Category Archives: Places My Family Has Lived

The Sisters Rosensweig[1]

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One of the things that confused me about the ship manifest for David Goldschlager, before I knew that it was really my grandfather Isadore on the ship using his brother’s name, was that David did not list his brother Isadore as the person meeting him in New York.  Instead, he listed an uncle whose name appeared to be Morishe (?) Mintz.  I had no idea who this was, and I could not turn up anyone on any document who might have been this mysterious uncle.  Also, if Isadore had arrived first, why wasn’t he meeting his brother David?

Isadore Goldschlager ship manifest (under David's name)

Isadore Goldschlager ship manifest (under David’s name)

Once I established that in fact Isadore was the one who had arrived on the Patricia in October, 1904, I went back to look more closely at the manifest and to search again for Uncle M. Mintz, with no luck.  I did, however, find a separate document that I had not seen before relating to Isadore’s (“David’s”) arrival at Ellis Island, a Record of Detained Aliens, shown below.

Record of Detained Aliens Isadore listed as David Goldschlager

Record of Detained Aliens
Isadore listed as David Goldschlager

I am familiar with this type of document now because I had seen the one issued for Gisella Goldschlager, who had listed her husband Moritz as the person meeting her.  Because her husband had died, she was apparently detained and released to her son Isadore instead.  It appears that the same type of occurrence detained my grandfather.  On the document it says the cause of detention was “to uncle,” and then in the next column for “Disposition,” it says “Aunt Zusie (?)  Mintz, 177 East 111th Street, New York City.”  From this I surmised that something prevented Uncle Mintz from meeting Isadore and that instead his wife Zusie had picked him up instead.

That led to a search for the aunt and uncle.  I could not find any M  Mintz on the 1900 census from Romania who could fit.  I searched the NYC marriage index and also had no luck—until I searched for all men named Mintz who had married between 1880 and 1904.  I checked every one of them to see what their bride’s names were and was excited when I found a bride named Zusia ROSENSWEIG married to a Harry Minz in 1896.  Could this be a third Rosensweig sister?

If so, she would have been the youngest sister, about 14 years younger than Tillie, ten years younger than Ghitla/Gisella.  Why would she have left Romania first and not her older sisters? Her sisters did not arrive until 1907 and 1910, respectively, when they were already married and had children.  But Zusia was still single, and thus more able to pick up and leave earlier, as did her nephew Isadore at age sixteen.

Harry and Zusia were married in 1896, so I looked again on the 1900 census using the name Harry with a wife with a name that could be Zusia.  No luck.  I decided to look just for an S or Z Mintz and found a Sonsa Mintz, a widow, living with Jason and Rachel Reitman and their one year old daughter Clara.  Sonsa was identified as a cousin of the head of household and as a widow.  Assuming that this is the same woman who had married Harry Mintz, it means that her husband died less than four years after they were married.  It obviously would explain why he was unable to meet Isadore/David at the boat in 1904. I have not located a death certificate for Harry, however, nor do I know for sure yet that Sonsa is the same person as Zusia or really the sister of Tillie and Gisella.

Unfortunately, I cannot find a Sonsa, Zusia, Susan, or Susie Mintz in any later census.  I did find a reference for a Susie Mintz who died in the Bronx in 1931 and is buried in New Jersey, but I do not know if this is the same person.  I will order the death certificate to see, but at the moment I have no other records for Sonsa Mintz after 1900.  I assume she may have remarried, but I did not find a marriage record either.

The only other possible record relating to the third Rosensweig sister is a ship manifest listing an eighteen year old girl named Sural Rosensweig from Romania, arriving in New York on September 30, 1890.  The age and name are close enough that it could be the same person, but I cannot know for sure.  (On the 1900 census, Sonsa Rosensweig’s birthdate is April, 1874, and her arrival date is 1891, whereas on the manifest her birth year would have been 1872 and arrival year 1890.)

Although I’ve hit a wall so far with Sonsa and with Harry, her husband, I did look to see if I could figure out how Sonsa was a cousin to the Reitmans.  Was it through Harry? Through Jacob or through his wife Rachel? Although I was able to find a number of records for the Reitmans, up through their great-grandchildren, I have not yet figured out the relationship.  They, like Sonsa, were from Romania, but beyond that, I have no clues.  I have sent an email to one of the great-grandchildren, but it seems quite unlikely that they would know anything about a woman named Sonsa Mintz who lived with their great-grandparents in 1900.

I will have to hope that the 1896 marriage certificate for Harry Mintz and the 1931 death certificate for Susie Mintz have some clues.

[1] With apologies to Wendy Wasserstein.  No connection to her play is intended….

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The Schwartz Family: Updates, Documents and Pictures

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First, a few comments about my last post about the Schwartz family.  My mother pointed out to me that David Goldschlager’s wife Rebecca was always called Becky, not Rebecca. Richard, her grandson, confirmed this, so from now on I will refer to her as Becky.  Also, both my mother and Richard described Becky as a warm, outgoing person with a wonderful laugh (and a great apple strudel, according to Richard.)  Looking at the wonderful pictures below, I can see that Becky came from a large, but close family, and that despite losing two brothers and overcoming the adjustments to living in America, there must have been happy times in their childhood here.

Thanks to Jon Schwartz, Becky’s nephew, I have some wonderful documents and photographs to share of the Schwartz family.  First, Jon has shared the marriage certificate of his grandparents Solomon Schwartz and Louise Schwartz, or Solomon Svarti to Luisa Svarti in Romanian.  Here is the English translation:

Marriage record for Solomon and Louise Schwartz 1888

Marriage record for Solomon and Louise Schwartz 1888

Two things are interesting here.  First, Jon wonders whether his grandparents were cousins since both had the surname Sfarti before they married, just as we believe that Joseph and Bessie Brotman were related, both sharing the same surname before marriage.  It was apparently not uncommon for families to arrange marriages between cousins.  Also, note that Solomon was from Jassy (Iasi), and Luisa from Berlad.  According to Google Maps, the two cities are about 80 miles apart and would take even today two hours to travel between.  It seems unlikely that Solomon met Luisa without some prior arrangement so a family connection makes sense.

It’s also interesting that Solomon came from Iasi.  Perhaps he knew the Goldschlager family growing up, which might explain how David Goldschlager ended up marrying Solomon’s daughter Becky.  What makes this seem a bit more possible is the fact that Solomon was a hatter even in Romania.  Although David was born after Solomon had married and left Iasi, it is interesting that David, a hatter from Iasi, ended up marrying the daughter of Solomon, a hatter from Iasi.

Jon also sent me the birth certificate, both in Romanian and in English, for Rebecca (Becky), Solomon and Luisa’s first child, born in April, 1889, ten months after their wedding.  Here is the English version below:

Rebecca Schwartz birth certificate translated

Rebecca Schwartz birth certificate translated

Jon also has some wonderful photographs of his father’s parents and siblings.  My favorite is this one, depicting the Schwartz family probably a year or so after they arrived in Newark.

The Schwartz family c. 1905

The Schwartz family c. 1905

From left to right, they are Sophie, Annette, Louise (sitting), Becky, Abram, Solomon, Meyer, Etta and Rose.

Jon thought that the baby was Jennie, the Schwartz’s youngest child born in 1907, but since the picture does not include the other child born in the US, Meyer, who was born in 1904, I think the baby is Meyer.  Also, the ship manifest said Abram was two at the time they left Romania(1903), and in this picture Abram (the little boy leaning on his mother’s knee) looks too young for him to be six or seven, which he would have been when Jennie was a baby in 1907.  I would date this picture between 1904 and 1905, and I believe that the baby is Meyer, the poor little boy who died of a burst appendix when he was nine years old.

The other Schwartz children all grew to adulthood, Abram becoming Arnold, the only brother among six sisters.  He had a painting business for some time, but when it failed during the Depression, he became a route salesman. He had two sons, Stephen and Jonathan. The sisters all married except for Sophie, and all but Jeanette had children.  Here are two pictures of the Schwartz sisters, courtesy of their nephew Jon.

Rose Schwartz

Rose Schwartz

Schwartz sisters 1956

Schwartz sisters 1956

Sophie (aka Sherry), Jeannette, Rebecca, Etta, Rose, Annette

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Update: My Grandfather’s Arrival

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Statue of Liberty National Monument, Ellis Isl...

Statue of Liberty National Monument, Ellis Island and Liberty Island, Manhattan, in New York County (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Yesterday I received eight new documents, and I will report on them all over the next couple of days.  But for me, the most exciting document is my grandfather’s naturalization application.  It is always touching to see a document written in the handwriting of someone who means a lot to you, so that alone would have made it exciting.  It’s also exciting to see the names of my grandmother and aunt and uncle on his petition.  It’s exciting to see his distinctive signature.

But what made these pages particularly exciting is that they resolved a question that has been unanswered for a long time.  A number of years ago my brother tried to find the ship manifest for our grandfather Isadore at Ellis Island.  He was able to locate the manifests for David, Betty, Moritz and Gisella, but not Isadore.  When I started my own research almost two years ago, I also tried to find something that documented when Isadore arrived in New York, but found only the same information that Ira had found.  I had given up and moved on to other things.

When I returned to researching the Goldschlagers a few weeks ago, I once again looked, figuring that with my improved research skills and newer research tools, maybe I would finally find a ship manifest for my grandfather, but once again, nothing turned up.  I resigned myself to the idea that I would never find a record for his arrival.

Then the other day, as I wrote in my post entitled “Isadore and David Goldschlager: More than Brothers,” I realized that there were two ship manifests for David Goldschlager: one dated October 27, 1904, and the other dated November 4, 1910.  I also realized that it was the later one that was accurate.  Every other document said David had arrived in 1910: his naturalization papers, several census reports, and his wife’s naturalization papers.  It also made sense that David had waited with his mother and sailed with her to America.

That left me thinking that the David Goldschlager on the 1904 manifest was not David, but Isadore, my grandfather.  That manifest was for a ship called the Patricia, sailing from Hamburg, and arriving in the United States on October 27, 1904.  I was hoping that Isadore’s naturalization papers would reveal what ship brought my grandfather to America.  I hoped that I had finally found the evidence of how and when Isadore traveled to his new home.

Well, I opened the naturalization papers today, holding my breath, scanning quickly to see if the answer was revealed.  And there it was: Isadore wrote that he arrived on October 28, 1904, on the Patricia, sailing from Hamburg.  Isadore had in fact used his younger brother’s name to escape from Romania.

Isadore Goldschlager naturalization papers page 1

Isadore Goldschlager naturalization papers
page 1

page 2

page 2

page 3

page 3

I was always told that he left Romania to avoid the draft.  He turned sixteen in August, 1904, and was presumably then draft age.  David, on the other hand, was a year younger and would not turn sixteen until 1905.  Perhaps Isadore took David’s passport to get out of Romania.  Or maybe he just used his name.  (That leaves me wondering how David managed to stay safe until he left in 1910, but I am afraid we will never know the answer to that question.)

When I told my mother what I had found, she said that she was not surprised that her father figured out a way to get out of the country.  He was a very clever and resourceful man who knew how to get what he wanted.  He used his wits to survive.  As one of his namesakes who never knew him likes to say, “If at all possible, lie.” It seems that that approach may have saved our grandfather’s life and enabled his three children, his nine grandchildren, his fourteen great-grandchildren, and the ever-increasing number of great-great grandchildren to come into this world.

Thank you, Grandpa, for being so clever and for escaping Romania, and thank you, David, for letting him borrow your name.

SS Patricia, the ship that brought my grandfather to America

SS Patricia, the ship that brought my grandfather to America

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The Schwartz Family

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As I wrote yesterday, in trying to fill the holes in David Goldschlager’s story, I ended up researching his wife Rebecca’s family and their story.  Although her family is not technically related to mine except through marriage, now that I am in touch with her grandson Richard (and now, her nephew Jon), I feel connected to this story and touched by it as well.

As I wrote in the last post, I was curious as to why David and Rebecca left New York City sometime after 1920, when David’s mother and sister were living with them, and moved to Scranton, Pennsylvania.  Their son, Murray, was born there,[1] and they were living in Scranton as late as 1928 because that is where David was living when he filed his naturalization application.  By 1930, however, they had returned to New York and were living in the Bronx, where they lived until they retired and moved to Arizona to live near Murray and his wife Edna and their grandson Richard.

I hypothesized that Rebecca’s family lived in Scranton because I could not figure out what else would have drawn David away from his family and place of employment.  As I wrote last, I started digging around for Rebecca’s family, and after learning her maiden name was Schwar(t)z from her naturalization form, I was able to locate the ship manifest for Rebecca and her family on the SS Astoria, sailing from Glasgow, Scotland in March, 1903.

Schwarz Family on the SS Astoria 1903

Schwarz Family on the SS Astoria 1903

The family was from Romania, and Rebecca was one of seven children on the manifest, traveling with her mother Louise.  Rebecca was the oldest child, thirteen years old, followed by Etta (11), Annette (9), Rosa (7), Sophie (4), Abram (2), and Henrie (9 months old).  Henrie’s name had a line drawn through it, and in the left margin next to Henrie’s name, it looks like the word “died” followed by some other illegible words were written.  It looked like Henrie, the baby, had died on board.  Imagine being the mother of seven young children, caring for them on this long, uncomfortable voyage, and losing one of your children while at sea.[2]

The manifest also identified who was meeting the family in the United States: their husband and father S. Schwarz of Newark, New Jersey.  By searching the 1910 US census, I was able to locate the Schwartz family in Newark.  Rebecca’s father’s name was Solomon, and he was employed as a hat finisher in a hat factory.  He and Louise (Lizzie, on this census) were living with their six children who had survived the trip from Romania plus two more born in New Jersey, Meyer and Jennie.  Rebecca was now 20 and, like her father, working as a hat finisher in a hat factory.

The Schwartz Family in Newark (Rebecca standing in the rear middle)

The Schwartz Family in Newark (Rebecca standing in the rear middle)

Is this how she met David? As a hat maker? Did the factory where she and her father worked have a connection to the factory where David was working? David had been working as a hatter since at least 1915, as indicated on the 1915 NYS census. On his World War I draft registration dated June 5, 1917 (after he and Rebecca were married), David listed his employment as a hatter for Sam Burk at 419 Lafayette Street, New York.  Who knows? Maybe there was a hatmakers union meeting where Rebecca and/or her father met David.  At any rate, they were married in Newark in 1916, but lived in New York City as of the 1920 census.

Rebecca and Sidney Goldschlager

Rebecca and Sidney Goldschlager

Meanwhile, the Schwartz family had suffered another tragedy.  On the 1920 census, I noticed that although Etta, Annette, Rosie, Sophie, Abram (now Abie), and Jennie were still listed as living at home, there was no entry for Meyer, who had been only six years old in 1910.  I had to assume that something had happened to Meyer, and I learned from Jon Schwartz, one of Solomon’s grandsons, that Meyer had died from a ruptured appendix in 1913 when he was not yet nine years old.  As Jon said, his father Abram (who became Arnold) was the only son of Solomon and Louise to survive to adulthood.

In 1930, most of the Schwartz family was still living under one roof: Solomon, Louise, Annette, Sophie, Arnold (formerly Abram), and Jeanette (formerly Jennie).  I don’t know where Etta and Rosie were, perhaps they were married.  Sadly, Solomon Schwartz died three years later at age 71.  Louise died in 1948.  I have not yet traced what happened to the Schwartz children after their father died, although by 1933, even the youngest child would have been in her twenties.  I am hoping to learn more from Jon, who is Arnold’s son and who I was able to contact by finding his family tree on ancestry.

One other interesting fact that I did learn from Jon is that Solomon Schwartz had lived in Iasi before marrying Louise, who was from Berlad.  He then moved to Berlad where their first seven children were born before they emigrated to the United States.  Maybe that led to the connection between Rebecca and David? Maybe the Schwartz family in Iasi knew the Goldschlager family, and perhaps when Solomon was looking for a match for his oldest daughter Rebecca, he reached out to people from the American Iasi community and found David, a fellow hatter, newly arrived from America and the same age as his daughter. There is likely no one alive who knows how David and Rebecca met, so all we can do is speculate, creating stories to fill the gaps between the data we can find through these documents.

Meanwhile, despite all these discoveries, I still don’t know why David and Rebecca ended up in Scranton, Pennsylvania.  So far all I know is that there were two hat companies in Scranton at the time, the Lackawanna Hat Company and the Keystone Hat Company.  There were also two families named Goldschlager living in Scranton at that time.  So maybe these Scranton Goldschlagers were also our relatives?

Washington Avenue, Scranton, Pennsylvania, Uni...

Washington Avenue, Scranton, Pennsylvania, United States. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The research continues….

[1] It appears that Sidney was born in Newark, NJ, in 1925, according to his mother’s naturalization form and the 1940 US census.  However, on David’s naturalization, it says both sons were born in Pennsylvania.  The 1930 census says both were born in New York, which must be wrong.  So perhaps they were living in Newark when Sidney was born and then returned to Scranton, assuming that Rebecca and the 1930 census are correct as to where Sidney was born.

[2] According to Jonathan Schwartz, one of the grandchildren of Solomon and Louise Schwartz, Henrie never left Europe, but this seems inconsistent with this manifest as well as a separate document listing passengers on the SS Astoria for this voyage.  Henrie’s name appears on both.  Maybe the family could not bear the truth and created a story that Henrie continued to live in Romania.

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My Grandfather and Alma Gluck

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In a recent conversation with my mother about her father, my grandfather Isadore Goldschlager, she said that one of the things that my grandfather remembered fondly about Iasi was the music.  From the photograph of the house where he was born, you can see a cathedral towering in the background.  My mother wondered whether that was where her father heard the music he loved.

One of the other stories my mother recalled was that my grandfather used to say that he babysat for Alma Gluck.  I knew nothing in detail about Alma Gluck, except that she was a famous opera singer and recording star, so I decided to do some research and see if I could figure out a link between my grandfather and Alma Gluck.

Alma Gluck

Cover of Alma Gluck

In reading a number of biographies online, I first learned that Alma Gluck was born Reba Fiersohn, daughter of Leon and Zara Fiersohn in 1884 in Romania; some sources say she was born in Bucharest, but others say she was born in Iasi.  Perhaps her family and the Goldschlager family were friends or at least acquaintances.   Since my grandfather was born in 1888 in Iasi, he obviously did not literally babysit for Alma Gluck herself since she was four years older; he must have babysat for her child.

Reba Fiersohn arrived in the United States in 1890, brought to the United States by her older sister Cecile, according to a biography from the Jewish Women’s Archive.  They lived in the Lower East Side, where Reba went to school and then worked as an office clerk.  On May 25, 1902, she married Bernard Glick, with whom she had a daughter, Abigail Marcia, who was born on June 9, 1903.  In 1906, Reba was discovered by an associate of her husband and began training to become an opera singer.  She debuted with the Metropolitan Opera in 1909 and became a very successful concert performer and recording star under the name Alma Gluck.  She traveled throughout the United States and was considered the most successful recording star of the time.

Here is one of her best known recordings, Carry Me Back to Old Virginny.  You can find several others online.

She divorced Bernard Glick in 1912 and subsequently in 1914 married Efrem Zimbalist, the violinist, with whom she traveled, performed and recorded.  She and Zimbalist had two children, Maria, born in 1915, and Efrem, Jr., the actor, director and writer.  Although she continued to tour and record for a few more years, her voice had become strained, and she retired in 1924.  Alma Gluck died in 1938 from cirrhosis of the liver.

English: Russian-born American composer, condu...

English: Russian-born American composer, conductor and violinist Efrem Zimbalist (1890-1985) with his wife American opera singer Alma Gluck (1884-1938) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

So where in this story might my grandfather fit? My best guess is that he babysat for Abigail, Alma Gluck’s child with her first husband Bernard.  As noted above, Abigail was born in 1903; my grandfather arrived some time in 1903 or early 1904.  In 1905 he was living alone at 2213 Second Avenue in New York, working as a grocery store clerk.  He was seventeen years old at the time.  That same year, according to the 1905 New York State census, Bernard and Reba Glick were living with their two year old daughter Abigail at 2 St. Nicholas Terrace in New York.  Bernard was an insurance agent, and Reba, the future star, was doing housework.  Could Isadore have been babysitting for little Abigail? St. Nicholas Terrace is crosstown from where my grandfather was living, about a half hour walk according to Google Maps.  It does not seem likely that the Glicks knew Isadore from the neighborhood, unless the store where he was working was located in their neighborhood north of Morningside Park.  Unfortunately, that’s a fact I will not be able to determine.

In 1909, Isadore was living at 440 East (?) 147th Street, according to the ship manifest for his father Moritz.  Google Maps could not find such an address in Manhattan, only in the Bronx, so perhaps it was 440 West 147th Street, about a mile north of where the Glicks had been living in 1905 and on the same side of Manhattan.  In 1910, Isadore was living with his aunt Tillie Strolovitz and her children on East 109th Street, back on the East Side.  The Glick family was living at 325 West 93rd Street, two and half miles away crosstown from where Isadore was living.  Again, unless there was some other connection—from back in Iasi or some Romanian community connection, it is not obvious how Isadore would have ended up babysitting for Abigail.

By 1912, Reba Fiersohn Glick had become the famous Alma Gluck, divorced from Bernard and traveling around the country.  One source reported that she fought Bernard for custody of Abigail and prevailed after a bitter court battle.  I cannot find where Abigail or either of her parents were living in 1915, but since by that time her mother was famous, wealthy and remarried, Abigail herself was twelve, and Isadore was 27 and working full time as a milkman, I doubt very much that he was babysitting for Abigail in 1915 or thereafter.

So is there any truth to the story that my grandfather babysat for Alma Gluck?  I, of course, am inclined to believe my grandpa—who wouldn’t? And it is entirely possible that he had a connection through ties in Iasi to the family of Reba Fiersohn.  He was a new immigrant when Abigail was just a toddler and himself alone and just a teenager.  Perhaps there was some outreach from former residents of his home city who arranged for him to earn some money as a babysitter for the future Alma Gluck, even if he was living crosstown.  We will never know with any certainty, but I believe that my grandfather babysat for little Abigail.

If he did, I wonder whether he knew how famous Abigail herself became.  Abigail Glick grew up to become a well-known writer under the name Marcia Davenport.  Among other works, she wrote the novel East Side, West Side, which became the basis of the well-known movie by the same name.  She was on the staff of The New Yorker for several years and wrote a very well-regarded biography of Mozart.  She also wrote an autobiography entitled Too Strong for Fantasy.  I have just ordered a copy—maybe she will talk about the young teenage boy who babysat for her when she was a young child? Unlikely, given all the other much more glamorous and interesting things that happened to her in her life, but I will be reading it with an eye open for any such reference.

We may never know a lot of things with absolute certainty.  Sometimes we just have to accept the versions of the truth we have learned.

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First Cousins: The Grandchildren of David and Esther Rosensweig

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Immigrants just arrived from Foreign Countries...

Immigrants just arrived from Foreign Countries–Immigrant Building, Ellis Island, New York Harbor. (Half of a stereo card) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Genealogy research can be both very frustrating and very exhilarating.  Sometimes you feel like you have hit a wall and can get no further.  Every stone you turn leads nowhere.  People don’t respond to requests for information, documents have been lost or destroyed, and you feel like you will never find anything new.  Then there are the times that are exhilarating.  You find a document that tells a story and reveals a relative you never knew about.  You contact a long lost cousin and make a new friend.  You put together pieces of a puzzle and see a picture of your family that touches you in ways you never anticipated.

Yesterday was one of those exhilarating days.  I had found an email address for someone I thought could be one of Leah Adler’s grandsons and had taken a chance that it was the right person and that he would respond.  It was a long shot—we are fairly distant cousins—third cousins—and it was very unlikely that my name and background would mean much to him.  Well, I hit the jackpot!  He forwarded my email to his sister Jean, who is herself someone with 30 years of experience in genealogy.  Jean wrote to me right away, and we have since exchanged several emails and lots of information.  Through this contact, I have been able to learn a lot more about my great-grandmother’s sister Tillie and her family.

Some might wonder why I care so much about these individuals and their lives.  Well, these were my grandfather’s first cousins.  He and his brother David were close in age to Isidor, Bertha, Bella, David, Pincus and Becky, and his sister Betty would have been close in age to Leah.  These could have been their playmates as children in Iasi.  They all had the same grandparents, David and Esther Rosensweig.  Tillie and Ghitla both named sons for their father David.

Moreover, Tillie took in my grandfather and his sister in 1910 when she herself was a single mother already caring for her seven children.  My grandfather and his sister must have been mourning their father, who had died in April, 1910, and awaiting their mother, who arrived in November.  (One mystery: I cannot find David Goldschlager on any 1910 census, though he shows up living with his mother and siblings in 1915.)

So what have I learned from Jean about my grandfather’s aunt and her children? For one thing, it now seems quite clear that Itic Yankel Srulivici and Jacob Adler were one and the same person.  Jean said that family lore in her family is that Jacob never left Ellis Island.  The ship manifest does indicate that he was admitted in 1907, but perhaps something happened after that to block his ability to leave Ellis Island.  The ship manifest does indicate that he was examined by a doctor and had scars on his corneas and coloboma of both irises.  Could that have been enough to block his entry and have him deported?  I have ordered a death certificate for a Jacob Adler who died in 1910, and I have asked my Romanian researcher to look for a record for Itic in Romania.

Jean was also able to confirm much of the information that I had found in public documents: that Bertha had been briefly married, that David died in the 1930s, and that her mother Teddy had married Abner Cohen.  She also told me that Bertha had been killed in an accident in the 1960s, that Bella had married Baer Rothschild and had had no children, and that Beckie, who became Ray as an adult, had married Ben Seamon and had four children, including a daughter Thelma with whom Jean had corresponded in the late 1970s and who had filled Jean in on many of these details.  Sadly, Thelma was also killed in a freak accident in 2000.

It seems no one knows what happened to Isidor, and I have sent for one death certificate that might be his from 1915.  If it is in fact his death certificate, it would mean he died very young, as did his brother Pincus.  The Adler family had more than their fair share of tragedies—losing Jacob, Isidor, Pincus and David at such young ages and losing Bertha and Thelma to freak accidents.  As with my grandfather as well as his brother David Goldschlager, it seems that Leah and her siblings also did not like discussing their past or their childhood family.  Perhaps the hardships of leaving Iasi where they had lived as children, coming to America as immigrants, and fighting to survive the poverty and the language and cultural differences left them all with scars that made it too painful to recall the past.

I don’t know anything about what their childhoods were like in Iasi.  I’ve read enough to know that there was terrible anti-Semitism in Romania during those years and also terrible poverty.  But children often are immune to those external factors in many ways because they know nothing else.  I’d like to think that the Goldschlager-Rosensweig-Srulivici children as young children had some joyfulness in their lives.  I’d like to imagine that Isadore, David and Betty Goldschlager and Isidor, Bertha, Bella, David, Beckie, Pincus and Leah Srulivic/Adler were all young cousins who played together and grew up together in Iasi, just as I was fortunate enough to grow up with my first cousins Jeff and Jody, who lived less than 20 minutes away from us during my childhood. All my first cousins—Jeff, Jody, Beth, Suzie, Robin and Jamie (Jim)– added so much laughter and joy to my life as a child, and I would hope that the same was true for my grandfather, his siblings and his first cousins.

Isadore and Gussie’s nine grandchildren 

Jeff and Jim 1971

Jeff and Jim 1971

jody julie and ira 1963

jody julie and ira 1963

Beth 1954

Beth 1954

Julie, Robin, Amy, Suzie, and Ira 1962

Julie, Robin, Amy, Suzie, and Ira 1962

Elaine Jeff and Amy 1953

Amy and Jeff (with Elaine) 1953

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The Goldschlagers

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Having reached (for now) a dead end on my research of the Brotman family, I have decided to turn to, or rather return to, my research of my grandfather’s family, my Goldschlager relatives.  I had previously done a fair amount of research on the Goldschlager line, but had put it aside when I found my Brotman cousins. For some of you, the Goldschlager story will be perhaps of less interest, although it is itself a wonderful story of American Jewish immigration.  For others, in particular my first cousins and siblings and my mother, the Goldschlager story will be of great interest.  And for those who are interested in genealogy generally and/or the history of Jews in Europe and America, this story should also be a great interest.

So although this blog is called the Brotmanblog (and will continue to be so titled), I have created a new page for my Goldschlager ancestors and relatives.  If you are interested, please check it out.  I also will be writing some posts to describe the research I’ve done to uncover the story of my grandfather, his siblings and his parents and grandparents.

In this first Goldschlager post, I want to tell the story of my grandfather Isadore.  Isadore was born in Iasi (or Jassy), Romania.  He was the oldest child of Moritz (Moses, Moshe, or Morris)and Gitla (Gittel or Gussie) Goldschlager.  He was born in August, 1888; his younger brother David was born the following year, and their younger sister Betty was born in 1896.  Isadore was named for his grandfather, Ira Goldschlager.  I was very fortunate to find a researcher in Iasi who located and translated several documents relating to these relatives, including birth records and marriage records for Moritz and Gitla, my great-grandparents.

Moritz and Gittel's marriage certificate

Moritz and Gittel’s marriage certificate

He even took a photograph of the house were my grandfather and his parents and siblings lived in Iasi.

The Goldschlager House in Iasi

The Goldschlager House in Iasi

When my grandfather was 16 years old, he left Iasi and walked through Romania to escape the tzar’s army and persecution.  Romania was one of the most anti-Semitic and oppressive countries in Europe at the time, and many Jewish residents decided to escape in the early years of the 20th century. In a subsequent post, I will write more about the conditions in Romania and the history of the Fusgeyers—the “foot goers” who left Romania on foot.  My mother said that she does not remember her father talking about Romania very much, except to talk about the horses and the music, two things that he loved very much.

My teenaged grandfather arrived in New York City in 1904 without any relatives and under his brother’s name.  In 1905 he had a job as a storekeeper in a grocery store and lived in what is now East Harlem at 113th Street, apparently alone or perhaps in a boarding house.  His father Moritz arrived in 1909, and his mother Gittel, brother David, and sister Betty in 1910.  Sadly, it appears that Gittel, David and Betty arrived shortly after Moritz had died.

By 1915, Isadore and his mother and siblings were living together in East Harlem.  David was working at a hat maker, Betty as a dressmaker.  Isadore’s occupation unfortunately is not legible on the 1915 census form.  Edit:  On closer examination, I believe it says “Driver Milk,” which is consistent with what he was doing for the rest of his working life.

1905 NY census

1905 NY census

1915 NY Census for the Goldschlagers

1915 NY Census for the Goldschlagers

By 1917, when Isadore registered for the draft, he was working as a driver for a dairy company and married to my grandmother Gussie and living in Brooklyn.

Isadore's World War I draft registration

Isadore’s World War I draft registration

He continued working for dairy companies and eventually became a foreman.  He and my grandmother had three children. As a milkman, my grandfather worked at night to deliver the milk by morning.  When he delivered milk to people in the poor communities, they all loved him so much that they would bring him food.

My grandparents moved to Parkchester in the 1940s with my mother, who was only twelve at the time.  When I was born ten years later, my parents also lived in Parkchester, just a few buildings away from my grandparents, so I spent my first four and half years living right near my grandparents.

My grandparents and me 1956

My grandparents and me 1956

Although my grandfather died before I was five years old and thus my memories of him are vague, I do have a memory of him as a loving grandfather.  Perhaps it is the stories I’ve heard all my life about him rather than my own memories—it’s hard to know.  I know that my mother and her siblings loved him a great deal, that he was a big tease with a great sense of humor, and that although he left Romania at fifteen and never received a high school education, he spoke several languages and was a very smart and witty man.  He must have been an incredibly strong person to have left his family at such a young age; most likely he helped the rest of his family come to the United States once he got here.

I wish I had known him longer, and I wish I knew more about his life both in Romania and in New York.  Perhaps as I pursue this line of research I will learn more.  I have just located one of David’s grandsons, Richard, and David’s son Murray is 92 and living in Arizona.  I am hoping that Murray may know more about David’s life in Romania and the relationship between the two brothers, David and Isadore.

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Galicia Mon Amour: A Conversation

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I just finished watching a video called “Galicia Mon Amour.”  It is a recording of a conversation between Daniel Mendelsohn and Leon Wieseltier.  Mendelsohn’s book, The Lost, which I read a number of years ago, is one of the most moving books I’ve read; in it he recounts his journey to find out what happened to members of his family who had not left Galicia before the Holocaust.  It is beautifully written, well-researched, and deeply tragic.  I read it long before I started doing my own genealogical research, but it likely was one of the sources of inspiration for my journey.[1]

Leon Wieseltier’s book Kaddish is also excellent, but I have to admit much of it was a bit too scholarly and dry for my taste, except for the parts where he reflects on his own family and experiences.  I admit to skimming a lot of the more academic parts of the book.

At any rate, when I saw a recommendation for the video on the digest I receive daily from Gesher Galicia, I decided to try and make the time to watch the video.  (It’s about two hours long.)  You can find a link to the video here.

In the video Mendelsohn interviews Wieseltier about his recent trip to Galicia.  (The interview takes place in January, 2007; Wieseltier’s trip was in 2006.)  Both Mendelsohn and Wieseltier had family that came from eastern Galicia in what is now Ukraine from towns near the city of Lviv, known by the Jews as Lemberg.  Both had taken trips back to the region to research and visit the places where their relatives had lived.  Although Mendelsohn’s direct ancestors had immigrated to the United States before the Holocaust like ours did, he had many relatives who remained behind about whom he had known very little.[2]  Wieseltier’s parents, on the other hand, were Holocaust survivors and came to the United States after World War II.  All the rest of his family was killed in the Holocaust.

One audience member asked at the end of the interview whether there were differences between those who were grandchildren of immigrants and those who were children of Holocaust survivors.  Were the survivors from the wealthier families who saw no reason to leave in the 19th century and the earlier immigrants from the poorer families who had no reason to stay?  Although Wieseltier dismissed this as an overgeneralization, which I am sure it is, it nevertheless is an interesting sociological question.  Remembering Margoshes’ memoirs and the fact that there were so many wealthy Jews, I thought that it made some sense that only those who had nothing to lose would have taken the risk of leaving the world they knew.  This may suggest that Joseph and Bessie were not among the wealthier segments of the Galician Jewish community.

Wieseltier described his own family as being among the more prosperous, educated and aristocratic clans in their area and confirmed the impression left by Margoshes that the Jewish world in Galicia was very diverse and that there were many who were wealthy, well-educated, and sophisticated.  He described Cracow as the “Jerusalem of the North” and the Galitzianers as the princes of the Jewish world.  Mendelsohn concurred, saying that although there was also a lot of poverty, there was a large bourgeoisie and a large wealthy class.  He said that Emperor Franz Joseph, who was the head of the Austro-Hungarian Empire from 1848 until 1916, was admired and even loved by the Jews for his enlightened leadership and treatment of the Jewish citizens, also described in Margoshes’ memoirs.

One observation that I found particularly interesting was Mendelsohn’s comment that he always thought of Jews as living in tenements until he went to Galicia.   He believed that Jews, wherever they lived, lived urban lives, and he was surprised by how wrong he was when he saw the rural areas where they had lived in Galicia.  He described the countryside as beautiful—with mountain, streams, rivers.  Wieseltier used the word “paradise” to describe it.

A lot of their conversation focused on the reasons to make a trip to Galicia.  Both said quite emphatically that this is not a place to go for typical tourist reasons; for Mendelsohn it was partly to find out what happened there and to visit the places where his family had lived. Wieseltier said he went not only out of grief, but also out of pride. He talked movingly of standing where his mother had once stood and leaving a copy of his book in the empty field as a symbol of Jewish survival.  Both talked about the absence of Jewish life there now and how the Polish people themselves realize how much has been lost by the destruction of the Jews and their culture.  Wieseltier said that you won’t find Jewish life there so you must bring your Judaism with you if you go.

There is also discussion of the Holocaust, of the camps, of anti-Semitism, but overall the theme was more about remembering the world that was there in a realistic and accurate way and cherishing that culture and the people.  Wieseltier himself is quite skeptical of genealogy (“It’s amazing how much you can’t learn from genealogy.”).  Although Mendelsohn obviously values genealogical research highly, he did not really push Wieseltier to elaborate on this point.  I think, however, that Wieseltier was expressing some doubts about all those who, like me, are trying to trace some names and dates to make a connection, perhaps without any purpose or perspective.  He said that our parents and grandparents were ours “by luck,” just as the fact that we have two legs or brown eyes, and that what is more important is who we are ourselves and what we do with our lives.  I think that that is an important perspective for me to remember as I continue to look for our family in Galicia.

[1] We were fortunate enough to hear Mendelsohn read from and talk about the book many years back when it was first published.  That made his story even that much more personal.

[2][2][2] I am sure that that is true for the Brotman family as well, although I do not know specifically of any family members who died in the Holocaust.

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The American Immigrant Experience: The Brotman Story

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I’ve been looking over the data I have for all the people on our family tree, starting with Joseph through the children born in the 21st century.  By looking at the various ways our family members have supported themselves, we can see a snapshot of the American immigrant story.

On Gussie’s birth certificate in 1895, Joseph’s employment is listed as a wood and coal dealer. According to the 1900 US census, Joseph worked as a coal agent in the Lower East Side. His death certificate also listed his employment as coal agent; on Sam’s birth certificate he is described as a coal carrier.  As you can imagine, this was hard and dirty work. In an article on the coal industry in Michigan, a son recalled how is father would look after working at a coal yard in Michigan: “Dad would use twine to tie his pants and cuffs so not so much coal would get on his skin. He looked like a clown with his pants blowing out, neckerchief around his neck….The dust would crawl up his pant legs—he’d soak his feet up to his knees every night.”  Another son of a man who delivered coal recalled how black the water would be in the tub after his father took a bath.

In a website devoted to the history of a coal company based in Camden, New Jersey, there is the following description of the type of work Joseph did:

“The man would arrive in a wagon with sacks of coal neatly stacked on top. He would climb onto the wagon and move the sacks to the edge ready for unloading. His face and hands would be completely black from coal dust and he wore a cap or head cloth, which hung down his back. He would grab hold of a sack at the top, turn round, bend forward and pull it onto his back. He then had to walk quite a few yards to the coal cellar, maybe down some steps and then ‘pour’ the coal out of the bag.”

At that same time, Joseph’s older children were also working.  In the 1900 census, Hyman is listed as working as a buttonhole maker and Tilly as a flower maker, obviously both working in the sweatshops described in Streets.  They were both just teenagers at the time.  (That same census reported that neither Joseph nor Hyman could read, write or speak English at that time.)

Joseph’s children, however, were able to free themselves from these oppressive and backbreaking forms of employment.

Hyman was still working as a buttonhole maker in 1917 according to his draft registration papers and his naturalization papers, but soon thereafter left the sweatshops. In 1920 he was working as a chauffeur.  In 1925 he was working in Jersey City as a confectioner, and in 1930 he was working as a storekeeper in a cigar store (perhaps for Max?) and apparently supporting not only his wife and children, but also his father-in-law and his brother-in-law and his wife.  In 1940 his occupation is listed as a bookseller in a bookshop, and in 1942 he simply listed himself as self-employed on his draft registration card.  We know from his grandchildren and from my mother that at some point he owned a liquor store in Hoboken.  So Hyman went from being a poor boy on the Lower East Side, working in a sweatshop and not speaking or reading English, to an independent business owner over the course of his adult life.

Max, a conductor on the railroad in 1900, had his own cigar business by 1910, which continued to be his source of income through the 1940s. Tillie also left the sweatshop world after she married, and she and her husband Aaron owned a grocery store in Brooklyn.  Gussie, who helped Tillie and Aaron by caring for their children while they ran their grocery store, married Isadore, who worked at a dairy company as a milkman.  Abraham worked as a tailor for almost all of his working life and in a restaurant in Brooklyn later in his life.  Frieda was working as a “finisher” in the feather business, which I assume was in the garment industry, in 1920, not too long before she married.  Sam worked as a stock clerk, then in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and ultimately as a cab driver in New York City.

Thus, by 1920 or so, all of Joseph’s children had left the Lower East Side and had found occupations that took them out of the sweatshops.   Three of them became independent business owners, and the others found work in various trades that did not involve breathing in coal dust and carrying heavy loads of coal to tenement buildings.

The next generation continued that trend.  Joseph’s grandchildren became professionals and business owners: teachers, a lawyer, a pharmacist, advertising firms, real estate investment, and retail stores.   When I look at the list of occupations of Joseph’s great-grandchildren, my generation, born in the 1940s through the 1960s, that trend continues.  Although there are fewer of us who own our own businesses, consistent with the decline of the small family-owned business throughout the country, there are still a number of entrepreneurs.  We are also lawyers (fifteen of us, including descendants, their spouses and our children), doctors, teachers of all types, and school administrators.  We are involved in business, finance, sales, banking, the computer industry, and the arts.

Our children, those born in the 1970s through the 1990s, continue in these fields and others—there are a number working in the creative arts and the music industry as well as medicine and the health care, finance, law, business, and the restaurant industry.  You name the field—we probably have someone related to us working in the field.

As for the next generation, those who are still  at home going to school, maybe even still in diapers, we’d like to hope that the possibilities are limitless.  Yes, the world is a more competitive place, houses are much more expensive relative to income than they were for us, the cost of a college education is beyond what anyone would consider reasonable, and the economy is tougher and tighter than it was for many of us when we first entered the job market.

But if a 50-something year old man could drag coal from tenement to tenement to support his family, if our grandparents could rise from sweatshops to become storeowners and tradespeople, if our parents could go the next step and become professionals and business owners, then certainly we cannot be anything but grateful and appreciative and hopeful.  After all, it was only 125 or so years ago that our ancestors first stepped off the boat and into the streets of New York City with nothing to their names, speaking a foreign language, and risking all they had known to take a chance that this life could be better than what they had known.

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Streets: Conclusion (Bella’s adolescence)

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The rest of the book was harder to read.  As Bella turned twelve and became less innocent, she became more aware of the squalor and ugliness of her world.  She wrote, “I was now twelve and acutely conscious of the sordidness of the life about me.  To escape, I hid behind my books and built up a life of my own in the public school I attended on East Broadway and at the settlement house on Madison Street.” (p. 66)

Her mother married one of the long time boarders and soon was pregnant.  Although their first year of marriage seemed fine to Bella, after the baby was born and soon developed a medical condition that left him scarred and covered with sores, her stepfather abandoned her mother, who was already pregnant with another child. They never saw him again. (There is no explanation of her brother’s condition, but it seemed to continue for several years so was not just a short-term childhood illness like measles or chicken pox.)

Supporting an extra child as a single parent created enough of an additional financial burden for Fanny that she and her children had to move to a less desirable street in the Lower East Side, Goerck Street.  Bella described it as a “tough block” where there were several bars, a lumberyard, and a garbage heap.  There were frequent bottle fights.   Most of the residents of the street were Galician Jews, but there were also Hungarian, German and Russian Jews as well as many Italian immigrants.

Fanny and her children moved their belongings to the new tenement with a pushcart, taking several trips to do so. Bella described the new building as follows:

“Our house, like the others, had four families on each floor, two to the rear and two to the front.  There were two windows to the front room which either faced the street or the yard, one window in the kitchen that faced an extremely narrow, lightless airshaft, and in the bedroom a tiny square window that faced the hall. … Separating the front room from the kitchen is what my mother called a ‘blind window.’  It was simply a square hole, framed by woodwork, which allowed some of the front light to filter into the kitchen and stop at the entrance to the bedroom.” (p. 82)

In this small, dark and airless space, Fanny and Bella found cockroaches and rats.  As before, Fanny took in numerous boarders to help her pay the rent and also took on sewing jobs to supplement her income.

Bella graduated from grade school and was determined to go to high school, unlike many of her classmates and friends who had to go to work in one of the factories in order to help support their families.  Fanny was fully supportive of Bella’s desire to go on to high school, even though she was told by many that she was foolish and should make Bella get a job instead.  Bella enrolled at George Washington High School in Manhattan, about two miles away from the Lower East Side, and was excited to be continuing her education.

Bella, however, did also take on a part-time job, working Sundays as a trimmer at a man’s coat shop on their street.  Her mother also received financial assistance and other support from the United Hebrew Charities and worked long, long hours sewing to earn extra income.   When the second baby was born in May, 1913, the charity covered her rent for the time that Fanny could not work. In return, however, the charity wanted Fanny to consider sending Bella to work full time.  Fanny resisted, and Bella continued to go to high school.  Bella resented having to justify her desire to continue school to the charity.

Bella, however, was now much more aware of the precariousness of their financial condition, and it was often a struggle to pay the rent, which was often paid late and in partial payments.  When she was not at school, Bella took care of her two baby brothers while her mother continued to work as much as possible, taking in sewing work.

Bella’s feelings at this time are poignantly conveyed in the memoir:

“I looked at the sleeping tenements and down at the street strewn with garbage and wet newspapers. Was this living?… It was all so hopeless.  When would it end?”  (pp. 103-104)

Although Bella still loved school and had friends with whom she had some good times, it is apparent that she no longer felt the somewhat joyful attitude she had had as a child.  Although it does seem that their financial condition was worse than it might have been earlier, the poverty and squalor she described must also have been very much present in the neighborhood where she lived when she was younger.   It is likely that as Bella was exposed to more of the outside world through school and books, she also became much more discerning and outraged by the conditions of her own world.

When Fanny finally was unable to pay the rent one month in 1914 and received an eviction notice, Bella offered to quit school.  Fanny refused to consider it, saying that Bella was “going to be a lady. Not like me, a schnorrer!” (p.110) Fanny swallowed her pride and begged the United Hebrew Charities for assistance.  They agreed to give her fourteen dollars, which she used to move her family out of the Lower East Side and up to First Avenue and 49th Street (where the UN now sits).  The charity also provided her with some sewing work.

Thus, Fanny and her children left the Lower East Side and moved to what was then called the Dead End neighborhood, an area of slums that were torn down in the 1920s.  This was not a move up, but a move to a cheaper neighborhood.

The last chapter focuses on Bella’s experiences while living in that neighborhood, a more mixed neighborhood where she had many non-Jewish neighbors.  The accommodation was comparable to what they had had on the Lower East Side, a three room tenement apartment.  Fanny was heavily dependent on United Hebrew Charities for support and grew increasingly despondent over her situation and over the health of her older son. At one point her relationship with Bella was so fraught with tension that Fanny lost her temper and began hitting Bella quite violently.  Bella realized that she needed to get away and spent the summer before her senior year working at a boy’s school in the Catskills as a chamber maid and waitress.

Bella somehow managed to graduate from high school while also holding down various part-time jobs, including working in another factory, tutoring, and helping her mother with extra sewing work.  She also continued to take care of her little brothers.  Right after she graduated from George Washington High School in June, 1917, whatever was left of Bella’s childhood innocence ended abruptly when her sickly little brother died from whatever medical condition had burdened him since infancy.  That is where Bella abruptly ends her memoirs as well.

In an afterword written by Lois Raeder Elias[1], who knew Bella for over thirty years, Elias commented that although Bella ultimately found great personal and financial success, saw the world, and knew many important and impressive people, she was permanently scarred and haunted by her years of poverty, growing up on the Lower East Side.  She never felt financially secure and lived always in fear of poverty.

If the chapters about Bella’s early childhood left me feeling somewhat hopeful about how our family lived on the Lower East Side, the rest of the book left me feeling incredibly sad.  How did our grandparents and great-grandparents cope with these conditions? How did Max, Hyman, and Tillie, all of whom were born in Europe, manage to pull themselves out of poverty and become a cigar dealer, a liquor store owner, and a grocery store owner in one generation?  How did all our grandparents manage to support and raise their children, who all somehow managed to achieve comfortable middle class or better lives in good neighborhoods in NYC and its suburbs?

Reading this book filled me with renewed respect and gratitude for our great-grandparents and grandparents.  We should never forget what they accomplished and what a gift that has been for all of us.

Bessie

Bessie

[1] There was a surprise gift inside this book when I received it.  I had ordered the book from a third party vendor through amazon.com, and inside the book I found a handwritten note by Lois Raeder Elias to friends named Sheila and Alan.  The note reads,”At last we have received copies of Bella’s memoirs. We thought they would never come.  This one is for you.  I hope you enjoy it.  I’ll talk to you this weekend.  On to Turkey! Love,  Arthur and Lois.”

I hope that Sheila and Alan, whoever they were, appreciated this book.  I fear that they just passed it on without ever noticing the card left inside by their friends, Arthur and Lois.

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