and youngest child, and her husband Jakob Wolff did not have any additional children after 1910. Their three children Anna, Hans Anton, and Hans Walter, were growing up in that decade.

Thus, by 1920, Keile had fifteen grandchildren and one great-grandchild. The 1910s had been good to her and her children. But 1920 brought the next loss to the family when Nathan Schwabacher, Selma’s husband and Keile’s son-in-law, died on March 6, 1920, at the age of sixty.8

The decade ended with two big losses for the family. Keile Stern Loewenthal died on January 9, 1927, in Frankfurt; she was 73. She was survived by her five children, sixteen grandchildren, and one great-grandchild with more to come.

Keile Stern Loewenthal death record, Personenstandsregister Sterberegister; Bestand: 903; Signatur: 10926, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Deaths, 1851-1958

And her daughter Martha died three years later on May 19, 1930. She was only 47 years old and was survived by her husband Jakob Wolff and their three children.9

UPDATE: Aaron Knappstein also located Martha’s actual death record.

Martha Loewenthal Wolff death cert from AK

For Keile’s other children, Selma, Julius, Helene, and Siegfried, and for their children, the 15 years after Keile’s death in 1927 would bring many challenges and much heartache when life for Jews in Germany was forever altered by the rise of Hitler and Nazism.

Before we turn to that era, let’s catch up with Keile’s siblings, Sarah Goldschmidt’s sons, Abraham Stern and Mayer Stern, and their families.

 

 

  1. SSN: 041105870, Ancestry.com. U.S., Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007 ↩
  2. Julius Schwabacher naturalization papers, The National Archives at Philadelphia; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; NAI Title: Declarations of Intention for Citizenship, 1/19/1842 – 10/29/1959; NAI Number: 4713410; Record Group Title: Records of District Courts of the United States, 1685-2009; Record Group Number: 21, Ancestry.com. New York, State and Federal Naturalization Records, 1794-1943 ↩
  3. SSN: 045121672.
    Ancestry.com. U.S., Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007 ↩
  4. See footnote 2. ↩
  5.  National Archives and Records Administration; Washington, DC; NAI Title: Index to Petitions for Naturalizations Filed in Federal, State, and Local Courts in New York City, 1792-1906; NAI Number: 5700802; Record Group Title: Records of District Courts of the United States, 1685-2009; Record Group Number: RG 21, Description: (Roll 1126) Petition No· 304900 – Petition No· 305314, Ancestry.com. New York, State and Federal Naturalization Records, 1794-1943 ↩
  6. Arolsen Archives, Digital Archive; Bad Arolsen, Germany; Lists of Persecutees 2.1.1.1; Series: 2.1.1.1, Reference Code: 02010101 oS, Ancestry.com. Europe, Registration of Foreigners and German Persecutees, 1939-1947 ↩
  7. Grete’s birthdate comes from her immigration file at the Israel Archives, found at https://www.archives.gov.il/en/archives/#/Archive/0b07170680034dc1/File/0b07170680a31bed.  Lotte’s birth date appears in several documents including at Arolsen Archives, Digital Archive; Bad Arolsen, Germany; Lists of Persecutees 2.1.1.1; Series: 2.1.1.1, Reference Code: 02010101 oS, Ancestry.com. Europe, Registration of Foreigners and German Persecutees, 1939-1947. ↩
  8. Death record of Nathan Schwabacher, Certificate Number: 426,
    Personenstandsregister Sterberegister; Bestand: 903; Signatur: 10828,
    Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Deaths, 1851-1958 ↩
  9. Translated death record located in Jakob Wolff’s immigration file at the Israel Archives, found at https://www.archives.gov.il/en/archives/#/Archive/0b07170680034dc1/File/0b07170680e4ea29 ↩

Sarah Goldschmidt’s Descendants: The Family Expands 1889-1909

Posted on by
33

As seen in my last post, Sarah Goldschmidt Stern was survived by four children, Lina, Keile, Abraham, and Mayer, and by eleven grandchildren: Keile’s five children, Abraham’s four children, and Mayer’s two children. Lina did not have children.

Before the dawn of the 20th century, Keile had herself become a grandmother. Her daughter Selma Loewenthal married Nathan Schwabacher on August 1, 1890, in Bornheim. He was born on December 30, 1860, in Feuchtwangen, Germany, to Elias Baer Schwabacher and Jette Gutmann. Notice that Levi Brinkmann, husband of Selma’s aunt Lina, was one of the witnesses.

Marriage record of Selma Loewenthal and Nathan Schwabacher, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Signatur: 9490
Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930

Selma and Nathan’s first child was Alice Therese Schwabacher, born December 29, 1891, in Frankfurt.

Alice Schwabacher birth record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 903; Signatur: 903_9093, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Births, 1851-1901

Next came Julius Schwabacher, born May 17, 1893, in Frankfurt.

Julius Schwabacher birth record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 903; Signatur: 903_9120, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Births, 1851-1901

Their third child Gerhard Schwabacher was actually born in the 20th century. He was born in Frankfurt on June 27, 1902.1

Keile and Abraham Loewenthal’s second oldest daughter Helene also married in the 1890s. She married Eduard Feuchtwanger on April 4, 1897, in Frankfurt. He was the son of Jacob Loew Feuchtwanger and Auguste Hahn, and was born in Munich on April 21, 1862. Keile’s brother Abraham Stern was a witness to this marriage.

Marriage of Helene Loewenthal and Eduard Feuchtwanger, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 903, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930

But the happiness brought by the marriages of Keile’s daughters Selma and Helene and the births of her grandchildren between 1891 and 1902 was unfortunately darkened by the death of her husband Abraham Loewenthal on January 28, 1903. He was sixty years old.

Abraham Loewenthal death record, Personenstandsregister Sterberegister; Bestand: 903; Signatur: 10570,Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Deaths, 1851-1958

The first decade of the 20th century brought one other loss to the family when Lina’s husband Levi Brinkmann died on September 14, 1907, in Eschwege, Germany. He was only 65.

Levi Brinkmann death record, Personenstandsregister Sterberegister; Bestand: 903; Signatur: 11044, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Deaths, 1851-1958

Thus, both Keile and her sister Lina were widowed during that decade.

But that first decade also brought new members into the family as more of the grandchildren of Sarah Goldschmidt Stern began to marry and have children. First, Julius Loewenthal, Keile’s son, married Elsa Werner on November 16, 1903, in Eschwege, Germany. Elsa was the daughter of Max Werner and Helene Katzenstein, and she was born on June 27, 1883, in Eschwege.

UPDATE: Thank you to David Baron for pointing out that Elsa Werner was a second cousin to Julius Loewenthal. Her mother Helene Katzenstein Werner was the daughter of Malchen Goldschmidt Katzenstein, younger sister of Sarah Goldschmidt Stern. Thus, Julius and Elsa were both the great-grandchildren of Meyer Goldschmidt.

Julius Loewenthal and Elsa Stern marriage record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 923, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930

Julius and Elsa had two children in the first decade of the 20th century. Ruth Loewenthal was born on October 22, 1905, in Eschwege,2 and Herbert Loewenthal was born on September 2, 1909.3 Two more children would come in the next decade.

Keile and Abraham Loewenthal’s daughter Martha also married in this decade. On November 8, 1904, she married Jakob Abraham Wolff, son of Abraham Wolff and Hannchen Wolff, in Frankfurt. Jakob was born in Aurich, Germany, on December 20, 1875. Keile’s brother Abraham Stern was once again a witness to this marriage.

Martha Loewenthal marriage to Jakob Wolff, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 903, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930

Martha and Jakob had three children.  Anna was born on July 23, 1905,4  Hans Anton was born on December 1, 1906, and Hans Walter on December 6, 1909. 5

Martha’s brother Siegfried Loewenthal also married in this decade. Siegfried married Henriette Feuchtwanger, daughter of Amson Feuchtwanger and Roeschen Oppenheimer, sometime before 1908. Henriette was born in Furth on October 13, 1881.6  Siegfried and Henriette had three children born between their marriage and 1910: Rosel on February 14, 1908,7 Albert on March 25, 1909,8 and Louise on December 25, 1910,9 all in Frankfurt. They would have two more children in the next decade.

Thus, by the end of 1910, Keile Stern Loewenthal had eleven grandchildren, Sarah Goldschmidt’s great-grandchildren, Meyer Goldschmidt’s great-great-grandchildren. My fourth cousins, once removed.

UPDATE: Thank you to my cousin Carrie for sharing this photograph of her great-great-grandmother, Kiele Stern Loewenthal.

Grandma Caroline Stern Born July 11, 1852

Keile Stern Loewenthal. Courtesy of her family

Keile was not the only child of Sarah Goldschmidt Stern to have grandchildren in the first decade of the 20th century. On April 14, 1909, Abraham Stern’s daughter Clementine married Siegfried Oppenheimer in Frankfurt. He was born in Hannover on October 16, 1882, the son of Wilhelm Oppenheimer and Jettchen Cramer. He was a physician.

Marriage of Clementine Stern and Siegfried Oppenheimer, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 903, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930

Clementine and Siegfried had twins on December 23, 1909. Sadly, one was stillborn. The other twin Erika survived.10 Given that Clementine and Siegfried were married just eight months when Clementine gave birth, I wonder whether the twins were born prematurely, thus contributing to or causing the death of one of those babies.

Death record of Oppenheimer infant, Personenstandsregister Sterberegister; Bestand: 903; Signatur: 10652, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Deaths, 1851-1958

Clementine and Siegfried would have more children in the next decade, as would Clementine’s siblings and her first cousins. But with the growth of the family tree during the twenty years that followed Sarah Goldschmidt’s death in 1889, it’s time to focus on each of her children and their children and grandchildren separately as we move forward into the 1910s and beyond.

  1. National Archives at Boston; Waltham, Massachusetts; ARC Title: Naturalization Record Books, 12/1893 – 9/1906; NAI Number: 2838938; Record Group Title: Records of District Courts of the United States, 1685-2009; Record Group Number: RG 21, Ancestry.com. Connecticut, Federal Naturalization Records, 1790-1996 ↩
  2.  Certificate Number: 12, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 923; Laufende Nummer: 1913, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930 ↩
  3.  Arolsen Archives, Digital Archive; Bad Arolsen, Germany; Lists of Persecutees 2.1.1.1; Series: 2.1.1.1, Reference Code: 02010101 oSm Source Information
    Ancestry.com. Europe, Registration of Foreigners and German Persecutees, 1939-1947 ↩
  4. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA); Washington, DC; Name Index of Jews Whose German Nationality Was Annulled by the Nazi Regime (Berlin Documents Center); Record Group: 242, National Archives Collection of Foreign Records Seized, 1675 – 1958; Record Group ARC ID: 569; Publication Number: T355; Roll: 9, Stern, Johanna (Löb) – Zysmann, Judith, Ancestry.com. Germany, Index of Jews Whose German Nationality was Annulled by Nazi Regime, 1935-1944 ↩
  5. I encountered trouble finding birth records as I began to research children born in Frankfurt after 1901 because the online records for Frankfurt births end with 1901. Although these birth dates are listed on trees on Ancestry and MyHeritage, the trees do not cite to specific sources.  I never rely on these unsourced trees unless I can find a source to verify the information. In this case, there is also the extensive research done over many years by my cousin Roger Cibella and his husband David Baron, both on the website they created in 1998, The History of the Jewish Community of Frankfurt am Main, and in the updated family report they shared with me more recently. Roger and David’s research has always proven to be thorough and accurate, so I have faith in their work, even though I do not have access to their sources for these birth dates.  Where I have relied on Roger and David’s research, I will cite to their work as “Cibella/Baron,” either in the text or in a footnote. That is the case for two of the three children of Martha Loewenthal and Jakob Wollf, Hans Anton, and Hans Walter. ↩
  6. Arolsen MArchives, Digital Archive; Bad Arolsen, Germany; Lists of Persecutees 2.1.1.1; Series: 2.1.1.1, Reference Code: 02010101 oS, Ancestry.com. Europe, Registration of Foreigners and German Persecutees, 1939-1947. Several unsourced trees on Ancestry and MyHeritage provide a wedding date of May 16, 1907, in Wuerzberg. ↩
  7. Rosa Loewenthal marriage record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 903, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930 ↩
  8. Albert Loewenthal immigration and naturalization papers found at the Israel Archives at https://www.archives.gov.il/en/archives/#/Archive/0b07170680034dc1/File/0b07170680fd584e ↩
  9. SSN: 122285989, Ancestry.com. U.S., Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007. ↩
  10. National Archives at Chicago; Chicago, Illinois; ARC Title: Illinois, Petitions for Naturalization, 1906-1991; NAI Number: 593882; Record Group Title: Records of District Courts of the United States, 1685-2009; Record Group Number: RG 21, Description: Petitions for naturalization, v 1185, no 296351-296550, ca 1943-1944,
    Ancestry.com. Illinois, Federal Naturalization Records, 1856-1991 ↩

The “Good and Noble Angel of A Sister,” Sarah Goldschmidt Stern

Posted on by
26

I am finally returning to the family of Meyer Goldschmidt, brother of my three-times great-grandfather Seligmann Goldschmidt. As I’ve already written, Meyer Goldschmidt was born in about 1787 in Oberlistingen, Germany. He married Lea Katzenstein with whom he had seven children: Ella (1822?), Sarah (1823), Malchen (about 1827), Selig (1828), Joseph (1830?), and Falk (1836). Joseph died a month before his sixth birthday on November 27, 1836, five months after Falk was born, but the other children all lived to adulthood. They lost their mother Lea when she was 45 in 1839 when those children ranged in age from three to seventeen.

All the children but the oldest, Ella, remained in Germany, although Falk did spend some years in the United States before returning for good to Germany. They took care of their much beloved father until his death in 1858, by which time they were all adults living their own lives. I’ve already blogged extensively about Ella. In the posts to come I will report on the four children who lived their lives in Germany: Sarah, Malchen, Selig, and Falk. I will start with Sarah, the second oldest child of Meyer and Lea.

Sarah Goldschmidt was born on December 26, 1823, in Grebenstein, Germany. After her mother died when Sarah was 16, Sarah helped to care for her younger siblings. Her younger brother Selig talked about her cooking for the family and described her as “our good and noble sister.” Sarah, or Sarchen, whom Selig also described as “our angel of a sister,” married Salomon Stern on August 1, 1849. Salomon was born on May 24, 1815, in Ziegenhain, Germany, to Abraham Stern and Keile Maier.

Marriage record of Sarah Goldschmidt and Salomon Stern, Certificate Number: 225a
Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland
Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930

Sarah and Salomon had four children. Their daughter Lina was born on January 11, 1851, in Ziegenhain. She presumably was named for Sarah’s mother, Lea.

Birth record of Lina Stern, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 903; Signatur: 903_8797, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Births, 1851-1901

A second daughter Keile, named for Salomon’s mother and sometimes known as Caroline, was born on July 11, 1853, in Ziegenhain.

Birth record of Keile Stern, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 903; Signatur: 903_8803, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Births, 1851-1901

Then came Abraham, also born in Ziegenhain, on May 17, 1858. I assume he was named for Salomon’s father Abraham.

Birth record of Abraham Stern, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 903; Signatur: 903_8812, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Births, 1851-1901

Finally, a fourth child was born on January 7, 1861, named Mayer. He was born in Frankfurt, so the family must have relocated between 1858 and 1861.

Birth record of Mayer Stern, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 903; Signatur: 903_8818, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Births, 1851-1901

Unfortunately, Sarah and her children suffered a great loss when Salomon Stern died on February 9, 1870, in Frankfurt. He was only 54, and his children were still quite young. Mayer was nine, Abraham, not yet twelve, Keile seventeen, and Lina was nineteen.

Death record of Salomon Stern, Personenstandsregister Sterberegister; Bestand: 903; Signatur: 10269, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Deaths, 1851-1958

Lina was already married when her father died. She had married Levi Brinkmann on November 20, 1868, in Frankfurt, when she was only seventeen years old. Levi was the son of Suschen Brinkmann and Goldchen Plock and was born on October 29, 1841, in Wanfried, Germany. Thus, Levi was ten years older than Lina and 27 when they married. As far as I can tell, they had no children.

Marriage record of Lina Stern and Levi Brinkmann, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930

Sarah’s second child Keile married Abraham Loewenthal on March 8, 1872, in Frankfurt. She was eighteen years old. Abraham was the son of Isaac Loewenthal and Sarah Maier, born in Schierstein, Germany, on February 17, 1842. He was thirty when he married Keile.

Marriage record of Keile Stern and Abraham Loewenthal, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930

They had five children. Selma was born on February 6, 1873, in Wiesbaden, Germany.1Their second child was Julius, born August 24, 1874, also in Wiesbaden.2 A third child Helene was born February 20, 1877, but in Frankfurt, so Keile and Abraham must have relocated by that time.

Birth record of Helene Loewenthal, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 903; Laufende Nummer: 143, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Births, 1851-1901

Siegfried came next; he was born on May 12, 1879, in Frankfurt.

Birth record of Siegfriend Loewenthal, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 903; Signatur: 903_8929, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Births, 1851-1901

And finally, Martha was born to Keile Stern and Abraham Loewenthal in Frankfurt on August 15, 1882.

Birth record of Martha Loewenthal, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 903; Signatur: 903_8970
Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Births, 1851-1901

Abraham Stern, Sarah Goldschmidt and Salomon Stern’s third child, married his first cousin Johanna Goldschmidt on June 24, 1887, in Bornheim, Germany. Johanna was the daughter of Selig Goldschmidt, Sarah Goldschmidt’s younger brother, and Clementine Fuld. She was born in Frankfurt on December 18, 1867, making her nine years younger than her husband and cousin Abraham and not quite twenty years old when she married.

Marriage record of Abraham Stern and Johanna Goldschmidt, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Signatur: 9460
Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930

Abraham and Johanna had four children. These children were not just siblings to each other, but also second cousins since their parents were first cousins.

Siegfried Salomon Stern (named for his paternal grandfather) was born on September 17, 1888, in Frankfurt.

Birth record of Siegfried Salomon Stern, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 903; Signatur: 903_9047
Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Births, 1851-1901

Clementine was Abraham and Johanna’s second child. She was born on August 31, 1889, in Frankfurt.3 She was named for her maternal grandmother Clementine Fuld Goldschmidt, who had died in 1888.4

Two years later, Johanna and Abraham had a third child, Sittah Sarah, born July 12, 1891, in Frankfurt.5

Sittah Sarah must have been named for her paternal grandmother Sarah Goldschmidt Stern, who died on February 1, 1889, in Frankfurt, at the age of 65. At her death Sarah was survived by her four children and eight grandchildren as well as all but two of her siblings. She had outlived her husband Abraham by nineteen years.

Death record of Sarah Goldschmidt Stern, Personenstandsregister Sterberegister; Bestand: 903; Signatur: 10420, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Deaths, 1851-1958

But Sarah’s family continued to grow. On June 5, 1894, Sarah’s ninth grandchild Alice Lea Stern was born to her son Abraham Stern and his wife (and Sarah’s niece) Johanna Goldschmidt.

Birth record of Alice Lea Stern, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 903; Signatur: 903_9136, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Births, 1851-1901

Sarah Goldschmidt and Salomon Stern’s youngest child Mayer had married Gella Hirsch on March 5, 1886, in Bornheim, Germany. Gella was the daughter of Marcus Hirsch and Hannchen Schwabacher, and she was born on February 17, 1864, in Frankfurt.

Marriage record of Mayer Stern and Gella Hirsch, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Signatur: 9449
Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930

Mayer and Gella had two children. Elsa Sara Stern was born January 4, 1891, in Frankfurt. She was presumably named in part for her paternal grandmother Sarah Goldschmidt Stern.

BIrth record of Elsa Sara Stern, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 903; Signatur: 903_9085,  Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Births, 1851-1901

Four years later Mayer and Gella’s son Marcus (named for his maternal grandfather) was born in Frankfurt on January 28, 1895. He was Sarah Goldschmidt Stern’s eleventh grandchild.

Birth record of Markus Kurt Stern, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 903; Signatur: 903_9149, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Births, 1851-1901

As you may have noticed, Sarah Goldschmidt Stern and all of her children were living in Frankfurt, Germany, by the late 19th century. That is not surprising because Frankfurt had at that time the second largest Jewish community in Germany. In fact, Jewish life in Frankfurt had a long history, not all of it very pleasant.

According to one source:

The history of Frankfurt’s Jewish population dates back to approximately 1150. …. Sadly, even Emperor Frederick II’s official charter could not stop the first Frankfurt pogrom from occurring in 1241.

The next major conflict occurred in 1349, when Frankfurt’s Jewish population was blamed for an outbreak of the plague. When a fire broke out in the cathedral, a rumour was started that it had been laid by Jews, which once more brought upon them the people’s wrath. More than 200 Frankfurt Jews were murdered in the civil unrest that followed.

In 1462, Frankfurt’s Jews were forced to move into a ghetto at the edge of town. For the next 350 years, approximately 2,200 Jews resided there, crammed into some 160 houses situated along a 330-metre stretch of the city wall. The lives of the ghetto’s inhabitants were further hamstrung by a variety of restrictive city ordinances. …

This former compulsion [to live in the ghetto] was officially annulled in 1811.

In 1804, a general-education school named the “Philanthropin” was founded in Frankfurt, becoming a prominent centre of liberal Judaism. In 1850, Orthodox Jews established what later became known as the Jewish Religious Community. Despite these achievements, Frankfurt’s Jews still did not enjoy the same basic civil rights as the city’s Christian population. Only in 1864 did they achieve full equality, which enabled the Jewish community to grow and prosper.

In 1882, the Börneplatz Synagogue was consecrated, followed by the consecration of the Synagogue Friedberger Anlage in 1907 and the Westend Synagogue in 1910. Consisting of approximately 30,000 members, Frankfurt’s Jewish community was at the time the second largest in Germany. …

Frankfurt would therefore have been a good place for Jews to relocate during the 1880s and 1890s, and Sarah’s family took advantage of that opportunity. These photographs show the bustling and beautiful city it was at that time.

Alte Oper (“Old Opera”) of Frankfurt am Main, ca. 1880, found at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Oper1880.jpg

Sarah Goldschmidt Stern, the “good and noble” “angel of a sister,” was survived by her four children, Lina, Keile, Abraham, and Mayer, and by eleven grandchildren. What would become of those children and grandchildren in the 20th century? That is the subject for my next series of posts.

Children of Sarah Goldschmidt and Salomon Stern and Their Spouses

  1.  Certificate Number: 1044, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Signatur: 9490, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930 ↩
  2. Certificate Number: 83, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 923, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930 ↩
  3.  Certificate Number: 295, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 903, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930 ↩
  4.  Certificate Number: 628, Personenstandsregister Sterberegister; Bestand: 903; Signatur: 10411, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Deaths, 1851-1958 ↩
  5.  Certificate Number: 721, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland,
    Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930 ↩

Milton Goldsmith’s Family: The Final Chapter

Posted on by
28

I have written a great deal about Milton Goldsmith on this blog, probably more than I’ve written about any other relative, in part because he lived such an interesting life and in part because of the extensive record he left behind—his books and poetry and letters, his photograph albums, and the many news articles about him and his work. I’ve already posted a number of photographs of Milton. But in this final post devoted to the papers of my cousin Milton, I want to focus on his life after he married in 1899, as reflected in the family photographs displayed in the second family album he collated.

This second album included two photographs of Milton as a young man.

Milton Goldsmith at 16

Milton Goldsmith as a young man

Milton Goldsmith and Sophie Hyman were married on February 15, 1899. The album contains many letters written by Milton to Sophie as well as the love poem I posted in an earlier post. I have decided not to post those letters. To be honest, there are so many that I just couldn’t decide where to begin. And I just don’t have time to scan them all.

Milton included this announcement of his engagement to Sophie in his album. Unfortunately it is not dated, nor do I know where it appeared although it is obviously from a New York newspaper, perhaps the New York Times, which also published a wedding announcement.

“Weddings of A Day. Goldsmith-Hyman,” The New York Times, Februaru 15, 1899, p. 7

Here are two photographs of Milton and Sophie that may reflect how they looked when they married:

Milton Goldsmith at 28 in 1889

Sophie Hyman Goldsmith

Their daughter Rosalind was born two years later on February 1, 1901. Her sister Madeleine arrived three years later on May 29, 1904. Here are a selection of the beautiful photographs of these girls.

Rosalind Goldsmith c. 1901

Madeleine Goldsmith c. 1906

Milton, Sophie, and their two daughters c. 1909

Rosalind and Madeleine Goldsmith, c. 1911

Milton labeled this photograph of Sophie as his favorite:

Sophie Hyman Goldsmith at about 40, c. 1907

Skipping ahead a few decades, this photograph of Sophie and Milton was taken in 1930 when Milton would have been 69, Sophie 63. Sadly, Sophie died just four years later on June 18, 1934.

Sophie and Milton Goldsmith, 1930

Eleven years later on May 22, 1941,  there was a big celebration of Milton’s 80th birthday, as marked by this page in the album:

It includes the invitation—a poem written by one or both of his daughters:

Milton also wrote a poem for the occasion:

As did his brother Louis (included on a separate page):

This photograph must have been taken not long after or perhaps at Milton’s 80th birthday celebration. It includes (from left to right) Milton’s brother Edwin, who died in 1944, and his brother-in-law Sidney Stern, who died in 1942, and Milton.

There’s one final page I’d like to share—the most recent pictures in the album—a page devoted to Milton and Sophie’s daughter Madeleine, her husband Charles Jacobson, and their daughter, my cousin Sue, who so kindly and generously shared all these albums with me. Thank you once again, Sue!

 

A Lost Art: Milton Goldsmith’s Family Remembered by their Letters

Posted on by
39

The second family album compiled by Milton Goldsmith has some pages devoted to his parents and siblings including photographs and letters and news clippings. I’ve already incorporated the photographs into earlier posts. In this post I will share some of the letters included in this second family album. They made me nostalgic for the days when people wrote actual letters.

First, this is a letter written by Milton’s mother Cecelia Adler to her future husband, Abraham Goldsmith in 1857:

Phil 19th 1857
Dear Ab,
You deserve a scolding for writing in German, knowing that I cannot read it as well as English, being of a very inquisitive nature, I spelt it out, although it took me at least an hour. I am delighted to hear you passed such a pleasant night, which I assure you was the same case with me. I am very sorry you cannot come early this evening, try to make your stay at the meeting as short as possible. Excuse my bad writing it being wash day we are very busy.
I remain yours forever,
Cecilia

This second letter from Cecelia, which was also written in 1857 on October 28, sounds a little less patient with her beloved!

Phil Oct 28th 1857
Beloved of my heart,
I do wish you would write me some thing new, you always tell me that you are captivated, no wonder, I being so charming. We shall be ready this evening at the appointed times. You just write as if you were doing me a favor, in going to your sister’s house. It is the contrary I oblige you. Ma thinks my only fault is good nature. Do not stay long at the meeting. I must close. Mr. and Mrs. Bachman have just come.
Yours forever,
Cecilia

Cecelia and Abraham were married just a few months later on January 27, 1858, as seen in their wedding invitation:

Ten years later, Cecelia seems quite content with her life with Abraham and their children. On July 20, 1867, she wrote to her mother from Cape May, New Jersey, where presumably she and her family were vacationing, though it appears that her daughter Emily was not well and was home in Philadelphia with Cecelia’s mother.  I love the long list of clothing and other items that Cecelia wanted her mother to bring her when she brought Emily to Cape May. It reminds me of certain emails or phone calls I received from my own daughters when they were away at college.

Cape May, July 20th 1867
Dear Mother,
I suppose Ab informed you that I like it here, I enjoy myself very much. I am writting (sic) in the hall, and all the ladies around me. The children are all well, and send their love. I hope you are well and Emily will be well enough by Monday to come down. Please bring all the wash, with Hanah’s trunk, and if she has room bring my grey dress & over skirt from last year, and my white silk parasol. It is in the 2nd drawer of the front bedroom bureau & my striped Balmoral skirt & a black cloth sack in Maggies closet. Hoping [to] see you soon. Your’s Cely Love to Father, Emily & all

And in this letter we get to hear Abraham’s voice. This is a letter written on February 16, 1870, by Abraham to his wife Cecelia while he was on the road in Ohio. It is such a sweet and loving letter.

Salem, Ohio Feb 16 1870
Dear Cely!
I arrived here this evening well and hearty, and before retiring I know of no better recreation than to write to you a few lines. I was to day at New Brighton and Beaver falls, waded through the mud ankle deep, and sold a few goods. From here I shall go to morrow to Canton and spend my night at Masillow. On Saturday morning I expect to be at Pittsburgh again and stay there over Sunday.
I can hardly contend (sic) myself until I get there to hear from you and the children but hope to receive the glad news that you are all well.
If I knew of any news I would write them to you but unfortunately I know of nothing to interest you. Meyer and me get along very well, the only objection I have to him, he snores too much at night. I don’t like his company half as well at night as I would like a certain Ladies.
I hope when I come home to hear good reports of Milly, Hilda, Edy, Rose, Emily & Estella, if either of them expect me to bring them anything they must conduct themselves accordingly.
With kindest regards to mother, father, and all friends,
I remain yours forever,
Ab
I have written to you now three letters hope you have received them.

Abraham was working as a wholesale clothier in 1870, according to the 1870 census, and it sounds like he was traveling from place to place, promoting his wares. He speaks of traveling with Meyer (who snored), presumably his younger brother with whom he was in business. I did chuckle at Abraham’s comment that he did not like his brother’s company at night “half as well as a certain ladies.”

I also love the list of the children and the references to his two sons Milton and Edwin by their nicknames—Milly, Hilda, Edy, Rose, Emily, and Estella. I can imagine how excited the family was when Abraham returned and they were all reunited.

Finally, one more letter. This one was written, according to Milton’s caption at the top, by his sister Hilda to their parents on November 15, 1872, when she was ten years old:

Phil Nov 15th 1872
Dear Papa and Mama,
I have now taking the opportunity to write you a few lines asking you if you arrived safe and I hope you enjoy your selves very much by eating fried oysters and going to theatres every night and I hope you are well and we are all well and I hope you Papa and Mama will not forget my buttons and to bring me a big box of glass buttons and I have good news to tell you that I got a Disinguish note on Friday and I am on the first form and spracters [? Practice?] 1 hour every night.

What makes this letter so poignant is that Hilda died just three and half years later at the age of thirteen. Just a few years earlier she was a happy little girl dreaming of getting glass buttons and excited about her success in school. I have no pictures of Hilda, so seeing this letter written in her own hand was quite touching. It is the one personal object of hers that still exists.

 

 

Milton Goldsmith’s Poetry

Posted on by
26

There are only two more pages from Milton Goldsmith’s family album to share. Each has only one item on it. But there is still much more to share from his other two albums.

Milton included this article about the celebration in Larchmont, New York, of his 90th birthday. It provides a detailed summary of Milton’s life.

The last page includes this poem Milton wrote on the occasion of his 95th birthday. As you can see, Milton was still very sharp at the age of 95; the poem is funny, touching, and erudite:

Although the poem says “more” at the bottom, I do not see the second page of this poem in the album. I love Milton’s humor and his continuing love of life as expressed in this poem.

Milton Goldsmith died a year later on September 21, 1957, at the age of 96. He left behind not only his family and this family album, but a body of work—books for children and for adults, poetry, and plays—and a huge collection of letters, photographs, poems, and other memorabilia.

Sue shared two other albums with me. I have scanned what I can from the other albums and will now share some of what I’ve scanned. One of these albums contained many of Milton’s poems and other writings. Most of these were love poems written at various stages of Milton’s life before he was married. Others commemorate special occasions. I have selected just a few to share.

I particularly like this one, a self-portrait in words. If you compare it to the poem Milton wrote when he was 95, you can see that neither his style nor his joie de vivre had changed much over the seventy or so years that passed between writing this poem and writing the one above.

Another poem from this era, written in 1883 when Milton was twenty-two and his father Abraham was 51, was dedicated to his father. It’s another poem that I found very touching.

The final poem that I selected to share is this one, written in 1898 by Milton  to Sophie, whom he would marry the following year:

The love and longing expressed in this poem is initially disguised by a long description of Christmas, but eventually Milton’s true feelings came out. I do wonder what he was doing in Fort Wayne!

I wish I could scan and share more of Milton’s poetry, but the number of poems is overwhelming. The best I can do is help Sue work on having all of these albums preserved in the Jewish archives in Philadelphia where Milton was born and raised and where so many of his poems were written.

In my next two posts, the final ones for Milton, I will share some of the photographs and other materials that I found in the third album Sue shared with me.

 

Why Is This Ketubah Here? Milton Goldsmith’s Family Album, Part XIX

Posted on by
16

This page from Milton Goldsmith’s family album is puzzling.

It includes an image of a ketubah, a Jewish wedding contract.

I assumed when I saw this that this was a ketubah for one of the members of Milton Goldsmith’s family. Because I couldn’t translate the Hebrew, I posted the image on the Tracing the Tribe Facebook group, asking for help. Much to my surprise, the group members concluded that this was a ketubah dated 1795 for a couple from Italy and was quite obviously not for one of my relatives. In fact, one TTT group member found another image of the exact same ketubah—with the same handwritten note at the bottom—online.

When I did a Google Images search for the image, I found numerous postings of the same image.

The image is used in many websites as an example of a ketubah. But I could not find any explanation of the source, history, or location of the original version of this ketubah.

So why would Milton have included this image? I have no idea. The only possible clue is the obituary that appears on this page and is the only other item on this page. It’s an obituary for Julius Goldschmidt, whom Milton referred to as a “beloved cousin.”

Who was Julius Goldschmidt? He was the grandson of Meyer Goldschmidt and son of Falk Goldschmidt, whom I’ve written about here and here. That made him Milton Goldsmith’s second cousin:

But Julius was born in Frankfurt, Germany, far from Philadelphia where Milton was born and raised. He also was 21 years younger than Milton, as Julius was born in 1882. As his obituary points out, he left Germany for London in 1935 when he was 53 years old and lived there until he died on November 18, 1964. He was a well-regarded art dealer. How did Milton know him well enough to think of him as a “beloved cousin?” I assume that the two must have met when Milton traveled to Europe or Julius traveled to the US. I will write more about Julius when I return to Meyer Goldschmidt’s family.

The question remains, however, as to why Milton included the ketubah image on this page. Had his cousin Julius discovered or purchased this ketubah? Was there any connection at all, or was this just a random placement of these two items on a page in Milton’s family album? The mystery lingers.

The Things You Can’t Learn from Genealogy Records Alone: Milton Goldsmith’s Family Album, Part XVIII

Posted on by
26

A few years after Milton Goldsmith’s mother died in 1874, his father Abraham remarried, as I have written about here. With his second wife Frances Spanier, Abraham had four more children, Milton’s half-siblings. Milton dedicated four more pages in his family album to these siblings. From Milton’s biographies I learned a great deal more about each of these siblings than I’d been able to learn from traditional research.

Alfred was the oldest, and he became a well-known rare book dealer in New York City, as discussed here. What I didn’t know until reading Milton’s biography of his brother was that Alfred had at first enrolled in dental school. In addition to the biography Milton wrote about his brother Alfred, this page includes a photograph presumably of Alfred and two women who are not identified and a brief news story about Alfred.

Alfred Goldsmith and two women

The article below reveals a bit about Alfred’s personality. Apparently he was quite a literary snob and refused to stock books in his store that he considered “trash.” Good for him for having standards!

Bertha was the next child born to Abraham and Frances. Milton focused on her two marriages in his biography of Bertha. As I wrote about here, Bertha first married Sampson Weinhandler and then married his first cousin Frederick Newman. Milton’s insights into both men added an additional dimension to what I had learned through my research:

Imagine Bertha traveling all the way to Reno to divorce Sampson for incompatibility. Milton described him as “spoiled.” I sure wish Milton had described how Sampson and his family responded to Bertha’s marriage to his cousin Frederick the following year. Milton obviously much preferred Frederick to Sampson, describing the former as “a genial, well-informed man with a host of friends.”

I am not sure whether this photograph is of Bertha and Sampson or Bertha and Frederick, but given Milton’s description of Sampson, I am going to assume this is Sampson.

Bertha Goldsmith and one of her husbands, probably Sampson Weinhandler/Wayne.

The third child born to Abraham and Frances was their daughter Alice. Milton’s biography of Alice is quite fascinating and revealed far more about Alice than I’d been able to learn through my research. In fact, Alice had been a very elusive subject, rarely appearing on census records or elsewhere.

Now that I’ve read Milton’s story about her, I understand better why I had so much difficulty learning about her. She traveled extensively and was stranded in Italy at the start of World War I. She helped the American Consul in Genoa deal with other stranded travelers and was rewarded with a free trip back to the US.

Alice was an educated and scholarly woman who took courses at the University of Pennsylvania, Columbia, and Harvard and had a career with two different doctors, one in Philadelphia and one in New York. I searched for a Dr. Tinley, but had no luck locating him. I also learned how Alice had met her husband playing bridge with mutual friends. She was 43 when she married Louis Margulies, whom Milton described as “a fine, outstanding, genial man” whose business was real estate and who had immigrated from Romania at the age of 14. I love this photograph of them—they look so happy.

Alice Goldsmith and Louis Margulies

Finally, Milton included a page for his youngest sibling, Louis Goldsmith. Like his sister Alice, Louis traveled extensively and married later in life (he was 53). He was very successful in the advertising business, handling the Palm Beach Cloth account.

What I had not already learned about Louis was that he had worked at Friedberger Mills and almost died after an operation for an injury to his hand. He then worked with his brothers Milton and Edwin at the Snellenburg Company in Philadelphia where he learned the art of advertising before he moved to New York to become “a very capable advertising man.” Milton described his youngest sibling Louis as “very much a recluse in his habits, living at the Plaza Hotel, and is very generous.” He also was a very snazzy dresser, as my father would have said.

Louis Goldsmith

Louis Goldsmith

It’s wonderful to have photographs of nine of the ten children of my three-times great-uncle Abraham Goldsmith1 and more details about their lives from someone who knew and loved them well, their brother Milton.

This is Part XVIII of an ongoing series of posts based on the family album of Milton Goldsmith, generously shared with me by his granddaughter Sue. See Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V,  Part VI, Part VII , Part VIII,  Part IX,  Part X, Part XI, Part XII,  Part XIII , Part XIV , Part XV, Part XVI,  and Part XVII at the links.

  1. Only Hilda is missing; she died as a teenager. ↩

Milton Goldsmith’s Album, Part XVII: The Contrasting Lives of His Sisters Rose and Estella

Posted on by
33

In his family album, Milton devoted several pages to his sisters Rose and Estella. Their life stories show a contrast between the more traditional path of wife and mother taken by Rose and the untraditional path chosen by Estella and give us insights into how women lived in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Rose was five years younger than Milton, born in 1866. She married Sidney Morris Stern in 1892 and had three sons. Here is the page Milton dedicated to his sister Rose and her husband Sidney.

It includes a biography of Sidney written by Milton that fills in some background to Sidney’s life that I had not previously known.

There is also an obituary for Rose, who died in 1931 at the age of 64.

Here is a closer view of the biographical information in her obituary:

The Beth Israel Association of the Deaf honored Rose for her volunteer efforts on behalf of the deaf and presented a portrait to hang in her honor at their meeting place. It’s a shame that we don’t have a photograph of the portrait.

But my favorite part of this page is the photograph of Rose and Sidney, which I edited a bit to enhance the clarity of the photograph, as I have with several of the photographs below:

 

In one of the other albums, I found this lovely photograph of Rose on her graduation day:

Rose lived a comfortable and meaningful life, raising three sons and making a difference in the lives of many through her various volunteer activities.

As noted above, whereas Rose lived a fairly traditional life for a woman of her times, her younger sister Estella chose a road less traveled. Milton created two pages for his youngest full sister Estella (also known as Estelle and Stella). Here is the first:

Milton wrote a sweet biography of Stella that mentions not only her work as a teacher but also the camp she created for girls in the Adirondacks.

The page includes several photographs of the camp as well as two photographs of Stella, who does not look at all fat, despite Milton’s description in the biography.

 

 

The second page dedicated to Stella has a childhood photograph of her, a handwritten description of her 80th birthday celebration as well as a photograph of that celebration, and her obituary.

 

Here is the note describing the 80th birthday party and the photograph. I assume that is Milton reading a poem he wrote for his little sister and that sitting to his right is “Stella” herself.

Stella, Celebrated her 80th birthday, Jan’y 20, 1950. A large gathering (41) of relations, cousins, nieces, &c assembled at the Hotel Warwick in Phila to honor her. Speeches, toasts were given. At 80, Stella is well preserved and still active. Her hearing is bad, and she has difficulty in walking. She has a host of devoted friends. Milton, Rosalind & Mickey attended the festivities. She lives at the Majestic Hotel, Phila, and has a companion to look afer her.

Although Milton focused on Estelle’s career and volunteer activity, there was much, much more to tell about her life. I located an additional photograph of Estelle in one of the other albums and these clippings from a news article about her. You have to read that article. It belies the old myth that a single woman is an “old maid” to be pitied.

 

What an incredibly exciting and interesting life Estelle lived! She traveled all over the world, including to China, India, Egypt, and what was then Palestine, now Israel. She met the Pope, climbed mountains, rode an elephant and a camel, and observed Yom Kippur at the Western Wall in Jerusalem. She was a woman of many interests and with many friends. Hers was no ordinary life.

And finally, here is Stella’s obituary.

What is intriguing about the inclusion of this obituary is that Stella did not die until 1968, eleven years after Milton’s death in 1957. Who added this to the album? It had to be one of her many nieces and nephews and probably one of Milton’s daughters. But it is, as far as I can tell, the only thing added to the album after Milton’s death.

I am so grateful to my cousin Milton for preserving for posterity so much of the Goldsmith family history so that the stories of Rose and Estelle and the different choices they made can live on forever.

This is Part XVII of an ongoing series of posts based on the family album of Milton Goldsmith, generously shared with me by his granddaughter Sue. See Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V,  Part VI, Part VII , Part VIII,  Part IX,  Part X, Part XI, Part XII,  Part XIII , Part XIV , Part XV  and Part XVI at the links.