After the Flood, More Tears

Posted on January 5, 2017 by Amy

In my last two posts I wrote about the tragedies the Katzenstein family endured in 1889 when Jacob Katzenstein, my great-grandmother Hilda’s brother, lost his son Edwin and his wife Ella (who may also have been related to me through my Goldschmidt line) in the devastating Johnstown flood of May 31, 1889. This post will follow up with the rest of my great-great-grandparents’ family.

Here is a family group sheet for the family of my great-great-grandparents, Gerson Katzenstein and Eva Goldschmidt and their six children, five of whom survived to adulthood.

A little over a year after the flood, on July 22, 1890, my great-great-grandfather Gerson Katzenstein died of dropsy at age 75 in Philadelphia. According to several sources, “dropsy” is an old-fashioned term for edema or swelling of body tissues, whether it’s the brain, the heart, or some other body part or organ. I don’t know what type of edema afflicted Gerson or why it killed him. He was buried at Adath Jeshrun cemetery in Philadelphia.

Gerson Katzenstein death certificate “Pennsylvania, Philadelphia City Death Certificates, 1803-1915,” database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:S3HT-68NW-375?cc=1320976&wc=9FR3-SP8%3A1073244201 : 16 May 2014), > image 340 of 1712; Philadelphia City Archives and Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.

In March, 1891, his son Jacob remarried two years after losing his wife and son in the Johnstown flood. Jacob married Bertha Miller, the daughter of Samuel Miller and Eliza Leopold, whom I mentioned here. (As I described, Jacob’s first father-in-law, Marcus Bohm, would later be living with Jacob’s second wife Bertha Miller’s aunt, Minnie Leopold Reineman, in 1910 in Johnstown.) Bertha’s parents were both born in Germany, and her father Samuel was a “merchant tailor” in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, in 1880.

Jacob Katzenstein wedding to Bertha Miller
PHiladelphia Times March 12 1891 p. 3

Bertha and Jacob had a child Helen in 1892, and they had a second child on June 8, 1893, whom they named Gerald, presumably for Gerson Katzenstein, Jacob’s father, my great-great-grandfather. He was not the only grandson named for Gerson. On January 20, 1892, my great-uncle Gerson Schoenthal was born, son of my great-grandparents Hilda Katzenstein and Isidore Schoenthal. In addition, SJ Katzenstein and his wife Henrietta also had a child possibly named for Gerson: Vernon Glyde, born on February 8, 1892.

My great-great-grandmother, Eva Goldschmidt Katzenstein, died on September 6, 1893. She was 66 years old and died of “carcinoma ventric omentum.” According to my medical consultant, today that is called “carcinoma of the ventral omentum, which is a part of the lining of the abdomen near the stomach.”

Eva also had grandchildren named for her, including my grandmother, Eva Schoenthal. Jacob and Bertha’s third child, born December 2, 1894, was also named Eva.

Eva Goldschmidt Katzenstein death certificate “Pennsylvania, Philadelphia City Death Certificates, 1803-1915,” database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:S3HY-DY6W-VS?cc=1320976&wc=9FRF-GP8%3A1073237701 : 16 May 2014), > image 1467 of 1730; Philadelphia City Archives and Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.

Jacob and Bertha had two more children by 1900: Leopold (1898) and Maurice (1900). As pointed our earlier, they were living in Johnstown in 1900 with Jacob’s first father-in-law Marcus Bohm and Bertha’s brother Maurice. Jacob was working as a clothing merchant.

Jacob Katzenstein and family 1900 census
Year: 1900; Census Place: Johnstown Ward 1, Cambria, Pennsylvania; Roll: 1388; Page: 12A; Enumeration District: 0124; FHL microfilm: 1241388

SJ Katzenstein and his family were living in Washington, Pennsylvania in 1900, where he was still a clothing merchant as well. Their children were all still at home and at school, except for Howard, who was working as a clerk.

SJ Katzenstein and family 1900 census
Year: 1900; Census Place: Washington, Washington, Pennsylvania; Roll: 1494; Page: 16B; Enumeration District: 0173; FHL microfilm: 1241494

Brendina Katzenstein Schlesinger and her family were still in Philadelphia, and her husband Jacob listed his occupation on the 1900 census as a meat salesman. Their oldest son, Solomon Joseph, was a manager of a laundry, and Alfred was managing a newspaper. Sidney was working as a clerk in a clothing store. The two daughters, Heloise and Aimee, were not employed.

Brendina and Jacob Schlesinger 1900 census
Year: 1900; Census Place: Philadelphia Ward 20, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Roll: 1463; Enumeration District: 0421; FHL microfilm: 1241462

Perry Katzenstein and his wife Rose were also living in Philadelphia where Perry was in the clothing business. They had no children. Rose’s sister Flora Elias was living with them.

Perry and Rose Katzenstein 1900 census
Year: 1900; Census Place: Philadelphia Ward 32, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Roll: 1474; Page: 4A; Enumeration District: 0830; FHL microfilm: 1241474

And, as I’ve written before, my great-grandparents Hilda Katzenstein and Isidore Schoenthal were living in Washington, Pennsylvania, with their two older sons, Lester and Gerson, and my great-grandfather was working in the china business there.

HIlda Katzenstein and Isidore Schoenthal 1900 census Year: 1900; Census Place: Washington, Washington, Pennsylvania; Roll: 1495; Page: 4A; Enumeration District: 0175; FHL microfilm: 1241495

So as the century turned, my great-grandmother Hilda and her siblings had lost both of their parents, but the next generation of the family was growing. As of 1900, there were eighteen grandchildren—my grandmother’s first cousins and brothers— and my great-uncle Harold was born on August 28, 1901, bringing the total to nineteen. My grandmother and one more first cousin were yet to be born. All of them lived in Pennsylvania, spanning from Philadelphia in the east to Washington in the west with family living in Johnstown in between.

But the start of the 20^th century was not very kind to the Katzenstein family. On December 7, 1901, my great-great-uncle SJ Katzenstein died at age 53. He left behind his wife Henrietta and six children, ranging in age from Moynelle, who was 22, to Vernon, who was only nine years old.

Then less than two years later, SJ’s younger brother Perry died. He was just a few days shy of his 47^th birthday. According to his obituary, he had been living in Washington, Pennsylvania, not Philadelphia, at the time of his death. Perhaps he had taken over SJ’s clothing business. Perry died from appendicitis and peritonitis. He was survived by his wife Rose.

Perry Katzenstein obituary Canonsburg PA Daily Notes August 8, 1903 p.2

But Rose did not last very long without him. While visiting her sister in Chicago on February 24, 1904, she took her own life. Her death was ruled a suicide, strangulation by hanging. Perry’s death must have been too much for her to bear.

Rose Elias Katzenstein death certificate “Pennsylvania, Philadelphia City Death Certificates, 1803-1915,” database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:S3HT-67QH-3T?cc=1320976&wc=9F5B-VZS%3A1073109202 : 16 May 2014), > image 232 of 538; Philadelphia City Archives and Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.

Rose Elias Katzenstein obituary
Williamsport Sun-Gazette, February 26, 1904, p. 5

Thus, by February, 1904, my great-grandmother Hilda had lost her parents, two of her three brothers, two nephews, and two sisters-in-law. She also had her fourth and last child that year, my grandmother Eva, who was born on March 4, 1904, shortly after Rose’s death.

Eva Schoenthal Cohen, my grandmother

Jacob Katzenstein and his second wife Bertha also had their final child in 1904; he was born in August 1904 and was named Perry, obviously for Jacob’s brother Perry who had died the year before.

My great-great-grandparents Gerson and Eva (Goldschmidt) Katzenstein were thus survived by 21 grandchildren, including my grandmother Eva. In posts to come, I will share their stories.

For now, I will be taking a short break from research, but will be sharing some of the photographs and records I’ve received but have not yet had a chance to post.

Who Was Ella Bohm Katzenstein? A Genealogy Adventure

Posted on January 2, 2017 by Amy

This was truly a genealogy adventure. I’d written most of this post before I made two surprising discoveries that required me to rewrite substantial parts of it. The story of Jacob Katzenstein’s first wife Ella is heartbreaking. She was only 27 when she died in the 1889 Johnstown flood, and for a long time I knew almost nothing about her. I’ve finally made some headway in learning more about her.

Here’s what I now know about her from various sources, more or less in the order I found them. Her first name was Ella, as seen from the birth record indexed on FamilySearch for her son, Milton B. Katzenstein.

Her birth surname was Bohm, as seen in a newspaper report of her death and as implicitly confirmed by the fact that Milton’s middle name was Bohm; that fact I learned from Milton’s burial record at Grandview Cemetery in Johnstown.

Philadelphia Jewish Exponent,, June 7, 1889, p. 3

I know that Ella was probably born in February 1862, as indicated on the memorial stone placed at Eastview Cemetery in Cumberland, Maryland. Her father’s name was apparently Marcus Bohm; that fact I inferred from the fact that Ella’s widower Jacob Katzenstein included Marcus in his household on the 1900 census and described him as his father-in-law (even though by that time Jacob had remarried). Ella presumably married Jacob sometime before or around January, 1886, since their son Milton was born in September, 1886. Milton died on April 18, 1889. I also know that a second child, Edwin, was born June 5, 1887, and that he and Ella were killed in the Johnstown flood on May 31, 1889.

But where was Ella before marrying Jacob and having these two little boys?

For the longest time, I could not find her on the 1870 census, no matter how many ways I tried to spell her name, with and without wildcards. And then somehow she popped up after I’d just about given up. I decided to search for any Ella with a surname starting with Bo born anywhere in about 1862 living in Pennsylvania or any state bordering it. And there she was, listed as Ella Bohn, living in Philadelphia, an eight year old child born in Pennsylvania. Her father was not living with her, nor was there anyone else in the household named Bohn or Bohm. So who was she living with?

Ella Bohm (Bohn) on the 1870 census
Year: 1870; Census Place: Philadelphia Ward 12 District 36, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

I took a deep breath when I saw. She was living with Jacob Goldsmith. Who was he? The son of Simon Goldschmidt and Fradchen Schoenthal. Simon Goldschmidt was the brother of my three-times great-grandfather Seligmann Goldschmidt, the father of Eva Goldschmidt Katzenstein, whose son Jacob would later marry Ella Bohm. And Fradchen Schoenthal was the sister of my three-times great-grandfather Levi Schoenthal, father of Isidore Schoenthal who would later marry Hilda Katzenstein, daughter of Eva Goldschmidt Katzenstein and brother of Jacob Katzenstein, who would later marry Ella Bohm.

So little Ella Bohm was for some reason living with the first cousin, once removed, of her future husband Jacob Katzenstein. And with in-law relatives of her future sister-in-law, Hilda Katzenstein, my great-grandmother. And they were all related to me. Yikes.

But where was her father? Why wasn’t Ella living with him? Why was she living with Jacob Goldsmith? Unfortunately, the 1870 census did not include information about the relationships among those in a household, so I couldn’t tell.

A search for information about Ella’s father Marcus Bohm turned up nothing explicit connecting him to Ella, though I was able to piece together some information about Marcus. He was born November 9, 1834, in Warsaw, Poland, and immigrated to the United States in 1849, arriving in Baltimore.

Maryland, Baltimore Passenger Lists, 1820-1948,” database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QS7-897J-P6W?cc=2018318&wc=MKZ4-GPF%3A1004777901%2C1004778901 : 25 September 2015), 1820-1891 (NARA M255, M596) > image 404 of 688; citing NARA microfilm publications M255, M596 and T844 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.).

One document indicates that he was living in Washington, Pennsylvania, in 1853, which, of course, is where many members of my extended family also settled, including Jacob Goldsmith, who was a clothing merchant there as early as 1850, and Jacob Katzenstein’s brother SJ, who arrived around there in about 1871.

It appears that Marcus Bohm owned a clothing store there from at least 1853 from ads I found online in the Washington newspaper. There was a fire at his store in April, 1860:

Washington Reporter, April 12, 1860, p. 3

I also found an advertisement for Marcus Bohm’s clothing store in the Washington Reporter of August 30, 1860 (p.3):

But by November, 1860, Marcus was closing down his Washington store:

It seems he then left Washington, Pennsylvania, because according to a New Jersey index of the 1860 census, Marcus was living in Hudson Township, New Jersey, in 1860, although I cannot find him on the actual 1860 census records. He is listed in the 1867 Trenton, New Jersey, directory as working in the clothing business and living at Madison House. On the 1870 census, he is listed as living in a hotel in Trenton and working as a clothier. There is no wife or child living with him.

Marcus continued to be listed in Trenton city directories in the 1870s up through 1876, and he is consistently listed as a clothing merchant and tailor and living in various hotels in Trenton. But in 1878, he declared bankruptcy in Trenton:

Why was his daughter Ella living with the Goldsmiths in Philadelphia in 1870 and not with her father in Trenton? I decided to dig deeper into the background of Jacob Goldsmith, someone I had not yet really researched as I am (ahem) not yet focused on my Goldschmidt line (yet somehow they keep popping up everywhere). I searched for him on the 1880 census, and this is what I found:

Jacob Goldsmith’s family on 1880 census with Ella “Baum”
Year: 1880; Census Place: Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Roll: 1173; Family History Film: 1255173; Page: 158D; Enumeration District: 210; Image: 0325

Jacob, Fanny, and their many children were living in Philadelphia, and living with them was a niece named Ella Baum, age 17. This had to be Ella Bohm, who would have been turning 18 in 1880. She was living with Jacob and Fanny Goldsmith because she was their niece! So her mother had to be either Fanny’s sister or Jacob’s sister. For reasons described below, I believe she was the daughter of Jacob’s sister Eva.

Jacob had several sisters, but for all but one, I’d found married names, and they had not married Marcus Bohm. But there was one sister for whom I’d been unable to find anything more than her name on the passenger manifest with her father Simon and stepmother Fradchen in 1845 and her listing on the 1850 census with her father Simon and stepmother Fanny and several siblings. Her name was Eva Goldschmidt/Goldsmith.

Simon, Fradchen, and Eva Goldschmidt on 1845 passenger manifest
The National Archives at Washington, D.C.; Washington, D.C.; Records of the US Customs Service, RG36; NAI Number: 2655153; Record Group Title: Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, 1787-2004; Record Group Number: 85

On the 1850 census, the names seem confused. It shows Simon’s wife’s name as Lena. Her name was Fradchen or Fanny in the US. Simon had a daughter Lena, who is also listed on the census. And then there is a daughter named Fanny. I think that daughter was really Eva, and the enumerator somehow thought Fanny was the daughter’s name instead of the wife and heard “Lena” instead of “Eva” for the other daughter’s name and thought that was the wife’s name. (Remember these were recent immigrants whose English might not have been very understandable.)

Simon Goldschmidt and family 1850 census
Year: 1850; Census Place: Pittsburgh Ward 3, Allegheny, Pennsylvania; Roll: M432_745; Page: 135A; Image: 274

But Eva is not listed as living with Simon in 1860 when he and two of her younger half-siblings had moved to Washington, Pennsylvania, to live with her older brother Jacob. So where was she then? I don’t know, but here’s my theory.

My guess is that Marcus Bohm and Eva Goldsmith, Jacob’s sister, were married sometime around 1860. After their daughter Ella Bohm was born in 1862, Eva either died in childbirth or sometime shortly thereafter and before 1870. Supporting the theory that Eva had died is the fact that her brother Jacob named a child born in 1871 Eva.

I believe that Ella’s widowed father Marcus Bohm moved to New Jersey after losing his wife and his business in Washington, and he left his little daughter to be raised by her uncle, Jacob Goldsmith. That little girl then grew up and married Jacob Katzenstein, who was her second cousin.

I don’t know when she married Jacob. I cannot find Jacob or Ella on the 1880 census, although Jacob was listed in the Pittsburgh directories for 1879 and 1881, the Johnstown directory in 1884, both the Philadelphia and Johnstown directories for 1887, and the Johnstown directory in 1889. When their son Milton was born in 1886, Jacob and Ella must have been living in Philadelphia. And by 1889 they were living in Johnstown.

Where was Ella’s father Marcus in the 1880s? The 1880 census report shows that he was then living in Washington, Pennsylvania, boarding in a hotel there and working in a clothing store. But by 1884, Marcus had moved to Johnstown, as the 1884 Johnstown directory lists Marcus living at 251 Main Street and working at 272 Main Street in the clothing business. That same directory lists Jacob Katzenstein as a commercial traveler living at 241 Main Street, just a few houses away from Marcus. I assume that Marcus moved to Johnstown because his daughter Ella had by that time married Jacob and was living there, but I don’t know for sure.

After the tragic deaths of his daughter Ella and his two grandsons Milton and Edwin in 1889, Marcus seemed to disappear for some years and does not appear in any city directories. The next record that does include Ella’s father Marcus is the 1900 census where, as noted above, he was living in Johnstown with Jacob Katzenstein and Jacob’s second wife Bertha Miller, their three children, Bertha’s brother Maurice, and a servant. Marcus is described as Jacob’s father-in-law, widowed, and retired.

Jacob Katzenstein and family 1900 census
Year: 1900; Census Place: Johnstown Ward 1, Cambria, Pennsylvania; Roll: 1388; Page: 12A; Enumeration District: 0124; FHL microfilm: 1241388

I find it rather heartwarming that Bertha Miller took in the father of Jacob’s first wife.

Ten years later Marcus was still living in Johnstown, boarding in the household of Solomon Reineman, according to the 1910 census. I thought perhaps Solomon was a relative or married to a relative, but Solomon was born in Germany, not Poland. In 1880, Solomon had been living in Johnstown, so I assume that Marcus had become friendly with him during the 1880s when both were living in Johnstown.

And then I found a connection to Solomon’s wife, Minnie Leopold, though not directly. While researching Jacob’s second wife, Bertha Miller, I saw that her mother was named Eliza Leopold. The name jumped out at me, and I thought—could there be a connection to Minnie Leopold? A few more steps of research, and lo and behold, I learned that Eliza and Minnie Leopold were sisters! So somehow Marcus Bohm ended up living with his son-in-law’s second wife’s aunt and her husband.

Two years later, however, Marcus had moved to Philadelphia. The 1912 Philadelphia directory lists Marcus Bohm living at 3333 North Broad Street. Four years later on February 25, 1916, Marcus died in Philadelphia. He was 81 years old and died of chronic emphysema.

Pennsylvania Historic and Museum Commission; Pennsylvania, USA; Certificate Number Range: 021751-024880

He’d been living at the Masonic Home of Pennsylvania, and the informant was William H. Sivel, the superintendent at 3333 North Broad Street, which I assume is the location of the Masonic Home and where Marcus had been residing. There is no other personal information on the certificate except for Marcus Bohm’s birth date, birth place (Poland), age, and occupation, which the informant described as “gentleman.” I was unable to find an obituary or any other document that would reveal family information for Marcus, only this death notice.

Philadelphia Inquirer, February 26, 1916, p. 18

Thus, I was lucky enough to learn a little more about Ella Bohm Katzenstein and can only speculate that her mother was Eva Goldsmith, that Eva Goldsmith Bohm had died, and that Ella had been left to live with the family of Jacob Goldsmith while her father tried to recover from losing his wife and his store in Washington, Pennsylvania.

If I am right in this speculation, it makes her short life even more tragic. It was heartbreaking enough to know that she’d lost her first son Milton and then was killed along with her other son in the Johnstown flood of 1889 when she was only 27. But adding to that the loss of her mother and in some ways her father as a young child makes her story especially poignant.

The Flood

Posted on December 30, 2016 by Amy

As we saw in my last post, by 1880, four of the five surviving children of Gerson and Eva (Goldschmidt) Katzenstein were on their own. SJ, their oldest child, was married to his second cousin Henrietta Sigmund and living in Washington, Pennsylvania, where he was a merchant. Brendina, the older daughter, was married to Jacob Schlesinger and living in Philadelphia, where Jacob worked as a butcher. Jacob and Perry Katzenstein, the second and third sons of Gerson and Eva, were living together in Pittsburgh and working as salesmen. Only my great-grandmother Hilda, who was seventeen in 1880, was still living at home with her parents in Philadelphia.

During the 1880s, Gerson and Eva were blessed with many grandchildren. SJ and Henrietta, whose first child Moynelle was born in 1879, had four sons in the 1880s: Milton (1881), Howard (1882), Ivan (1884), and Earl (1885). Brendina and Jacob already had four children by 1880, Heloise (1874), Solomon Joseph (1875), and Alfred (1879), and a fourth child, Sidney, was born in 1880. Their daughter Aimee was born seven years later in 1887.

In 1884 or 1885 (sources vary), Perry Katzenstein married Rose Elias, daughter of Samuel Elias and Fanny Greenwald. Rose was born in Jersey Shore, Pennsylvania, which is, strangely enough, nowhere near the New Jersey shore. In fact, it’s about 250 miles west of the Atlantic and about 190 miles west of Philadelphia and 180 miles east of Pittsburgh. Rose’s parents were both German immigrants, and her father was a merchant. In 1880, her father was selling liquor; in 1870, he’d been selling clothing. In 1887, Perry is listed in the Philadelphia directory at the same address as his father, Gerson—870 Marshall Street.

His brother Jacob is listed right down the street at 919 Marshall Street in that same directory for 1887. Sometime before September 16, 1886, Jacob Katzenstein had married Ella Bohm, daughter of Marcus Bohm. I cannot find any official records for Ella, except for this birth record indexed on FamilySearch:

Unfortunately, it did not reveal Ella’s original surname or anything else about her. But it does show that their son Milton was born in Philadelphia in 1886, suggesting that they were all living there at that time. I found her original surname and her father’s name from other sources, discussed below.

Jacob’s residence during the 1880s is a bit of a mystery. I cannot find him on the 1880 census. In 1881, he is listed in the Pittsburgh directory, living with Perry. In 1884, he is listed in the Johnstown, Pennsylvania, directory, and in 1887, he is listed in both the Johnstown and Philadelphia directories. I have no idea whether Ella was from Philadelphia, Johnstown, or someplace else. I don’t know where or when she and Jacob were married. I did find this quote about Jacob on my cousin Roger’s old website:

[Jacob] came to Johnstown in 1882, as a clerk for Louis Cohen. He returned to Philadelphia for a few years but then came back to take charge of the Economy clothing Store which belonged to Amos Sulka and himself. (quoting Leonard Winograd, The Horse Died at Windber: A History of Johnstown’s Jews of Pennsylvania (Wyndham Hall Press, 1988)).

Jacob and Ella had a second son named Edwin born apparently on June 5, 1887, a date I determined from his headstone, as discussed below. But June 5, 1887 is less than nine months after Milton’s birth date of September 16, 1886. It seems highly unlikely that a woman could have had two children less than nine months apart. I assume one of those birth dates is off by at least a few months, or that Edwin was premature, or that Ella conceived almost immediately after Milton was born. Or that Ella was not the biological mother of one of those two children.

In 1888, Gerson and Eva saw their youngest child get married. Hilda, my great-grandmother, married Isidore Schoenthal in Philadelphia. As I’ve written previously, Hilda and Isidore first lived in Pittsburgh, where on December 3, 1888, their first son was born, my great-uncle Lester Schoenthal.

Hilda Katzenstein Schoenthal

Thus, by 1888, Gerson and Eva’s children were all married, and there were twelve grandchildren. Things must have seemed quite good for them all, but in 1889, their fortunes began to change. First, on April 18, 1889, Jacob and Ella’s son Milton died; he would have been only two and a half years old. I learned of his death from an entry on FindAGrave showing his headstone at Grandview cemetery in Johnstown:

FindAGrave courtesy of Michelle
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=katzenstein&GSfn=milton&GSbyrel=all&GSdy=1889&GSdyrel=in&GSob=n&GRid=103655922&df=all&

But the headstone says he was born in 1888, not 1886 as the Philadelphia birth record stated. So I searched the interment database for Grandview cemetery in Johnstown and saw that the interment record indicates that Milton was two when he died in April, 1889, suggesting that the headstone is wrong and the birth record and interment record are right. Very odd. I also learned from the interment record that Milton’s middle name was Bohm, his mother’s birth name.

http://www.grandviewjohnstownpa.com/interment-details.php?inter_no=364

A little over a month after Milton’s death in Johnstown, one of the most tragic events in American history occurred: the Johnstown flood of May 31, 1889. Over two thousand people died that day. According to the Johnstown Area Heritage Association (JAHA) website, that was the largest loss of civilian life in America in one day until September 11, 2001.

The JAHA website and several other sources describe how after several days of heavy rain, the South Fork dam, which was in need of repairs, collapsed, causing havoc and death as the rushing waters swept everything in its path under and aside.

The aftermath of the Johnstown Flood (Johnstown, Pennsylvania). “The Debris above the Pennsylvania Railroad Bridge.” In: “History of the Johnstown Flood”, by Willis Fletcher Johnson, 1889. P. 199. Library Call Number M79.4 J71h. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Here is how the JAHA described it:

20 million tons of water rushed down the narrow Conemaugh Valley like a moving mountain of water at an average speed of 40 miles per hour. The “terrible wave” picked up houses, trees, and even trains on its way down the valley. It flattened a railroad bridge. It swept whole towns away as it made its way to the city of Johnstown.

By the time it reached Johnstown the flood didn’t even look like water anymore. People who saw it coming said it looked like a moving, boiling black mountain of junk. 35 feet high at its crest, it had the force of Niagara Falls. Even the best swimmers couldn’t swim in that mess. Many people drowned. For most, the only warning was a thunderous rumble before the water hit.

In minutes, most of downtown Johnstown was destroyed. Survivors clung to roofs, debris, and the few buildings that remained standing. Others who weren’t killed instantly, were swept down the valley to their deaths.

https://www.nps.gov/Nr/twhp/wwwlps/lessons/5johnstown/5johnstown.htm

Just when it seemed like it couldn’t get worse, it did. All that wreckage piled up behind the Pennsylvania Railroad’s Stone Bridge. People who managed to survive so far became trapped in the huge pile of debris, all wrapped in a tangle of barbed wire from destroyed Gautier Wire Works. Then the pile, which was 40 feet high and 30 acres across, caught fire!…

Four square miles of downtown Johnstown was completely leveled, including about 1600 homes, 280 businesses, and much of the Cambria Iron Company. Even more tragic was the loss of life. 2,209 people are known to have died in the flood waters. 99 whole families perished. 400 children under the age of ten were killed.

https://www.nps.gov/Nr/twhp/wwwlps/lessons/5johnstown/5johnstown.htm

Among those who lost their lives in the flood were Ella Bohm Katzenstein, Jacob’s wife, and their younger son, Edwin, who was just five days short of his second birthday.

Philadelphia Jewish Exponent,, June 7, 1889, p. 3

Note that this list includes Ella (identified by her birth name incorrectly as Ellen) and her son among those who were killed and Jacob on the list of those who survived.

Jacob Katzenstein had lost his entire family starting with Milton on April 18 and then, 43 days later, he lost Ella and Edwin in the flood.

ella-katzenstein-and-edwin-katzenstein-headstone-from-findagrave

Headstone of Ella and Edwin Katzenstein, FindAGrave, courtesy of Byron http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=118211407&ref=acom

The headstone allowed me to infer the birthdates for Ella (February 1862) and Edwin (June 5, 1887), as it says Ella was 27 years, six months, and zero days old at her death on May 31, 1889, and that Edwin was one year, eleven months, and six days old that day.

The odd thing is that this headstone is located at Eastview Cemetery in Cumberland, Maryland, not at Grandview Cemetery in Johnstown where Jacob and Ella had buried Milton the month before. Also, note that the stone says “In Memory of,” an indication to me that it is not marking a grave, but is just operating as a memorial. Maybe the bodies of Ella and little Edwin were never found. (I’ve contacted the Eastview Cemetery to see if they have more information, but so far they’ve not found any information about the stone, who put it there, or whether Ella and Edwin are in fact buried there.)

But why is this memorial in Cumberland? Jacob was living in Johnstown; his parents were living in Philadelphia. The only Katzenstein family members I know of who were living in Cumberland at that time were some members of the family of H.H. Mansbach, Jacob Katzenstein’s first cousin. Did the Mansbach family install this memorial? I am still trying to figure this one out.

It is hard to imagine the devastation caused by this flood. Over two thousand lives lost as well as all the injuries and the destruction of the town itself. Just as we cannot really grasp the full meaning of the more than two thousand people who died on 9/11, we cannot truly understand the impact of this tragedy unless we focus on one life at a time and the story of that life. Trying to imagine what this must have been like for Jacob Katzenstein gives me a better sense of how horrifying and devastating the flood must have been, multiplying his story over two thousand times.

English: After the Flood at Johnstown — Main Street, a wood engraving (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It also makes me want to know more about Ella Bohm, the woman he married. I am still trying to learn more about her. All I know now is that she was born in February, 1862 (based on that headstone), that her father’s name was Marcus Bohm, that she had two sons, Milton and Edwin, and that both of them died as toddlers. She was only 27 on May 31, 1889, when she died along with her son Edwin and the 2,207 other people who were killed in the Johnstown flood.

I will write more about her in my next post.

Of Rabbit Holes and Twisted Trees and the Curse of Endogamy

Posted on December 26, 2016 by Amy

Now that I have emerged from the Mansbach rabbit hole I dove into weeks ago, I can return to the story of my direct ancestors, Gerson Katzenstein and Eva Goldschmidt and their children, including my great-grandmother Hilda Katzenstein. As I wrote previously, Gerson was one of eight children of Scholum Katzenstein, including four full siblings, two of whom died as children, and three half-siblings, one of whom died as a child. As best I can tell Gerson was the only one of the eight to leave Germany and come to the United States.

Gerson and Eva were married in Oberlistingen in June 1847, and then settled in Gerson’s home town of Jesberg, where they had three children: Scholum (1848, named for Gerson’s father), Jacob (1851), and Brendina (1853, named for Gerson’s mother, Breine Blumenfeld).

Marriage record of Gerson Katzenstein and Eva Goldschmidt HHStAW fonds 365 No 673, Arcinsys Hessen

Gerson and Eva immigrated to the US in 1856 with Scholum, Jacob, and Brendina. A fourth child Perry was born a few months after they had settled in Philadelphia. In 1858, they had a fifth child, Hannah, and in 1860 they were all living in Philadelphia where Gerson was working as a salesman. As noted in an earlier post, there were three others living in the household, Abraham “Anspach,” who I believe was actually Abraham Mansbach (III), David Frank, a bookkeeper, and Marley Mansbach, who I believe was Abraham Mansbach’s cousin and only related to Gerson through his sister Hannchen’s marriage into the Mansbach family.

Gerson Katzenstein in the 1856 Philadelphia directory

Gerson Katzenstein and family 1860 US census
Year: 1860; Census Place: Philadelphia Ward 13, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Roll: M653_1163; Page: 519; Image: 105; Family History Library Film: 805163

On August 17, 1863, Gerson and Eva had their sixth and final child, my great-grandmother Hilda.

The family suffered a terrible loss on December 17, 1866, when their eight year old daughter Hannah died from scarlet fever. She was buried at Adath Jeshurun cemetery in Philadelphia. I have to wonder what impact that had on the family, especially little three year old Hilda, who must have been very frightened and confused.

Hannah Katzenstein death certificate
“Pennsylvania, Philadelphia City Death Certificates, 1803-1915,” database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:S3HY-DTXQ-JWY?cc=1320976&wc=9FRX-W38%3A1073285701 : 16 May 2014), > image 316 of 1079; Philadelphia City Archives and Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.

In 1870, Gerson and Eva were living with their five surviving children. Scholum was listed as Joseph and was 22; Jacob was 18, Brendina 15, Perry 14, and Hilda was seven. The 1870 census was taken twice because there were felt to be errors in the first enumeration. For the Katzenstein family, the first enumeration is barely legible and is missing some of the children, but indicates that Gerson was working as a clerk in a store. The second enumeration is quite clear and includes all the children, but has no information about occupations.

Gerson Katzenstein on 1870 census, first enumeration Year: 1870; Census Place: Philadelphia Ward 16 District 48, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Gerson Katzenstein and family 1870 census, second enumeration Year: 1870; Census Place: Philadelphia Ward 16 Dist 48 (2nd Enum), Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Roll: M593_1429; Page: 708B; Image: 258; Family History Library Film: 552928

Brendina Katzenstein, the oldest daughter and third child of Gerson and Eva, was the first to marry. According to the 1900 census, she married Jacob Schlesinger in 1871 when she was only eighteen years old. It took some serious digging and the help of the German Genealogy Facebook group to find some background on Jacob. First, from his death notice, I saw that he was born in “Epplagan” in Germany.

Nick in the German Genealogy group figured out that that was Eppingen. I then searched the Landesarchiv for Baden Wurttemburg and found Jacob’s birth record, which Nick helped me translate:

Jacob Schlesinger birth record from Eppingen, Landesarchiv Baden-Wurtenberg, 390 Nr. 1320, 1 Band Gliederungssymbol Eppingen, israelitische Gemeinde: Standesbuch 1811-1870 Bild 235

The child was born on March 3rd, 1843 and named Jacob. The father was Jacob (?) Schlesinger, a schützbürger (see note below) and hand[e]lsmann (merchant) and his wife Guste? born Sülzberger.

[UPDATE: Thanks to Dorothee Lottmann-Kaeseler for explaining the word “schutzburger” and providing a cite with this explanation: The “Law on the Situation of the Jews” (“Gesetz über die Verhältnisse der Juden”) from 1809 recognized the Jewish religious community as a church. Constitutionally, Jews were to be treated as free citizens. Their position in the municipalities did not change however, they remained only “protected citizens” (“Schutzbürger”) who did not have the right to be elected to a local council and did not have rights of usage of the common land.]

Nick wasn’t sure whether Jacob’s father’s name was Jacob, and I was skeptical of the fact that his father would also have been a Jacob. Looking at the record itself, it certainly looks like “Jacob” was crossed out and something else was written over it. Perhaps the scribe who entered the record confused the child’s name and the father’s name.

Although I could not find Jacob Schlesinger on any US census record before 1880, I was able to locate him in a number of Philadelphia directories where he was living at the same address with men named Abraham, Israel, and Myer Schlesinger, all of whom, like Jacob, were working as butchers. I assumed these were his relatives, and so I searched for information about them.

I found a passenger manifest that shows an Israel Schlesinger and his family arriving in the US in 1860; along with Israel was his wife Gustel or Gurtel, sons Maier (26) and Abraham (11), and two daughters, Fanny (20) and Malchen (15). There was no son named Jacob on this manifest.

Family of Israel Schlesinger 1860 ship manifest
Year: 1860; Arrival: New York, New York; Microfilm Serial: M237, 1820-1897; Microfilm Roll: Roll 205; Line: 1; List Number: 918
Description
Ship or Roll Number : Roll 205
Source Information
Ancestry.com. New York, Passenger Lists, 1820-1957

Then I found another manifest listing a fourteen year old named Jacob Schlesinger arriving in 1857 with what appears to be an older sibling named Hagar. Since my Jacob Schlesinger reported on the 1910 census that he’d arrived in 1857 (and in 1855 according to the 1900 census) and he would have been fourteen in 1857, I assumed that this was the right Jacob. Further research uncovered a Hagar Schlesinger, a woman of the right age, who was living in Philadelphia in 1885, so she was probably his sister.

Jacob and Hagar Schlesinger 1857 ship manifest
Year: 1857; Arrival: New York, New York; Microfilm Serial: M237, 1820-1897; Microfilm Roll: Roll 173; Line: 1; List Number: 497

But I still had no proof that this Jacob was the son of Israel Schlesinger. He could have been just a nephew or a cousin. So I searched for a birth record for one of Israel’s sons and found this one for Myer, as translated by Nick:

Myer Schlesinger birth record
landesarchiv_baden-wuerttemberg_generallandesarchiv_karlsruhe_390_nr-_1320_bild_174_4-1128670-174.jpg

The child was born June 4th, 1834, named Mozes and the parents are Israel Schlesinger and Geitel Si?lzberger.

Myer was also the son of Geitel Sulzberger and Israel (not Jacob) Schlesinger. Looking back at Jacob’s birth record, it does seem that “Israel” was written over “Jacob” and that thus Jacob’s father was also Israel Schlesinger. I also found a birth record for Hagar Schlesinger; she also was the daughter of Israel and Geitel.

Thus, I feel fairly comfortable concluding that my Jacob Schlesinger was a son of Israel Schlesinger from Eppingen, especially since he and Israel were living at the same address in 1865, according to the Philadelphia directory for that year. In addition, Jacob, like Israel, Myer, and Abraham, was a butcher in Philadelphia, as seen in numerous entries in the Philadelphia city directories as well as census reports.

Brendina and Jacob Schlesinger had three children listed on the 1880 census: Heloise (5), Solomon (4), and Alfred (1). Jacob was still working as a butcher. Brendina and Jacob would have a fourth child, Sidney, in 1880, and a fifth, Aimee, born in 1887.

Jacob and Brendina Schlesinger and family
1880 census
Year: 1880; Census Place: Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Roll: 1176; Family History Film: 1255176; Page: 156A; Enumeration District: 301; Image: 0314

The 1870s were also active years for Brendina’s three brothers. The oldest brother, Scholum Joseph, had lived in many places since coming with his family to the US. An 1896 profile of him reported that he had left his family for Leavenworth, Kansas, when he was fourteen to learn how to be a cigar maker, but since he did not arrive until he was eighteen in 1856, that seems more myth than truth. The profile goes on to state that after being in Kansas for a number of years, he returned to Philadelphia, but eventually gave up the cigar trade because of health concerns. The article continues by saying that he then “went to Winchester, VA., and took a clerkship, remaining for five years. Thence he went to Uhrichsville, Ohio, thence to New Castle and on the nineteenth of April 1871, he came to Washington [Pennsylvania].” “The Saturday Evening Supper Table,” Washington, Pennsylvania, June 27, 1896, found here (my cousin Roger Cibella’s genealogy website).

The U.S. and Canada, Passenger and Immigration Lists Index, 1500s-1900s, database on Ancestry, confirms that by 1873, Scholum, also known as S.J. or Joseph Katzenstein, had moved to Washington, Pennsylvania. That is, he moved to the small town in western Pennsylvania where his mother’s uncle Simon Goldschmidt and his children were living at that time. Readers with excellent memories may recall that Simon Goldschmidt was married to Fanny Schoenthal, my great-grandfather Isidore Schoenthal’s sister. By 1881 Isidore was also living in Washington, Pennsylvania.

S.J.’s move to Washington, Pennsylvania, may have had long lasting repercussions for my family, as I am fairly confident that he was the one who engineered the introduction of his younger sister, my great-grandmother Hilda, to Isidore Schoenthal, my great-grandfather.

The Daily Republican
(Monongahela, Pennsylvania)
11 Aug 1887, Thu • Page 4

S.J Katzenstein married Henrietta Sigmund in 1875. Henrietta was born in 1851 in Baltimore to Ella Goldschmidt and Albert Sigmund. That added yet another twist to my family tree because Ella Goldschmidt was the daughter of Meyer Goldschmidt whose brothers were Seligmann Goldschmidt, father of Eva Goldschmidt Katzenstein, and Simon Goldschmidt, husband of Fanny Schoenthal. In other words, Eva Goldschmidt Katzenstein was Ella Goldschmidt Sigmund’s first cousin, meaning that S.J. Katzenstein married his maternal second cousin, Henrietta Sigmund.

But let me stay focused on the Katzensteins rather than diving into the Goldschmidt rabbit hole.

S.J. and Henrietta, who was also known as Dot or Dottie, had a daughter Moynelle in 1879. S.J., who is listed as Joseph on the 1880 census, was working as a clothing merchant in Washington, Pennsylvania. He and Henrietta would have five more children: Milton (1881), Howard (1882), Ivan (1884), Earl (1885), and Vernon (1892).

S. Joseph Katzenstein and family 1880 census
Year: 1880; Census Place: Washington, Washington, Pennsylvania; Roll: 1202; Family History Film: 1255202; Page: 577A; Enumeration District: 270

S.J. was not the only child of Gerson and Eva Katzenstein to leave Philadelphia for western Pennsylvania in the 1870s. In 1878, Perry Katzenstein, the third brother, was listed in the Pittsburgh directory as a clerk; the following year his brother Jacob joined him. Both were living at 25 Second Avenue and working as salesmen. Although I cannot find either of them on the 1880 census, both were listed in the 1881 Pittsburgh directory, still working as salesmen and still living together, though now at 188 Wylie Avenue. (Perry also appears in the 1880 directory, but Jacob does not.)

As for their parents and little sister Hilda, they were still living in Philadelphia in 1880. Gerson continued to work as a clerk in a store. Living with them, in addition to a number of boarders, was Louis Mansbach, listed as Gerson’s nephew, age 31, and born in “Prussia.” At first I thought this was Louis Mansbach, son of H.H. Mansbach, who would have been Gerson’s great-nephew. But that Louis Mansbach was far too young and born in the US. So who was this Louis Mansbach?

Year: 1880; Census Place: Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Roll: 1173; Family History Film: 1255173; Page: 274B; Enumeration District: 219; Image: 0561

Well, remember that post where I was trying to sort out all the different men named Abraham Mansbach? One of them, whom I called Abraham II, was the son of Leiser Mansbach and grandson of Abraham Mansbach I. Abraham II was the brother of Marum Mansbach who married Hannchen Katzenstein, Gerson Katzenstein’s half-sister. And Abraham II had a son in 1849 who was named for his grandfather: Leiser Mansbach II. He was therefore the nephew of Marum Mansbach and Hannchen Katzenstein. Leiser became Louis, and he was living with Gerson and Eva Katzenstein in 1880, working as a veterinary surgeon.

And so you might be thinking, “Well, he wasn’t Gerson’s nephew. He was Gerson’s brother-in-law’s nephew.” And you might be thinking, “Perhaps Gerson was just being liberal in using the term ‘nephew.’”

But, alas, it’s not that simple. Once again there is a twist in the tree. Louis Mansbach’s mother was Sarah Goldschmidt, Eva Goldschmidt’s sister. So Louis Mansbach was in fact Eva Goldschmidt Katzenstein’s nephew as well as Gerson’s brother-in-law’s nephew.

And on that confusing note, I am going to go get a breath of fresh air and curse the endogamy gods who make using DNA results so utterly pointless in my family research.

The Gumps and the Business of Alcohol, Part II

Posted on December 22, 2016 by Amy

We saw last time that as of 1915 when their father Gabriel Gump died, his four sons, Abraham, Louis, Harry, and Joseph, were all engaged in the family liquor business and that three of the four were living in Baltimore, where they’d been born and raised.

As of 1920, things had changed for Abraham Gump, the oldest son. He and his wife Jennie were living in Los Angeles, and Abraham listed no occupation on the 1920 census. Their two daughters had married. Etta, the older daughter, had married Joseph William Ketzky, who was a native of Alabama and a doctor. They would have two daughters. Ruth, Abraham’s younger daughter, had married Leslie Holzman Lilienthal, who was also a native of Alabama. In 1920, Ruth was living with Leslie in Selma, Alabama, with his parents, Henry and Annie Lilienthal. Henry was a dry goods merchant, and Leslie was working as a clothing salesman (perhaps in his father’s store).

I wouldn’t have thought there was a Jewish community in Selma, Alabama, but as this photograph of Temple Mishkan Israel in that city suggests, there was quite a substantial one. According to this site, the synagogue was founded in 1870 and had about 80 members in the 1910s and 1920s.

So how did two young women from Baltimore meet two men from Alabama? And how and why did their parents end up in Los Angeles? Well, according to his World War I draft registration, Joseph Ketzky had been a medical student at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore in 1917 and must have met Etta during that time. Presumably Etta and Joseph then set Etta’s sister Ruth up with Leslie Lilienthal. But I’ve no clue why Abraham and Jennie were living in California in 1920.

Joseph Ketzky World War I draft registration
Registration State: Maryland; Registration County: Baltimore (Independent City); Roll: 1684137; Draft Board: 13

Although I could not find him on the 1920 census, Louis Gump was still living in Baltimore according to several city directories from the early 1920s. In all three directories Louis listed his occupation as a salesman. Louis and Carrie’s daughter Rosalind and her family were also still in Baltimore; her husband Milton Wertheimer was a cigar manufacturer in 1920.

Harry Gump and his wife Mildred were still in Wilkes-Barre in 1920; Harry did not list an occupation on the census. Joseph and Francella (Kohler) Gump were still in Baltimore, and whatever Joseph had entered as an occupation is crossed out and not legible on the 1920 census. In the 1922 Baltimore directory, Joseph gave his occupation as “investments.”

So what had happened to the family liquor business? Prohibition. The Eighteenth Amendment had been ratified on January 29, 1919, banning the manufacture, transportation, and sale of alcohol. Although it did not take effect for another year, obviously the Gump brothers got out of the business before it was too late. By 1920, Abraham, Louis, Harry, and even Joseph were in or close to their fifties, and all but Joseph no longer were supporting children.

It does not appear that they were too seriously affected by the loss of their business. After all, in 1925, Abraham and Jennie cruised to Cuba; they were back residing in Baltimore at that time. In 1929, they traveled to England. Louis and Carrie took a cruise to France in 1925. Harry and Mildred also cruised to France in 1925. Although they had to wait five additional years until 1930, even Joseph, Francella, and George got to take a trip to France that year.

By 1930, circumstances had changed again. Abraham and Jennie were living in Atlantic City as of 1927, according to the city directory, but in 1930 they were again back in Baltimore, living with Etta and her two daughters. Although Etta still listed her marital status as married, by 1940 she reported that she was divorced. She was quite an accomplished golfer, apparently, as I found numerous articles recounting her participation in golf tournaments. Her younger sister Ruth had moved with her family to Columbus, Georgia, from Selma, Alabama, and her husband Leslie Lilienthal was a retail clothing merchant in Columbus.

English: A picture of Columbus in the 1940s. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Louis Gump and his wife Carrie were still in Baltimore in 1930, and Louis was selling stocks and bonds. Their daughter Rosalind and her family were also still living in Baltimore where Milton was still a cigar manufacturer.

Harry and Mildred were still in Wilkes-Barre in 1930; Harry was retired. And Joseph Gump and his wife and his son George were in Baltimore; Joseph was also retired.

Harry was the first of the brothers to die; he died at age 69 on June 23, 1937, in New York City, where he and Mildred had moved four years earlier. His obituary ran in two Wilkes-Barre papers:

Wilkes-Barre Record, June 24, 1937, p. 11

His older brother Abraham died three years later on May 8, 1940; he was 77:

Baltimore Sun, May 9, 1940, p. 6

Three years later, the youngest Gump brother, Joseph, died on March 27, 1943. He was 72:

Baltimore Sun, March 28, 1943, p. 128

Louis Gump lived the longest; he died at age 87 on September 16, 1951. He had outlived his wife Carrie, who had died in 1940, and had been living with his daughter Rosalind and her family.

As for the four Gump grandchildren, Rosalind lost her husband Milton in 1946; she lived until 1974 and died in Baltimore at age 86. Abraham’s daughter Etta Gump Ketsky died in 1953 at 57; she had never remarried. Her sister Ruth Gump Lilienthal died one month shy of her 100^th birthday in 1999 in Columbus, Georgia.

Joseph’s son George Gump served in the US Navy during World War II and became a tax lawyer; he died in 1988 when he was 79.

Baltimore Sun, September 16, 1988, p. 91

This snapshot of the lives of the four sons of Gabriel Gump and Henrietta Mansbach and their children provided me with some insights into the effect that Prohibition had on some families in the US. Gabriel Gump had established a very successful wholesale liquor business in Baltimore, so successful that it was able to support all four of his sons and their families up until Prohibition. But that business was shut down by Prohibition.

Even after Prohibition, however, the family lived quite comfortably. By 1933, when Prohibition was finally repealed by the 21^st Amendment, the four Gump brothers were more or less retired and still apparently living well on whatever they’d earned from the business. They do not appear to have suffered from the destruction of their family business and lived relatively full and uneventful lives.

That brings me to the end of my research about the three Mansbach cousins, the niece and nephews of my great-great-grandfather Gerson Katzenstein. Next, I will return to Gerson and his family.

The Gumps and the Business of Alcohol

Posted on December 19, 2016 by Amy

Hannchen Katzenstein, my great-great-grandfather’s sister, and Marum Mansbach had three children; I’ve already written about the two sons, H.H. and Abraham. This post will be about their daughter and first child, Henrietta Mansbach.

As I’ve written previously, Henrietta married Gabriel Gump, brother of Eliza Gump, who was married to Henrietta’s brother Abraham. Like her brother Abraham, Henrietta died relatively young at 61 in 1893. In addition to her husband Gabriel, she was survived by four sons: Abraham, Louis, Harry, and Joseph.

Henrietta’s children and husband worked together in the family business, a wholesale liquor distributorship, and almost all of them lived their whole lives in Baltimore. Unlike the children of her brother, however, Henrietta’s children lived lives that were not marked by tragedy.

In 1887, Louis Gump, the second son, married Caroline (Carrie) Metzger. She was the daughter of German immigrants, Aaron Metzger and Teresa Hamburg, and was herself born in Baltimore in 1865. Her father was a horse dealer. Louis and Carrie had a daughter Rosalind, on October 1, 1887. In 1894, Louis was working for Gump & Sons, his family’s liquor business. According to the 1900 census, Carrie had had two other babies after Rosalind, but only Rosaline was alive as of 1900.

Louis and Carrie Gump on 1900 census showing only 1 of 3 children alive Year: 1900; Census Place: Baltimore Ward 16, Baltimore City (Independent City), Maryland; Roll: 615; Page: 12A; Enumeration District: 0209; FHL microfilm: 1240615

In December 1894, Abraham, the oldest Gump son married Jennie Hamburger. She was also the daughter of German immigrants, Lewis and Rosa Hamburger; her father was a clothing merchant. Jennie was born in Maryland.

Der Deutsche Correspondent December 13, 1894, p.4

The announcement reports that Jennie Hamburger married Abraham Gump, that they were married by two rabbis, and that there was a happy wedding celebration afterwards. It also lists some of the guests, including Harry and Joseph Gump, Abraham’s brothers, and Louis Mansbach, H.H. Mansbach’s son and Abraham Gump’s first cousin.

Abraham and Jennie had two daughters, Etta, born in 1895, and Ruth, born in 1899.

On December 27, 1899, the third Gump son, Harry, married Mildred Lewith of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Their wedding was described in incredible detail in this news article from the Wilkes-Barre Sunday News of December 31, 1899, p. 7:

I will transcribe only a small portion of this long and extremely detailed article, but if you want to read an elaborate description of every step in their ceremony, click through to see the full text:

The wedding of Miss Mildred Lewith of this city and Harry Gump of Baltimore took place at the synagogue B’nai B’rith on South Washington Street at 7:30 Wednesday. The affair was the grandest Hebrew social event of the season. Everyone knew it was going to be a grand affair, but none thought it would be such a brilliant and gorgeous one, and surrounded by so much beauty.

[Then follows a lengthy and florid description of the clothing, the ceremony, the decorations at the reception, the orchestra, the gifts, and a list of the out of town guests.]

The bride and groom left on the midnight train for Old Point Comfort and will remain there for a week. They will go to Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York, and finally will return to this city and take up their residence in handsome apartments at the Sterling Hotel until late next fall, when their home in Baltimore will be ready for them. The fact that the bride will not at once make her home in another city will be good news to her many friends, for she is a deservedly popular young lady and her friends do not want to part with her.

A few observations about this wedding article. First, Mildred must have come from quite a wealthy family. Mildred was a native of Wilkes-Barre, and her parents, Lewis Lewith and Josephine Freeman, were immigrants from Nepomuk in what is now the Czech Republic, but was then part of the Austria-Hungary Empire. Lewis, like Harry’s father Gabriel Gump, was in the wholesale liquor business in Wilkes-Barre. I assume that that is how the connection was made between Harry and Mildred. Mildred and Harry did not have any children.

An old bird-eye map (circa 1889) for Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, United States. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Second, we think that social media today reveals too many intimate details about people’s lives, but even in 1899 the public was fascinated with the private lives of others. I also wonder how those whose marriage announcement followed this one in the Wilkes-Barre paper felt about their relatively meager announcements.

Thirdly, I don’t know what happened to the home being prepared for them in Baltimore, but as far as I can tell, Harry and Mildred never really left Wilkes-Barre, I am sure to the delight of her many friends.

Thus, as of 1900, three of the Gump sons—Abraham, Louis, and Harry— were married. Their father Gabriel was living in Baltimore with Louis and his family in 1900, and the youngest son Joseph was living with them as well.

Louis Gump and family 1900 census
Year: 1900; Census Place: Baltimore Ward 16, Baltimore City (Independent City), Maryland; Roll: 615; Page: 12A; Enumeration District: 0209; FHL microfilm: 1240615

Abraham was living with his wife Jennie and daughters in Baltimore also, and only Harry was living elsewhere—in Wilkes-Barre.

Joseph, the youngest son, married Francella (sometimes called Frances) Kohler sometime before June 25, 1907. I cannot find any official or unofficial reference to the date of their marriage, but on that date a newspaper item appeared in the Baltimore Sun reporting that “Mrs. Joseph Gump” would spend July at the Blue Mountain House, a resort in the Blue Ridge Mountains near the border of Maryland and Pennsylvania.

Baltimore Sun, June 23, 1907, p. 6

I wondered how Joseph Gump met Francella Kohler. She was born in New York City in 1875 and lived in Brooklyn until she was about five when her parents, David Kohler and Jane Kurtz, moved to Baltimore. David was a merchant, sometimes selling clothing, sometimes tobacco products, and Francella was one of eight children. Her mother Jane died in 1880, and at some point her father David remarried, and by 1891 the family had moved to Savannah, Georgia.

So how did Joseph Gump meet Francella if she had moved from Baltimore by the time (and perhaps before) she was sixteen? He was four years older than Francella. Perhaps they’d met while she and he were both growing up in Baltimore or their families were friendly. Also, I found two items of social news in the Augusta, Georgia, newspaper, one from 1900 and one from 1902, reporting that Joseph Gump of Baltimore was staying in that city. Although Augusta is almost 140 miles from Savannah, perhaps there was some event that brought Joseph and Francella together while he was visiting Georgia.

At any rate, Joseph and Francella married by June 1907, and on November 17, 1908, their son George Gump was born in Baltimore. In 1910, Joseph, Francella, and George were living in Baltimore, and Joseph was working in the family liquor business. Francella’s father David Kohler, widowed again, was living with them.

Joseph Gump and family 1910 US census
Year: 1910; Census Place: Baltimore Ward 15, Baltimore (Independent City), Maryland; Roll: T624_558; Page: 4B; Enumeration District: 0259; FHL microfilm: 1374571

Joseph’s father Gabriel was still living with his son Louis and his family in 1910. Gabriel was retired, but Louis was still working in the liquor business with his brothers. Abraham also was still in the family liquor business, living in Baltimore with his wife and daughters. Harry continued to live in Wilkes-Barre with his wife Mildred, and although the entry for him on the 1910 census is not legible, according to the 1910 Wilkes-Barre city directory, he was working as a commercial traveler, i.e., a traveling salesman.

On January 28, 1915, Gabriel Gump died at age 84 in Baltimore. Although I could not find an obituary in the Baltimore Sun, the Wilkes-Barre Evening News (January 29, 1915, p. 5) ran this notice:

When Gabriel’s will was probated a month later, the Baltimore Sun published this article about the distribution of Gabriel’s estate:

Baltimore Sun, February 3, 1915, p. 4

Gabriel was survived by his four sons and four grandchildren: Rosalind, Etta, Ruth, and George. In addition, when Gabriel died, he was already a great-grandfather. His granddaughter Rosalind, daughter of Louis and Carrie (Metzger) Gump, had married Milton Wertheimer, who was born in New York in 1883, but was living in Baltimore in 1910 with his parents and working in his father’s manufacturing business. Rosalind and Milton had a son, Emanuel, in 1912. A second son, Milton Wertheimer, Jr., was born just five months after Gabriel’s death in 1915.

Thus, at the time of Gabriel Gump’s death, his four sons and their families were prospering from the family’s wholesale liquor business. The next decade saw drastic changes

Bad Luck or Bad Genes: The Sad Legacy of Abraham Mansbach

Posted on December 15, 2016 by Amy

As seen in the last post, the family of Abraham Mansbach had prospered despite Abraham’s early death in 1887 at age 52. Unfortunately, his DNA would cast a long shadow on his children and grandchildren.

The last post ended in 1915 when Abraham’s son Jerome married Ida Herzog. At that time Jerome and his sister Mollie and her family were all living in Baltimore. Mollie was married to Herman Kerngood, a successful businessman, the owner and president of a button and metal fastening manufacturing business, Alma Manufacturing. They had two sons, Allen and Morton Kerngood.

The World War I draft registrations for the Mansbach and Kerngood men revealed more details of their lives as of 1917-1918. Jerome Mansbach was living in Baltimore with Ida and working as a traveling salesman for H & S Cohn of New York City. In 1920, Jerome and Ida were living with Ida’s father Charles and her sister and brother-in-law in Baltimore; Jerome continued to work as a traveling salesman.

Jerome Mansbach World War I draft registration
Registration State: Maryland; Registration County: Baltimore; Roll: 1684239; Draft Board: 4

Jerome’s nephew Allen Kerngood was living in Baltimore with his wife, Myrtle Folb, and one child (a daughter, Marian, born in 1913), and he was working as a superintendent at his father’s company, Alma Manufacturing.

Allen Kerngood World War I draft registration
Registration State: Maryland; Registration County: Baltimore (Independent City); Roll: 1684137; Draft Board: 13

Allen’s younger brother Morton Kerngood was working as an assistant superintendent at Alma Manufacturing and was now married and also living in Baltimore. He was married to Myra Spandour, a Virginia native.

Morton Kerngood World War I draft registration
Registration State: Maryland; Registration County: Baltimore (Independent City); Roll: 1684137; Draft Board: 13

Meanwhile, the family matriarch Eliza (Gump) Mansbach, Abraham’s widow, relocated to Atlantic City by 1920. Eliza is listed as residing at Gerstel’s Hotel in both the 1920 and 1921 Atlantic City directories. Although Eliza still had one brother, Jacob, and her two children and her grandchildren living in Baltimore, something prompted her to move by herself to Atlantic City. Of course, as I’ve written earlier in my posts about the family of Simon Schoenthal, the 1910s were the heyday of Atlantic City’s popularity. But it still strikes me as somewhat surprising that Eliza, a widow in her seventies, would have moved away from her children and grandchildren.

Atlantic City Boardwalk 1911
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b7/Atlantic_City_Boardwalk_crowd_in_front_of_Blenheim_hotel_1911_re-retouched.jpg

As for Eliza’s daughter Mollie and her husband, Herman Kerngood, like Eliza, they seem to have eluded the census enumerator in 1920. But other reports indicate that Herman was still the owner and president of Alma Manufacturing. Herman was nominated to serve as a Supervisor for City Charities for the city of Baltimore in June 1921, and after some controversy, was appointed:

Baltimore Sun, June 18, 1921, p.17

Six years later he was named to the Baltimore Board of Pension Trustees:

Baltimore Sun, July 18, 1927, p. 3

I was able to locate Mollie and Herman’s sons on the 1920 census records. Their older son Allen and his wife Myrtle were living in Baltimore with their daughter Marian; Allen continued to work at Alma Manufacturing with his father. Allen and Myrtle would have a second child, Herman (II), in 1922. Allen’s brother Morton was also working at Alma Manufacturing; he and his wife Myra had a child, Morton, Jr., in 1921. They were also living in Baltimore.

Thus, it seemed that the family was thriving and that life was treating them all well in the 1920s. But fortunes started to change in 1929. On September 1 of that year, Eliza Gump Mansbach died at age 86 and was buried with her husband Abraham at Oheb Shalom cemetery in Baltimore; she had outlived him by 42 years.

Eliza Gump Mansbach death notice
Baltimore Sun, September 2, 1929 p. 14

Her children did not outlive her for as many years. Although her daughter Mollie (Mansbach) Kerngood is listed with her husband Herman in the 1930 Baltimore directory, she is not listed with him on the 1930 census. He is listed as living at the same address as that listed in the 1930 directory, but Mollie is not included.

On March 21, 1931, the Baltimore Sun reported that Herman Kerngood had been hospitalized after suffering a “breakdown.”

Baltimore Sun, March 21, 1931, p. 3

Four months later, the newspaper reported that Herman had been “dropped” from the Board of Pension Trustees by the current mayor; the article seemed to suggest that this was for political reasons, as Kerngood was a Republican and the new mayor a Democrat.

Baltimore Sun, July 11, 1931, p. 20

Then just a month later, on August 11, 1931, Mollie Kerngood died. She was 64. There was no obituary, just this short death notice, describing her as the “beloved wife” of Herman Kerngood.

Baltimore Sun, August 12, 1931, p. 19

I can’t quite put all these pieces together, but the timing of all of these events seems to be too odd to be coincidental. Had Mollie taken ill sometime before April, 1930, when the census was taken? Had Herman’s breakdown been related to his wife’s illness? Had the mayor removed Herman because of this breakdown, not just for political reasons? What would you infer from this series of events? Was it the Depression, not illness, that caused the family’s problems? Some other issue?

The family’s travails did not end there. Herman Kerngood died eleven months after his wife Mollie on July 10, 1932. Despite his prominence as a business leader and public servant in Baltimore, I could not find an obituary for him, only these brief notices of his death and his funeral:

Baltimore Sun, July 12, 1932, p. 18

Baltimore Sun, July 12, 1932, p. 9

The funeral notice states that he died suddenly of heart trouble. When his estate was probated a month later, it was valued at $209, 393. His sons, Allen and Morton, took over the business of Alma Manufacturing.

Baltimore Sun, August 7, 1932, p, 13

On top of these losses, the family suffered what must have been a terrible shock when Allen Kerngood’s wife Myrtle died in June, 1937, in what was reported to have been an accident. Her body was found washed ashore on an island off the coast of Maryland after she had disappeared from a steamer traveling from Norfolk, Virginia, to Baltimore:

Baltimore Sun, June 28, 1937, p. 18

Myrtle was only 47, and her children Marian and Herman were 24 and 15, respectively, when she died.

Two years later Allen Kerngood lost his younger brother Morton when he died from a blood infection at age 49:

Baltimore Sun, May 13, 1939, p. 20

Morton’s son Morton, Jr. was seventeen when his father died in 1939; he lost his mother, Myra Spandour Kerngood, in 1942, leaving him an orphan at twenty-one years of age.

Thus, the family of Mollie (Mansbach) Kerngood had far more than their fair share of tragedy in the ten years after Mollie died in 1931. First, Herman died in 1932, and then their son Morton died as well as both of their daughters-in-law. The only surviving member of the family aside from the three grandchildren was Allen Kerngood, who died on October 5, 1948, when he was only 59. According to his death notice, he died suddenly.

Baltimore Sun, October 5, 1948, p. 26

As for the Kerngood family business, its original facility in Baltimore closed in 1940, and the business was sold to the North and Judd Manufacturing Company of New Britain, Connecticut, in 1946.

Meanwhile, Jerome Mansbach, Mollie’s brother and the son of Abraham and Eliza (Gump) Mansbach, had continued to live with his wife Ida in Baltimore. In 1930, Jerome was still a traveling salesman, but in 1940 when he was 62 he did not list an occupation on the census. His 1942 World War II draft registration confirms that he was no longer employed.

Jerome Mansbach World War II draft registration
The National Archives at St. Louis; St. Louis, Missouri; Draft Registration Cards for Fourth Registration for Maryland, 04/27/1942 – 04/27/1942; NAI Number: 563727; Record Group Title: Records of the Selective Service System; Record Group Number: 147

Jerome died on December 20, 1942; he was 63 or 64 (records conflict as to whether he was born in 1878 or 1879). Like his nephew Morton and his father Abraham, he died suddenly.

Baltimore Sun, December 21, 1942, p. 18

His wife Ida died two years later in 1944 when she was 72. Jerome and Ida had not had any children.

Longevity does not appear to have been in the genes of Abraham Mansbach and his children. He died at 52; his daughter Mollie and his son Jerome both died when they were 64, and Mollie’s two sons died at even younger ages: Morton was 49, Allen was 59. Although Eliza Gump Mansbach had lived into her eighties, it appears that neither her children nor her grandsons were as fortunate.

Finally, A Baseball Legend in the Family… Sort of

Posted on December 12, 2016 by Amy

Having finished the story of H.H. Mansbach and his family, I want to return to his two older siblings, Abraham and Henrietta. As I wrote earlier, Abraham and Henrietta married siblings: Eliza and Gabriel Gump. Abraham died on November 18, 1887, leaving Eliza with two children, Mollie, who was 21, and Jerome, who was nine. Then Henrietta died on March 15, 1893, survived by her husband Gabriel and their four sons, Abraham, Louis, Harry, and Joseph. What happened to these surviving spouses and their children? This post will be about Abraham Mansbach’s family, his wife Eliza, and children Mollie and Jerome.

According to the 1900 census, Mollie Mansbach, Abraham and Eliza’s daughter, married Herman Kerngood in 1886 when she was twenty years old. Herman was born in Warburg, Germany, in 1859 and had immigrated to the US in the 1870s. By 1880 he was living in Baltimore with his uncle, William Kerngood, working as a clerk in his uncle’s dry goods business. But Herman did not remain a clerk for long. He established the Alma Button Company (later Alma Manufacturing) in 1887, the same year he married Mollie Mansbach.

Former home of Alma Manufacturing in Baltimore
https://mht.maryland.gov/secure/medusa/PDF/Baltimore%20City/B-1059.pdf

It grew to be a very successful business, according to this site about Baltimore’s history:

Founded in 1887 by 28-year-old German immigrant Herman Kerngood, the Alma Manufacturing Company manufactured a wide variety of metal clothing trimmings including buckles, clasps, fasteners and steel buttons. Before Kerngood started his operation, conveniently located alongside the Baltimore & Ohio railroad tracks, textile companies in the United States had imported all their steel buttons from Germany. The firm produced around 35,000 specialized products (the “Superior Pantaloon Button” and “Perfect Trousers’ Hook” to name just a few) and could be found attached to hats, umbrellas, shoes and, of course, clothing produced at factories around the country.

Here is the drawing for one of the many patents obtained by Herman Kerngood for products and machinery used in his business, this one for studs for clasps awarded in 1896:

Another site describes more of Herman Kerngood’s entrepreneurial success:

At the beginning of the 20th century, Herman Kerngood formed a partnership with Moses Hecht, Benjamin F. Hecht, Nathan I. Hecht, S.B. Sonneborn, and Isaac Blum, to establish the American Steel Buckle Company, Inc. with an authorized capital stock of $1000. The Hechts were of the same family that started Hecht Brothers and the Hecht Company chain of department stores in the Baltimore-Washington region, starting with a used furniture store founded by Samuel Hecht, in 1857.

In 1900, Mollie and Herman Kerngood were living with their two sons, Allen (11) and Morton (10) as well as Mollie’s mother Eliza (who for some reason is identified as Herman’s aunt on the census report).

Herman Kerngood and family 1900 census
Year: 1900; Census Place: Baltimore Ward 15, Baltimore City (Independent City), Maryland; Roll: 614; Page: 6B; Enumeration District: 0191; FHL microfilm: 1240614

I am not sure where Mollie’s brother Jerome was at the time of the 1900 census. Although he is listed in the 1899 Baltimore directory as residing at the same address as his mother and his sister, 2007 McCulloh Street, he does not appear with them on the 1900 census, and he is missing from the Baltimore directory for the years between 1899 and 1906. The only references I could find as to his whereabouts were two short news clippings from 1900:

Philadelphia Inquirer, March 25, 1900, p. 29

On March 25, 1900, he was identified in the Philadelphia Inquirer as being from Baltimore and visiting his first cousin Bertie (Bertha) Mansbach in Cumberland, Maryland. Bertha was the daughter of H.H. Mansbach, Jerome’s uncle. This is more evidence that despite the fact that H.H. and his brother Abraham served on opposite sides of the Civil War, there was some continuing family relationship afterwards.

The second news clipping about Jerome, from the Baltimore Sun and dated just six days later on March 31, 1900, states that Jerome was formerly from Baltimore and was visiting the city:

Baltimore Sun, March 31, 1900, p.12

So where was Jerome living at that time? I don’t know, but as noted above, he does reappear in the Baltimore city directory in 1906, living at the same address where his sister and her family and his mother were living in 1900, McCulloh Street. In 1907, he is listed as a clerk living at the Hotel Forbes in Baltimore. But he is not listed in the Baltimore directory after 1907 for several years until he reappears in the 1914 edition. Nor can I find him on the 1910 census.

I also had no luck locating his mother Eliza (Gump) Mansbach on the 1910 census nor in any directory or other record for that year. The only members of the Abraham Mansbach family I could find on the 1910 census were Mollie (Mansbach) and Herman Kerngood and their two sons. Mollie and Herman were still living in Baltimore with their younger son Morton, who was now twenty. Both Herman and Morton were working in Alma Manufacturing, Morton as a salesman. Their older son Allen, 21, was living with his uncle, Julius Kerngood, in New York City and working as a “commercial traveller” selling buttons, presumably for his father’s company.

Jerome Mansbach reappears in the 1914 Baltimore directory, listing himself as a commercial traveler, and has the same listing in 1915. I’ve no idea where Jerome was between 1907 and 1914, but my best guess is that as a traveling salesman, he was on the road so much that he somehow was missed in the 1910 census and wasn’t settled enough to list himself in a city directory for those years.

But on July 15, 1915, Jerome did finally settle down. He married Ida Herzog, daughter of Charles and Josephine (Schwartz) Herzog of Govans, Maryland, a neighborhood in Baltimore.

Ida’s father Charles was a Baltimore native, and her mother was born in New Jersey. Charles, the son of a beer brewer, was a lawyer, and Ida’s maternal grandfather, Andrew Schwartz, was a Methodist minister. I can’t help but wonder how Ida’s grandfather felt about her marrying the son of a Jewish immigrant.

What really caught my eye in the marriage announcement, however, was the statement that Ida was the sister of “Buck” Herzog, “manager of the Cincinnati team.” I’d never heard of him before, but being a big baseball fan, I was curious as to whether the “Cincinnati team” meant the Cincinnati Reds. Sure enough, it did, and it turns out that Buck Herzog was not only a manager, but a former Major League player who had played in the 1912 World Series and broken the record for most hits in a World Series, a record that stood for over fifty years.

Buck Herzog 1911
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3A1911_Buck_Herzog.jpeg

Gabriel Schechter wrote a biography of Buck Herzog for the Society of American Baseball Research, from which this excerpt is taken:

Buck Herzog was one of the most versatile infielders in the history of the major leagues; his 1,493 games were divided almost equally among second base, shortstop, and third base. His motto, “When you get ’em down, choke ’em,” earned him the nickname “Choke ‘Em Charley.” John McGraw signed Herzog for the New York Giants in 1908, beginning a baseball love-hate relationship exceeded perhaps only by George Steinbrenner and Billy Martin. No player better exemplified McGraw’s ferocious fighting spirit than the 5’11”, 160 lb. Herzog, yet the two generally couldn’t stand each other. Over the course of a decade the Giants traded away the aggressive infielder three times and brought him back twice, both times experiencing immediate success when he re-entered the fold. “I hate his guts,” McGraw once said about Herzog, “but I want him on my club.”

Buck Herzog baseball card for the Boston Braves
By Issued by: American Tobacco Company [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

I realize that the connection is quite attenuated, but I still got a kick out of the fact that a distant cousin of mine married the sister of a genuine American baseball legend!

The Legacy of H.H. Mansbach: Motherless Boy, Civil War Hero, Father of Eight, and Successful Merchant

Posted on December 8, 2016 by Amy

We saw in the last post how the first decade presented some sad challenges and losses for the family of H.H. Mansbach. The family matriarch Nannie Hirsch Mansbach died unexpectedly in 1907, the youngest son Isaac was institutionalized, and Louis Mansbach’s wife Clara died at age 36.

The family’s losses continued in 1912 when the family patriarch, H.H. Mansbach, died April 1, 1912, in Norfolk; he was 71 years old. The Norfolk Ledger-Dispatch (April 1, 1912) published this obituary:

image courtesy of John Fazenbaker from FindAGrave http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=pv&GRid=85694927&PIpi=56133015

H.H. Mansbach, father of Louis, Charles, and George Mansbach, proprietors of “The Hub,” died this morning at 12:20 o’clock in the home of his son-in-law, D.R. Broh, 140 Main Street, Berkley ward. Mr. Mansbach was 72 years of age [sic: he was 71] and while he had been in failing health for more than a year, his death was unexpected and came as a shock to his family. Tomorrow evening on the Washington steamer his body will be conveyed to Cumberland, Md., where the funeral will be held and the deceased laid in his last resting place beside his wife, who preceded him to the grave about five and a half years ago. The body will be accompanied to Cumberland by the members of his family.

H.H. Mansbach was born in Maden, Germany, but came to his country when nine years old. [There is no record to support this assertion; records instead show that he came in 1856 with his uncle Gerson Katzenstein when he was sixteen; even his older brother was not in the US in 1849 when H.H. would have been nine.] A resident of Americus, Ga., and a member of the State militia when the war between the States began, he enlisted in the Confederate army and served gallantly until the close of hostilities under Generals Beauregard and Chalmers. He was wounded at the battle of Murfreesboro and at Shiloh and after the war became a member of the Confederate Cap at Romney, W.Va. His name is still on the roster of that camp.

After the surrender of General Lee, Mr. Mansbach engaged in the mercantile business in Piedmont, W.Va., where he was a leading and very prosperous merchant for forty-one years, and up to the time of his retirement about five years ago, when he came to Norfolk and has since lived with his daughter, Mrs. D. R. Broh. He was one of the best known business men in West Virginia and was widely known throughout Virginia and Maryland.

Mr. Mansbach is survived by seven children, four daughters and three sons. [Once again Isaac is not included in the list of survivors; the rest of the children were named and their residence locations as indicated above were identified.]

Mr. Mansbach was a Royal Arch Mason and had the distinction of being a Mason fifty years ago in the same lodge that conferred the degree on the late President William McKinley at Winchester, Va. He also was a member of Ohef [sic: Oheb] Shalom Temple.

H.H. was survived by his eight children and (eventually) seven grandchildren. He was buried next to his wife Nannie at Eastview Cemetery in Cumberland, Maryland.

Courtesy of John Fazenbaker
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=pv&GRid=85694927&PIpi=64039432

His children carried on his business and his name.

H.H. and Nannie’s youngest child, May, married in 1914; her husband was Sigmund Louis Emanuel, who was born in Gloucester, Massachusetts, in 1876, but had lived most of his life in New York City. In 1910, when he was 33, he was living with his parents and some of his siblings in Queens, New York, and owned a clothing manufacturing business with his father.

How did he meet May, who was living in Virginia? My guess—the Emanuels supplied clothing to the retail clothing business owned by the Mansbach family, and a connection was made. Or possibly May’s two sisters Hattie and Bertha who lived in New York set her up with Sigmund. May and Sigmund would have one child, a daughter Nanette born in 1916 in New York City.

In 1920, four of the Mansbach siblings were living in Norfolk: Louis, Charles, Bertha, and Fannie. In fact, Louis, Fannie, and Bertha were all living in one household, along with Fannie and Bertha’s husbands and children.

Mansbach siblings on 1920 census in Norfolk, VA
Year: 1920; Census Place: Norfolk Madison Ward, Norfolk (Independent City), Virginia; Roll: T625_1902; Page: 1B; Enumeration District: 101; Image: 279

Their brother George was living in Baltimore, sisters May and Hattie in New York, and brother Isaac in the state hospital in Sykesville, Maryland.

The siblings appear to have remained close. In 1920, Louis traveled to St. John’s Newfoundland with Fannie and her family. In 1923, Louis, Hattie and her family, and Fannie all traveled to England together. Fannie’s husband Daniel Broh did not travel with them, and three years later he died of stomach cancer at age 60. According to his death certificate, he had been ill for eight years, so presumably he was not well enough in 1923 to travel with Fannie and her siblings.

Daniel Broh death certificate
Ancestry.com. Virginia, Death Records, 1912-2014 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2015.
Original data: Virginia, Deaths, 1912–2014. Virginia Department of Health, Richmond, Virginia.

Charles and Louis traveled to Key West together in 1928. A year later Charles’ wife Regina died at age 47 of heart disease caused by rheumatic endocarditis, which she had contracted thirty years earlier, according to her death certificate.

Regina Rosenbaum Mansbach death certificate
Ancestry.com. Virginia, Death Records, 1912-2014 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2015.
Original data: Virginia, Deaths, 1912–2014. Virginia Department of Health, Richmond, Virginia.

Thus, by 1930, three of the eight Mansbach children had lost their spouses: Louis, Charles, and Fannie. Fannie and Louis were living in the same household in Norfolk with their sister Bertha and her husband David Loewenstein and their son in 1930. None of them was working at that point. Although the census record lists Fannie as “Deborah Danial,” it is evident to me that this is Fannie based on the fact that “Deborah” is described as the sister of the head of household (Louis), is the same age that Fannie would have been in 1930, and was born in West Virginia. My guess is that the census enumerator heard “Fannie Broh” as “Danial Deborah” and wrote it that way on the form.

Mansbach siblings on 1930 census Norfolk, VA
Year: 1930; Census Place: Norfolk, Norfolk (Independent City), Virginia; Roll: 2470; Page: 4B; Enumeration District: 0050; Image: 888.0; FHL microfilm: 2342204

Charles, also a widower, was living with his son in Norfolk in 1930, running the department store. Also, by 1930 May and her husband Sigmund Emanuel and their daughter had moved to Norfolk, where Sigmund was working as the treasurer of the department store. Thus, in 1930 five of the eight siblings were living in Norfolk.

Isaac remained institutionalized, Hattie was still in New York, and George was in Baltimore. George was living with his wife Bessie, her brother Arthur, and her mother; both he and Arthur listed their occupations as retail clothing merchants.

In 1936, another Mansbach sibling lost a spouse when David Loewenstein, Bertha’s husband, died at age 68 from heart disease; his death certificate also notes that he had suffered from locomotor ataxia for 27 years.

David Loewenstein death certificate
Ancestry.com. Virginia, Death Records, 1912-2014 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2015.
Original data: Virginia, Deaths, 1912–2014. Virginia Department of Health, Richmond, Virginia.

As the Mansbach siblings and their spouses entered their seventies in the 1940s, more and more of them passed away. Louis died November 9, 1940; he was 72 and died from stomach cancer. His brother-in-law Milton Hirschman, Hattie’s husband, died on April 29, 1942, in New York; he was 78. George Mansbach died August 13, 1946; he was 74. The Cumberland News (August 15, 1946, p.20), ran this obituary:

George Mansbach obituary

Again, Isaac is not mentioned as a survivor although he was still living at that time.

Charles Mansbach died four years later on April 4, 1950; he was 75.

That left just the four sisters and Isaac still living, and three of the four sisters were widows. They died in the 1950s: Bertha (1952), Fannie (1958), and Hattie (1959). They were 76, 85, and 90, respectively. Isaac died in 1963 at age 84. May outlived all her siblings and her husband Sigmund, who had died in 1963. She was 89 when she died in 1976. Unfortunately I was unable to locate obituaries for any of them.

When I think about the life and legacy of my cousin H.H. Mansbach, nephew of my great-great-grandfather Gerson Katzenstein, it is quite remarkable. From the beginning his life was filled with challenges. His mother died on the day he was born (July 3, 1840). He came to America as a sixteen year old, sailing with his uncle Gerson and family. He moved far from the family, living in several states including Georgia, where he joined the Confederate Army in 1861 and was injured twice in his four years of service in the Civil War.

Then he settled in West Virginia, married, and had eight children, meanwhile establishing himself as a very successful merchant. He lost his father and siblings all within a ten year period from 1883-1893, and then lost his wife Nannie in 1907. Five years later he was buried beside her at Eastview Cemetery in Cumberland, Maryland, the town where his wife had first lived in the US and where H.H. himself had lived for many years.

H.H. Mansbach
Courtesy of John Fazenbaker at FindAGrave
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=pv&GRid=85694927&PIpi=56133066

His eight children benefited from his remarkable success as a merchant. Almost all of them were involved in some way in the family’s department store business. They all lived well. Many of them lived close to if not with each other in Norfolk, Virginia. Sadly, many of them also suffered losses— Louis had a child who died as a baby and then lost his wife Clara when she was in her thirties. Charles also was widowed at a young age as was Fannie. Isaac lived his entire adult life in a psychiatric facility.

But overall H.H. lived a good life with many successes and accomplishments. In addition, he was survived by seven grandchildren who continued his legacy.

More Weddings, More Funerals: The Mansbach Family 1900-1910

Posted on December 5, 2016 by Amy

As we saw in my last post, the years after the Civil War were years of both personal and financial growth for H.H. Mansbach and his family. The first decade of the twentieth century presented many changes and challenges for the Mansbach family, some happy, some not. Here again is a family sheet for H.H.:

On January 8, 1902, the third daughter Bertha Mansbach married David Loewenstein of New York. David was a German immigrant who was in the clothing business. From the wedding announcement I am inferring that he had a brother Charles and sister Rose, but I’ve not been able to find out much else about him or his family.

David and Bertha were married in Cumberland followed by an “elaborate supper.” According to the wedding announcement in the January 9, 1902, Baltimore Sun (p.10), at that time Bertha’s sister Fannie and her husband Daniel Broh were living in Akron, Ohio. The wedding announcement also indicated that Bertha’s sister Hattie and her husband Milton Hirschman were still living in Morgantown, West Virginia, in January, 1902.

bertha-mansbach-david-loewenstein-wedding-announcement-1902

Baltimore Sun, January 9, 1902, p. 10

Missing from this list of guests was Isaac Mansbach, Bertha’s younger brother. By 1902, Isaac Mansbach had joined his parents and sister May in Cumberland, Maryland, where he was practicing law, according to the 1902 Cumberland directory. Why wasn’t he listed at his sister’s wedding? More on that below.

In October, 1903, Charles Milton Mansbach married Regina Rosenbaum in Cumberland. Once again, it appears to have been quite an elaborate occasion.

Baltimore Sun, October 29, 1903, p.10

In 1905 Charles was working as a bookkeeper in the Hirsch family business (his mother’s family) in Cumberland.

In October 1905, George Mansbach married Bessie Frank of Baltimore, Maryland; they settled in Fairmont, West Virginia.

Baltimore Sun, October 26, 1905, p. 7

That made six weddings for the Mansbach siblings between 1893 and 1905, three of them in the last four years. Only Isaac and May had not yet married.

In 1907 Fannie (Mansbach) and Daniel Broh were living in Fairmont, West Virginia; according to the 1907 Fairmont directory, Daniel was in the shoe business. George and Bessie were also living in Fairmont, though George was still in business with his brother Louis; perhaps he ran the family store in Fairmont. Thus, in 1907, two of the eight Mansbach children were still in West Virginia.



http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/114526762

Two other siblings had moved to Norfolk, Virginia by 1907. Louis and his wife Clara were in Norfolk in 1907 as were Charles and his wife Regina. Charles and Louis owned a clothing store in Norfolk called The Hub that was in business for many years.

Meanwhile, H.H. and Nannie continued to live in Cumberland, Maryland, with their youngest child, May, in 1907.

I could not locate the whereabouts of three of the eight Mansbach children between 1902 and 1907: Bertha (also known as Bertie) Mansbach Loewenstein, Hattie Mansbach Hirschman, and Isaac Mansbach, the son who had become a lawyer. I learned where Bertha and Hattie were living in 1907 when I found this sad article:

Cumberland Evening Times, October 11, 1907, p. 1

Mrs. Nannie Mansbach, wife of Mr. H.H. Mansbach, died suddenly this morning at 6 o’clock at the Mansbach residence, No. 8 Park street.

Mrs. Mansbach was slightly indisposed some two weeks ago, but had recovered and was feeling in her usual good health when she retired last evening.

This morning at 5:30 o’clock Mrs. Mansbach aroused her husband, saying that she was suffering considerable misery. A physician was hastily summoned, but to no avail, as Mrs. Mansbach passed away a few minutes later. Death was due to heart failure.

Mrs. Mansbach was 60 years of age and was a Miss Hirsch prior to her marriage.

Mrs. Mansbach’s death came as a great blow to her husband, who is almost prostrate from the shock.

The deceased was one of the best known women in Cumberland. She was of an amiable and charitable disposition, and her sudden death caused a shock to pervade the entire community and surrounding territory, as she had as unusually large acquaintance.

The greatest portion of her life was spent in this city [Cumberland], although some years were spent in Wheeling and Piedmont, while her husband who is a tailor, was engaged in business in those places. Besides her husband she is survived by the following children: Messrs. Louis and Charles Mansbach, Norfolk, Va.; Mrs. Milton Hirschman, Morgantown; Mrs. Fannie Brode [sic[, and George Mansbach, Fairmont, W.Va.; Mrs. David Lowenstein [sic], New York city, and Miss May Mansbach, who resides at home. ….

What a terrible loss this must have been for H.H. and all of the Mansbach children.

I found a few things of particular interest in the obituary. First, the article describes H.H. as a tailor—in the present tense. Although H.H. may have started out as a tailor, by 1907 he was well-known as a very successful merchant, as the 1893 Piedmont Dispatch profile of him had reported. Second, the obituary revealed that Bertha and David Loewenstein were living in New York City, that Hattie and Milton Hirschman were living in Morgantown, West Virginia, and also confirmed the residence location of five of the six other children.

But one child is missing from the list of survivors—Isaac, the Mansbach’s youngest son who had become a lawyer. He also had not been listed as a guest at his sister Bertha’s wedding. Why would he not have been included? The one record I could find for Isaac between the date of the 1900 census and his mother’s death was the listing of him as a lawyer in the 1902 Cumberland directory. Where had he gone from there?

1902 Cumberland, MD, directory
Title : Cumberland, Maryland, City Directory, 1902
Source Information
Ancestry.com. U.S. City Directories, 1822-1995 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011.

The 1910 census provided updates on most of the family. Four of the eight Mansbach siblings were now in Norfolk, Virginia. Louis and his wife Clara were living in Norfolk in a lodging house of some sort; Louis was still in the dry goods business with his brother Charles. Charles and his wife Regina and their four year old daughter Helene were also living in Norfolk. Fannie and her husband Daniel Broh and daughter Doris had now moved from West Virginia to Norfolk; Daniel listed his occupation as the proprietor of a dry goods business. I don’t know whether he was in business with his brothers-in-law, Louis and Charles, or in his own store.

The family patriarch, H.H. Mansbach, and his youngest child, May, who was now 23, were also living in Norfolk in 1910; although I could not locate them on the 1910 census, they were listed as living at 140 Main Street in Norfolk in the 1910 city directory. That is the same address given for Fannie and Daniel Broh on the 1910 census yet H.H. and May were not listed in their household.

The other children were more dispersed. Hattie and her husband Milton Hirschman and their children were living in New York City where Milton was a real estate broker in 1910. Bertha (Birdie) and her husband David Loewenstein and their son were also living in New York City where David was working as an underwear salesman.

George Mansbach was harder to find as for some reason he is listed as George W. Harris on the 1910 census, living in Providence, Rhode Island, working as a clothing merchant. I only concluded this was the right George based on his birth place in the census (West Virginia), his parents’ birthplaces (Germany), his age and occupation, and because I found George W. Mansbach listed in the Providence, Rhode Island, directories for several years starting in 1911.

George Mansbach (“Harris”), 1910 US census
Year: 1910; Census Place: Providence Ward 4, Providence, Rhode Island; Roll: T624_1443; Page: 14B; Enumeration District: 0187; FHL microfilm: 1375456

That left only Isaac, the son who was missing from the list of those attending his sister’s Bertha’s wedding in 1902 and from the list of surviving children on his mother’s obituary in 1907. I learned of his whereabouts from the 1910 census; Isaac was a patient at the Springfield State Hospital, a psychiatric hospital in Sykesville, Maryland. From later census reports through 1940, it appears that he remained there for the rest of his life.

Springfield State Hospital
By Acroterion (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons

My further research of the family in 1910 revealed sad news. On October 28, 1910, Clara Nathan Mansbach, wife of Louis Mansbach, died at age 36. She died in Clifton Springs, New York, according to this death notice from the October 30, 1910 (p. 6) Baltimore Sun:

Since Louis and Clara had been living in Norfolk at the time of the 1910 census just months before, I was surprised to see this as her place of death. But research revealed that Clifton Springs was the location of a well-known “water cure” sanitarium. Clifton Springs was once known as Sulfur Springs and had become a place where people came to recover their health. Although I don’t know what ailment Clara suffered from, she apparently had been ill for some time. Perhaps she had never really recovered from the loss of her baby daughter Frances in 1899.

Clifton Springs Sanitarium
By Doug Kerr from Albany, NY, United States (Clifton Springs, New York) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons

Thus, the years 1900 to 1910 brought more weddings and children to the family, but also some losses and difficult challenges. What would the next decade bring for H.H. Mansbach and his family? More on that in my next post.

Brotmanblog: A Family Journey

Adventures in Genealogy

Category Archives: Katzenstein

After the Flood, More Tears

Who Was Ella Bohm Katzenstein? A Genealogy Adventure

The Flood

Of Rabbit Holes and Twisted Trees and the Curse of Endogamy

The Gumps and the Business of Alcohol, Part II

The Gumps and the Business of Alcohol

Bad Luck or Bad Genes: The Sad Legacy of Abraham Mansbach

Finally, A Baseball Legend in the Family… Sort of

The Legacy of H.H. Mansbach: Motherless Boy, Civil War Hero, Father of Eight, and Successful Merchant

More Weddings, More Funerals: The Mansbach Family 1900-1910

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