The Grandchildren of John and Jeanette Nusbaum: First Cousins, Four Times Removed

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When I last wrote about the direct descendants of my three-times great-grandparents, John and Jeanette (Dreyfuss) Nusbaum, I left off saying that I would return to their surviving grandchildren in a later post.  Having already written about the children of their daughter Frances Nusbaum Seligman, Eva, James, and Arthur, there were four other grandchildren to discuss: the two children of Gustavus and Miriam Nusbaum Josephs, Florence and Jean, and the two children of Simon and Dora Rutledge Nusbaum, Nellie Rogers and John Bernard Nusbaum.  I was hoping that I’d be able to find answers to some remaining questions before posting, but I’ve run into a few tough ones.

Florence Joseph’s story is still incomplete as I hit a brick wall around 1925, but I will share what I do know.  Florence married Louis Siegel in 1903 when she was 23 years old.  Louis, the son of Abraham Siegel and Minnie Rosenthal, was born in Philadelphia on January 11, 1870, making him ten years older than Florence.  In 1910, Florence and Louis were living in New York City, and Louis was working as a traveling salesman, selling athletic goods.

Sometime thereafter, Louis must have become ill.  He died on September 30, 1915, at the State Hospital for the Insane in Norristown, Pennsylvania.  According to his death certificate, he had been ill for three years and had been hospitalized since November 19, 1913.  His cause of death was general paralysis of the insane or paresis.  He was only 43 years old.

Although I only have one document to support this, it appears that in 1913, Florence and Louis had had a child, a daughter Marion.  On the 1920 census, Florence Siegel was living with her father Gustavus Josephs and her brother Jean Josephs, both of whom were working at a mill as manufacturers, presumably of fabrics, as discussed in an earlier post.  Included in the household was a seven year old girl named Marion Siegel.  Although she is described as the daughter of the head of household, it seems apparent that Marion was Florence’s daughter, given her age and her surname.

Gustavus Josephs 1920 census

When her father Gustavus died in May 1924, Florence continued to live in the home at 2020 North Park Avenue; she is listed as a dressmaker in the 1925 Philadelphia directory residing at that address.  Unfortunately, that is the last document I have for Florence.  I cannot find a marriage record or a death record for her, nor can I find any definitive document for her daughter Marion.

There were two other Marion Siegels in the Philadelphia area, but after tracing them both, I had to accept that neither was the right Marion.  One, Marion Siegele, even had a mother named Florence, but that Florence was married to Harry Siegele and that Marion was born in 1918.  The second Marion Siegel seemed more likely, but I was able to find her parents and brother, and they were again not Florence and Louis Siegel.  Maybe my Marion died outside of Pennsylvania before 1930 (she would have been about 17 years old at the time of the census), maybe her mother remarried and Marion took the new husband’s surname.  But I have searched for every Florence and Marion living together as mother and daughter on the 1930 census, and I’ve come up empty.

In searching for Florence and Marion Siegel, however, I did find this obituary of Gustavus Josephs that reveals more about his military service in the Civil War as a musician:

Philadelphia Inquirer May 25, 1924 p. 18

Philadelphia Inquirer May 25, 1924 p. 18

Although I did hit some roadblocks researching Florence, I had better luck with her brother Jean.  Jean was much younger than his sister Florence.  He was born in 1893 and presumably named for his recently deceased grandfather, John Nusbaum.  In fact, Jean’s middle initial is N, perhaps for Nusbaum.  As noted above, Jean worked with his father Gustavus as a mill owner and listed himself as a self-employed manufacturer on his World War I draft registration in 1917.  He married Ruth Breidenbach on March 4, 1920.  Ruth was the daughter of Lazarus and Sophia Breidenback, and her father was an engraver in Philadelphia.  Ruth was born on March 11, 1900, in Pennsylvania.

By 1930, Ruth and Jean had two children, Janet and Jean, Jr.  Jean was still a manufacturer, and the census report for 1930 is more specific as to what he was manufacturing: draperies.  The family was living at 1531 Lindley Avenue in Philadelphia.  The following year Jean and Ruth had a third child, Jay.

In 1940, Jean and Ruth were still living at 1531 Lindley with their three children, and Jean’s occupation was recorded as general manager, textile manufacturer.  Less than a year later, on February 4, 1941, Jean Josephs died from an intestinal obstruction and peritonitis.  He was 47 years old, and his children were still living at home.  Jean’s widow Ruth was 40 years old

Ruth remarried in 1946.  Just six years later, Ruth was widowed once again when her second husband died from heart failure at age 47 on October 3, 1952.  By that time her children were grown.

As for the two children of Simon and Dora Nusbaum, Nellie Rogers Nusbaum was Dora’s daughter from her first marriage.  In about 1921, Nellie married Ellis B. Healy, who owned the Santa Fe Book and Stationery Company.  Nellie’s life was cut short on May 9, 1932, when she died giving birth to her daughter.

simon nusbaum daughter obit

The Santa Fe New Mexican, May 9, 1932

In 1940, Nellie’s widower Ellis and her young daughter were living in Santa Fe with a servant and a lodger.  Ellis listed his occupation as an office supply merchant.  By 1942, Ellis must have remarried as he is listed as “Healy EB (Mildred)” in the 1942 Santa Fe directory, indicating that he had a wife named Mildred.  He still owned the Santa Fe Book and Stationery Company.  He and Mildred were still listed together in 1960.

Although Nellie was not the biological child of Simon Nusbaum, and I do not know whether he ever adopted her legally as she was still listed as his stepdaughter on the 1920 census, she must have adopted his name since her name on her headstone is Nellie Nusbaum Healy.  She is buried at Fairview Cemetery in Santa Fe.

Simon and Dora’s other child, John Bernard Nusbaum, was only sixteen when his father died in 1921.   In 1930, he married Esther Maltby.  They settled in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where John was the vice-president of the Albuquerque Stationery Company.   John was listed as the manager of the stationery store in 1940 and continued to be associated with the company at least as late as 1954.  John and Esther had two daughters.  John died on July 25, 1976, in Albuquerque, but is buried at Fairview Cemetery in Santa Fe where both of his parents are buried.  His wife Esther died in 2002 and is buried there as well.  I have tried contacting some of their descendants, but have not had any responses.

So I am going to focus on finding a descendant of these four cousins of mine in order to fill in some of the gaps and tie up those loose ends.

 

 

 

There Were No Survivors: A Tragic Ending to a Family with Plenty of Tragedy

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Some families seem to suffer more misfortune than others.  This is one of those families.  It is the story of the family of Mathilde Dreyfuss, sister of my three-times great-grandmother Jeanette, and her family.  Her first husband was  John Nusbaum’s brother Maxwell Nusbaum, making this particular line related to me both on my Dreyfuss side and my Nusbaum side.  That is, Mathilde and Maxwell’s children are my double first cousins, four times removed.

As I have written, Maxwell Nusbaum and Mathilde Dreyfuss had two children, a daughter Flora born in 1848 and a son Albert born in 1851.  Less than seven months after Albert’s birth, Maxwell died in the 1851 Great Fire in San Francisco.  By 1856 Mathilde had married Moses Pollock, with whom she had three more children, Emanuel, Miriam, and Rosia.  The family lived in Harrisburg for many years, but by 1866 had relocated to Philadelphia.

In the 1870s, the Pollocks were living in Philadelphia where Moses was a dry goods merchant.  Their youngest child Rosia died in 1871 when she was just five months old.

Rosie Pollock daughter of Moses and Mathilde death cert 1871

Pennsylvania, Philadelphia City Death Certificates, 1803-1915,” index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/JK3P-DBS : accessed 22 January 2015), Rosie Pollock, 26 Feb 1871; citing 1075, Philadelphia City Archives and Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia; FHL microfilm 2,020,735.

Mathilde’s daughter Flora had married Samuel Simon, one of the three brothers to marry into the Nusbaum/Dreyfuss clan, and they had two children in the 1870s, Meyer (mostly likely named for his grandfather Maxwell) and Minnie.  By 1880, Flora and Samuel had moved to Elkton, Maryland, where Samuel was running a hotel.  Meanwhile, Moses and Mathilde (Dreyfuss Nusbaum) Pollock were still in Philadelphia, and the other surviving children—Albert Nusbaum and Emanuel and Miriam Pollock—were still living at home with them, according to the 1880 census. Moses was in the cloak business, Albert was in the liquor trade, and Emanuel was in the dry goods business.  Moses’ line of trade seemed to change to trimmings or finishings during the 1880s and 1890s with various directories listing his businesses as plaiting, laces, embroidery, school bags, and accordion pleating.

Mathilde’s family was struck by tragedy again on September 1, 1885, when Miriam Pollock, just 26 years old, died from consumption or tuberculosis.  Mathilde had lost her first husband to a fire, her daughter Rosia at five months, and then her daughter Miriam at 26.  Sometimes life is just not fair.

miriam pollock death cert FHL 2070682

“Pennsylvania, Philadelphia City Death Certificates, 1803-1915,” index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/JFSV-LHQ : accessed 22 January 2015), Miriam Pollock, 01 Sep 1885; citing , Philadelphia City Archives and Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia; FHL microfilm 2,070,682.

 

Then Moses Pollock died on December 5, 1894 of encephalomalacia, defined in Wikipedia as “localized softening of the brain substance, due to hemorrhage or inflammation.”  Like so many other family members, he was buried at Mt. Sinai cemetery in Philadelphia.  He was 69 years old.

Moses Pollock death cert

“Pennsylvania, Philadelphia City Death Certificates, 1803-1915,” index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/JKS4-32N : accessed 22 January 2015), Moses Pollock, 05 Dec 1894; citing cn 11116, Philadelphia City Archives and Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia; FHL microfilm 1,872,200.

Both Albert Nusbaum and Emanuel Pollock had continued to live with their parents throughout the 1880s and 1890s, and in 1900, they and their mother were still living together at the same address, 934 North Eighth Street.  Mathilde, now widowed twice in addition to losing two children, was working outside the house as a manufacturer of bags—presumably, the school bags listed as one of the items Moses was selling on the last directory entry before his death.  Albert was still a liquor salesman, and Emanuel was selling bicycles.  In addition, Meyer Simon, Flora’s son and Mathilde’s grandson, now 30 years old, was also living with them and was working with his grandmother in the bag manufacturing business as a manager.

Mathilde’s daughter Flora Nusbaum and her husband Samuel Simon, meanwhile, had left Elkton, Maryland, and moved to Baltimore by 1885.  Samuel was in the liquor business, as was his brother Moses, who was married to Paulina Dinkelspiel, Flora’s first cousin.[2]  My hunch is that they were business together.

In 1900, Samuel was still in the liquor business in Baltimore, but his brother Moses had died the year before.  Samuel and Flora still had their daughter Minnie living at home with them, but their son Meyer, as noted above, was living in Philadelphia with his grandmother and uncles Albert and Emanuel and managing the bag manufacturing business.

Although Meyer Simon was listed as single on the 1900 census, the 1910 census reported him as married for 12 years. I figured that this must have been a mistake, especially since he was still living at his grandmother’s address even in the 1901 directory.  It seemed he could not have been married for 12 years in 1910.

But then I found something strange.  After some further research and review, I found in the Pennsylvania, Marriages 1709-1940 data base on familysearch.org a marriage between Meyer Simon and Tillie Perry on September 18, 1897, in Allegheny, Pennsylvania. Meyer’s wife’s name on the 1910 census was Matilda, so I knew this was the correct marriage.  Matilda or Tillie Perry was the daughter of William and Matilda Perry; she was born in Philadelphia in 1876 and baptized in the Episcopal church in 1878. But if Meyer and Matilda were married in 1897, why was Meyer listed as single on the 1900 census, and where was Matilda?[3]

I found Matilda Perry on the 1900 census living with her parents in Philadelphia, and that census report stated that she was married and had been married for three years, which is consistent with the marriage record I found on familysearch. Had Meyer and Matilda married and then lived separately for at least three years?  It seems strange, but perhaps they could not yet afford a place of their own. Or perhaps they were temporarily separated.  Or perhaps the religious differences had made it difficult for those families to support the marriage.    After all, Meyer listed his marital status as single.  I suppose it is also possible that he had kept the marriage a secret from his family.  After all, they were married in Allegheny, not in Philadelphia or in Baltimore where their families lived. Allegheny was a city across the river from Pittsburgh that merged with Pittsburgh in 1907.   It would have been therefore over 300 miles from Philadelphia and about 250 miles from Baltimore.

Thus, as of 1900, Mathilde Dreyfuss Nusbaum Pollock was a widow, living in Philadelphia with her two sons, Albert and Emanuel.  Her daughter Flora was living with her husband Samuel Simon in Baltimore with their daughter Minnie, and their son Meyer was married, but not yet living with his wife Matilda.

The decade that followed must have been a very painful one.  First, on March 21, 1904, Mathilde Pollock died.  She was 79 years old.  The death certificate says she died of old age, which shows you how perspectives on aging and longevity have changed.  It also says that she died from “senile pneumonia,” a term for which I could find no easily understood definition for my non-medical brain to grasp, but which I gather is a form of pneumonia that affects the elderly.  (Feel free to provide a more scientifically accurate definition.)  The death certificate also says that Mathilde had ascites, another term not easily defined but which Wikipedia defines as “gastroenterological term for an accumulation of fluid in the peritoneal cavity.”   Don’t even get me started on trying to understand where the peritoneal cavity is, but from what I read, ascites seems to have something to do with liver disease, often cirrhosis.

Mathilde Pollock death cert

Mathilde’s death was followed three years later by the death of her son Emanuel Pollock on February 16, 1907.  He was only fifty years old and died of tuberculosis.  Three years after that his half-brother Albert Nusbaum died on August 28, 1910 from apoplexy brought on by arteriosclerosis.  He was 59 years old.  Mathilde and both of her sons were buried at Mt. Sinai cemetery.

That left only Flora Nusbaum Simon as the surviving child of Mathilde Dreyfuss Nusbaum Pollock.  She had lost both of her parents and all four of her siblings.  She was also the only child who had children of her own as none of her siblings ever married or had children. Flora and Samuel appear to have relocated from Baltimore to Philadelphia by 1905, the year after her mother died, as Samuel appears in the Philadelphia directory living at 2225 North 13th Street, the same address where the family is listed in the 1910 and 1920 census reports.

Flora’s brother Albert had been living with them at that address in April when the 1910 census was taken, just four months before he died.  Neither Samuel nor Albert nor anyone else in the household was employed at that time, yet they still had a servant living in the home.  Minnie, Flora and Samuel’s daughter, was 27 and single, living with her parents and uncle.  It feels like it must have been a very sad time for the family.

Flora and Samuel’s son Meyer and his wife Matilda were living about two miles away at 2200 Susquehanna Avenue in 1910.  Meyer was a clothing salesman.  There were two boarders living with them, but no children. When Meyer registered for the World War I draft in 1917, he and Matilda were living at 3904 North Marshall Street, two and a half miles north of his parents and his sister.  Meyer was employed as a clothing salesman for Harry C. Kahn and Son, according to his draft registration.

On February 18, 1919, Flora Nusbaum Simon suffered yet another loss when her husband Samuel Simon died from a cerebral hemorrhage at age 79.  She and her daughter Minnie were living together in 1920 at their home at 2225 North 13th Street.  Flora herself died almost four years to the day after her husband Samuel on February 20, 1923.  She was 74 years old and died from chronic interstitial nephritis.  She had outlived all of her siblings by over 13 years.  She, like all the rest of them, was buried at Mt. Sinai cemetery with her husband Samuel.

Ancestry.com. Pennsylvania, Death Certificates, 1906-1963 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014.

Ancestry.com. Pennsylvania, Death Certificates, 1906-1963 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014.

After her mother Flora died, Minnie Simon lived with her brother Meyer and his wife Matilda in the house on North 13th Street where Flora had died, number 2336, across the street from where they had lived for many years at 2225.  Meyer was employed as a clothing salesman, and his niece Matilda (a fifth Matilda in his life) was also living with them.  Meyer lost his sister Minnie six years later when she died from liver cancer on December 14, 1936; she was 63 years old.

Meyer was the only member of his family left.  He had no siblings, no nieces or nephews on his side.  It must have been just too much for him when his wife Matilda then died on April 27, 1940, at age 63 from cerebral thrombosis and chronic nephritis.  Two years later on June 2, 1942, Meyer took his own life.  He was found on the second floor of his home at 2336 North 13th Street with a gunshot wound to his head.  He had no survivors.  Although Meyer was buried with his family at Mt. Sinai, he was not buried with his wife Matilda.  She was buried at a non-denominational cemetery instead (Northwood); because she was not Jewish, she could not be buried at Mt. Sinai.  How sad.

meyer simon death cert pre inquest

Ancestry.com. Pennsylvania, Death Certificates, 1906-1963 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014.

Meyer Simon death cert coroner's inquest

Ancestry.com. Pennsylvania, Death Certificates, 1906-1963 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014.

This story fills me with such sadness.  How lonely Meyer must have been.  He’d lost his grandparents, his parents, his aunts and uncles, his sister, and his wife.  And there were no children or nieces or nephews left to comfort him. Certainly there were other Nusbaum cousins nearby in Philadelphia, but it must not have been enough.

From the start of the story of the life of Meyer’s grandmother Mathilde Dreyfuss, this family suffered such tragedy: Maxwell’s death in the Great Fire of San Francisco and two daughters who died young.  Of Mathilde’s four children who grew to adulthood, only Flora married and had children, and there were no grandchildren to carry on the family line after Flora and Samuel Simon and their two children Meyer and Minnie died.   There are no living descendants of Mathilde Dreyfuss or Maxwell Nusbaum.  No one likely remembers their names.  Except now they have been found and can be remembered for the tough lives they lived and for the courage and hope they must have had when they arrived in Pennsylvania in the middle of the 1800s.

 

 

[1] Isaac died without any children in 1870, so unfortunately that was the end of that sibling’s line.

[2] Flora’s father Maxwell Nusbaum was the brother of Paulina Dinkelspiel’s mother, Mathilde Nusbaum Dinkelspiel.

[3] Poor Meyer had at least four Mathilde/Matildas in his life: his mother, his wife, his mother-in-law, and one of his aunts.  And today I don’t know one woman named Mathilde or Matilda or Tillie.

Update: The Coroner’s Report

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Two weeks ago, I wrote about the curious death of Adolphus Nusbaum, my great-great-granduncle, son of John and Jeanette (Dreyfuss) Nusbaum.  He died on February 8, 1902, on a train from Washington, DC, about 20 miles outside of Chicago, according to the family bible.  Although I found this record from Illinois regarding the transfer of his body to Philadelphia, I could not find the follow-up to the coroner’s inquest, and so I was left wondering what had happened to Adolphus.

adolph nusbaum

“Pennsylvania, Philadelphia City Death Certificates, 1803-1915,” index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-266-11810-171514-28?cc=1320976 : accessed 19 Sep 2014), 004047863 > image 92 of 701; citing Department of Records.

 

My imagination went a little wild, speculating about conspiracy and murder with his wife Fanny and brother Julius running off together to Canada.  After all, I couldn’t find either Fanny or Julius on the 1910 census, and when they surfaced in 1920, they were living together as boarders in a home in Philadelphia.

But the reality was much more mundane.  With the assistance of my friend Laurel, I was able to find the results of the coroner’s inquest.  Laurel helped me figure out that the inquest would have taken place in Chicago where the body would have been delivered before it was then transported back to Philadelphia for burial. (I had been mistakenly looking in Philadelphia records.)  I then searched the Cook County index of coroner’s reports and found the one for Adolphus (listed as Adolph Nussbaum).  I ordered a copy, which arrived right before the weekend.

Adolph Nusbaum coroner's report

The report confirms that Adolphus died on the train on February 8, 1902, while en route from Washington to Chicago when the train was near Valparaiso, Indiana, which is 52 miles from Chicago.  The coroner’s inquest concluded that he died from pleurisy with effusion.  There was nothing in the report that indicated anything suspicious about the death.

The report also lists the witnesses who testified at the inquest, including Fanny Nusbaum (Fannie Nussbaum here) of Peoria, Illinois.  Although she might have testified for other reasons, it would seem likely that she testified as a witness to the death itself, meaning she was with Adolphus on the train.  The last witness, Joseph Springer, was the physician in the coroner’s office.  I don’t know who David Yondorf was; the report (cut off on the scanned copy above) states that he lived in the Lakota Hotel in Chicago and was a clothing merchant.  My guess is that he was a passenger on the train when Adolph died.

One other update about the children of John and Jeanette:  I wrote that Julius had died of dilation of the heart superinduced by acute indigestion.  My medical expert thinks that what this most likely meant is that Julius complained of acute indigestion but was really having a heart attack, leading to the heart failure that led to his death.  I was relieved to know that indigestion does not cause heart failure.

 

Thank You, Grandpa, for the Gift of My New Cousins

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It was about three years ago that I first started wondering more about my grandfather Isadore Goldschlager.  I knew almost nothing about his life before he came to the US in 1904 from Iasi, Romania.  I didn’t know too much about his life when he got to the US either.  It was my interest in his life in particular that first prompted me to go on ancestry.com and start searching for answers.  I soon hit a wall and gave up, only returning to ancestry a year later and starting my search for my Brotman relatives instead.

Then I returned to my grandfather again, a somewhat more experienced researcher, and this time I had better luck.  In fact, as I have written, I found not only his parents—I found his mother’s siblings Gustav and Tillie and Zusi Rosenzweig, and then I found their children and many of their grandchildren and great-grandchildren.  I was able to piece together a better picture of my grandfather’s extended family and even figured out how he met my grandmother Gussie, who happened to be living down the street from his Rosenzweig cousins in 1915 on Pacific Street in Brooklyn.

Last night I got to meet some of my Rosenzweig cousins for the very first time.    Four of the great-great-grandchildren of David and Esther Rosenzweig were there—Gerry, Ron, Michael and me.  Gerry, Ron and Michael are all the great-grandsons of Gustave Rosenzweig, the brother of my great-grandmother Ghitla/Gussie Rosenzweig Goldschlager.  Gerry is the grandson of Abraham Rosenzweig, and Michael and Ron are the grandsons of Joe Rosenzweig, the brother of Abraham.

Here is a picture of Abraham, Joe and Jack Rosenzweig:

Abraham Joseph and John (Jack) Rosenzweig

Abraham Joseph and John (Jack) Rosenzweig

And here is a picture of their first cousin Isadore Goldschlager, my grandfather.

Isadore Goldschlager

Isadore Goldschlager

It was a wonderful evening.  Even though many of us had never, ever met before, we quickly connected and found common bonds—all having grown up in greater New York, all enjoying a good laugh, all loving dogs and our grandchildren (not in that order), and all being unable to digest raw onions.  It was a great time, and even if we never knew each other as children, there was definitely a feeling of family.

Here we all are with our spouses.  Thanks to the lovely newlywed couple who not only put up with our noisy conversations, but also graciously offered to take this picture (on about five different smartphones).

Rosenzweig cousins Jan 24 2014

So keep looking for your cousins—you will never know how much joy you can experience.

Children Losing Parents: The Family of Leopold Nusbaum

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I’ve written quite a bit about how terrible it makes me feel when I read about parents losing their children.  The number of babies and young children who died from disease or accidents before the mid-20th century is appalling.  But in the story of the family of Leopold Nusbaum, I saw a different type of tragedy recur a number of times: young children losing a parent.  That pattern began with Leopold Nusbaum’s own daughter. Leopold Nusbaum had died in 1866, predeceased by his four year old son Adolph and survived by his widow Rosa and daughter Francis. Francis was only sixteen when her father died.

Francis had married Henry Frank in 1870, and in 1880 they were living with her mother Rosa and their three children, Leopold (named for his grandfather), Senie and Cora, in Lewistown, Pennsylvania, where Henry was a merchant.  Their fourth child David Henry Frank was born in April 1884.  By 1884 the family had returned to Philadelphia, where Henry was in the cloak manufacturing business with a firm called E. Rubel and Company.  The family was residing at 1234 Marshall Street.  Rosa Nusbaum, Francis’ mother, died February 16, 1887, in Philadelphia.

By 1889 Henry was with a new firm, Patterson, Frank, and Company, still manufacturing cloaks.  By 1894 he had his own firm, H.N. Frank & Co., and the family had relocated to 1633 Franklin Avenue.  The children were now growing up: Leopold was 23, Senie was 18, Cora was 17, and David just ten years old.  By 1899 they had relocated again to 2351 Park Avenue, and Leopold was now a salesman in his father’s business.

The 20th century saw the children of Francis Nusbaum and Henry Frank beginning to move on as adults.  In 1901, Senie married Joseph H. Hinlein.

Senie Frank marriage announcement

Joseph Hinlein was a widower; his wife Clara Falk Hinlein had died at age 29 from an aneurysm in June, 1900, leaving Joseph with three young children: Florette, Stanley, and Milton.  When Senie Frank married Joseph Hinlein, she thus had an instant family.[1]  Joseph Hinlein was a manufacturer.  In 1900 the census merely says he was a manufacturer, but in 1910 it says braids and in 1920 ladies’ trimmings.  I assume the braids were decorative trimmings for women’s clothing.

There are some very strange things about the census records for Joseph and his children.  For one thing, Joseph’s birthplace varies widely from census to census: Germany (1900), Pennsylvania (1910), Wisconsin (1920 and 1930), and Ohio (1940).  His passport application in 1946 lists Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin as his place of birth as does a ship manifest from 1928 for a trip he took with Senie.   Was this evidence of the unreliability of the census reports or of Joseph himself?  A little more digging, and I found Joseph on the 1870 census when he was just a baby, living with his parents in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin.  That census indicated that Joseph and his parents were born in Bavaria.   Did Joseph forget where he was born in 1920 and thereafter? Or was he lying to be more American? Or perhaps the census taker in 1870 was mistaken or misunderstood where the baby in the home was born.

But there are other strange things about the Hinlein family and the census.  Although Milton is consistently reported as born in September 1895, Stanley is reported as born in 1893 on the 1900 census, but on every document after that his birth year is generally about 1900.  When I found his World War I draft registration, I thought—Aha! That will have his birthdate.  But it was blank except for his name.

Registration State: Pennsylvania; Registration County: Philadelphia; Roll: 1907759; Draft Board: 36

Registration State: Pennsylvania; Registration County: Philadelphia; Roll: 1907759; Draft Board: 36

And Florette’s age is also mysterious.  On the 1900 census it says she was born in December 1898 and only a year old.  But in 1910 she is seventeen years old, meaning a birth year of 1892 or 1893.  Every other census is consistent with the earlier birth year, and her Social Security death index entry and her headstone say she was born in 1892.  Plus she married in 1913; it seems more likely that she was 21 than 15 when she married.  When I examined the 1900 census more closely, although it clearly says December 1898, the “1” for her age could easily have been a “9.”  Maybe the census taker changed the birth year when he thought that she was one, not nine, years old.

Florette Hinlein 1900 census

Florette Hinlein 1900 census

During the 1910s, the three Hinlein children were moving out on their own.  As mentioned above, Florette married in 1913; her husband Jerome Lehman was from New Jersey, and Florette and Jerome settled in Newark, New Jersey where Jerome, a graduate of Princeton, was working in his father’s food business in 1917, according to his World War I draft registration.  Jerome and Florette had one child, a daughter who was born in 1915.[2]  By 1920 they were living in West Orange, New Jersey, and Jerome was now the vice-president of the grocery business.

Florette’s brother Stanley graduated from Princeton University in 1922 (when he was either 22 or 29, depending on which birth year is correct) and also married Beatrice Silverman in Philadelphia that year.  Stanley followed his father Joseph into the braid manufacturing business.  He and Beatrice settled in the Philadelphia area and had a daughter in 1925.

The third Hinlein child was Milton.  He married Reta Greenwald in 1919.  They also settled in Philadelphia.  I need help deciphering Milton’s occupation on the 1920 census.  I think it says “—- trimmings,” so I assume he also like his brother went into his father’s business.  Milton and Reta would have three children in the 1920s.

Milton Hinlein 1920 census

Milton Hinlein 1920 census

Senie’s younger sister Cora Frank had married just two years after Senie.  She married Jacques Jacob Gattman in Philadelphia in 1903.  Jacques was born in 1875 in Mississipppi where his father, a native New Yorker, was a banker.  By 1894, however, the family had relocated to Philadelphia, as Jacques’ father is listed in the Philadelphia directory for that year as a malt merchant.  On the 1900 census, Jacques is living with his parents and working as a salesman.

After marrying in 1903, Cora and Jacques settled in Philadelphia and had a daughter Dorothy in 1905.  Then at age 31, Jacques died from cerebral apoplexy or a stroke on January 19, 1906.  Cora was a 29 year old widow with a baby less than a year old. Her daughter Dorothy, like her Hinlein stepcousins, lost a parent at a very young age.  Cora and Dorothy moved back into Henry and Francis Nusbaum Frank’s home at 2351 Park Avenue, where Cora is listed as residing in the 1908 and 1909 directories as well as on the 1910 census.

Cora remarried in 1913.  Her second husband was Joseph Gustav Lehman.  I immediately thought that there had to be some connection between Joseph Lehman and Jerome Lehman, who married Florette Hinlein, Cora’s stepniece, that same year.  I have yet to find that connection, however. As noted above, Jerome Lehman was born in New Jersey in 1896, and his father Leser Lehman was also born in New Jersey.  Joseph Lehman, on the other hand, was born in Ohio in 1876, and his father Gustav was born in Germany in about 1845. Could there be a connection? Of course.  But I have yet to find it.

Joseph Lehman was 37 when he married Cora; she was 36.  They settled with Cora’s daughter Dorothy in Dayton, Ohio, where Joseph had lived his whole life.  His father Gustav was a dealer in hides, and in 1900 Joseph was working as a bookkeeper.  By 1910 his father had died, and Joseph and his brother Jacob had taken over the hides business.  After marrying Cora in 1913, Joseph became the secretary of the Hewitt Soap Company, according to his World War I draft registration in 1917.  The 1920 census lists his occupation as secretary of a steel company.   The transition from hides to steel is a telling one, revealing the shifts in the US economy by 1920.

Cattle hides

Cattle hides

 

Dorothy, now a teenager, was living with Joseph and Cora.  Unfortunately, I have been unable to locate Dorothy after 1926 when she was listed as Dorothy Gattmann and as a student in the Dayton city directory.  I cannot find her as Dorothy Lehman or Dorothy Gattmann.  I assume that she married and changed her name, but I don’t know where she lived or who she married.

David Frank, the youngest of the children of Henry and Francis Nusbaum Frank, also was married by 1910.  He married Rhea Heilbron, who was from Reading, Pennsylvania.  They had been married a year at the time of the 1910 census and were living in Philadelphia.  David was working as an inspector in a suit factory.  By 1920 they had relocated to New York City where David was now working as a wholesale merchant in “waists” or women’s clothing.  David and Rhea did not have any children.

The last of the Frank children to marry was the oldest, Leopold Frank.  In 1910 when he was 38 he was living at home and working with his father in the clothing business.  On his passport application dated April 25, 1914, he described himself as single and residing in Philadelphia and a cloak and suit manufacturer.  I cannot locate him on the 1920 census (perhaps he was overseas), but on a June, 1921, ship manifest he is listed as residing at 601 West 115th Street in New York City.  Then, in 1925, Leopold shows up on the NY State census, living with his brother David and sister-in-law Rhea and married to a woman named Nellie.  David and Leopold were both working as dress salesman.  For a long time I could not figure out when Leopold had married Nellie or anything about her life before 1925.

But then I looked over everything again and found some clues.  Also living with David, Rhea, Leopold and Nellie Frank in 1925 was a nineteen year old young man named Raphael Austrian, identified as the nephew of the head of household, that is, David’s nephew.  At first glance I had assumed that this was Rhea’s sibling’s child since the last name, Austrian, did not match any of David’s siblings.  But when I later searched for some history for Nellie on familysearch.org, looking for a woman born around 1885 in Hungary, the first name on the search results list was a Nellie Austrian from the 1905 NY State census.  I almost dismissed this listing because it said Nellie was married.  But when I looked back again at the 1925 NY census and saw Raphael Austrian again, it clicked.  Nellie Austrian was the woman now married to Leopold Frank, and she had a son Raphael who was the nephew of David Frank, the head of household listed in the 1925 census.

David and Rhea Frank's household on the 1925 NYS census

David and Rhea Frank’s household on the 1925 NYS census

So I went back to research Nellie as Nellie Austrian.  On the 1905 census, I found that Nellie was married to an American-born publisher named Julian Austrian.  Further searching for Julian Austrian (thank goodness for some unusual names) revealed that he was born in Reading, Pennsylvania in 1876. In 1900, he was still single and living in Reading.   I was then able to find him and Nellie and Raphael on the 1910 census living in New York City and also on the 1915 NYS census.  Julian’s World War I draft registration reported his occupation as editor and publisher of the F. Stallknecht Publishing Company, and googling that name revealed that they were engaged in the business of trade publications, for example, for the fur trade.

But on October 31, 1919, Julian died of heart failure back home in Berks County, Pennsylvania.  He was just 42 years old.  Once again, there was a young widow, and once again, there was a young child who lost a parent.  Like Francis Nusbaum who lost her father Leopold when she was 16, like the Hinlein children who lost their mother Clara when they were younger than ten years old, like Dorothy Gattman who lost her father Jacques before she could even know him, young Raphael Austrian lost his father when he was only fifteen years old.

In 1920, a year after Julian Austrian died, Raphael and his mother Nellie were living in New York City with a woman named “Diona” Wolkenstein, listed as Nellie’s sister, and from that census entry I finally learned what Nellie’s birth name was, Wolkenstein.  Nellie herself was now listed as a publisher.

I then searched the NYC marriage records for a bride named Nellie Austrian and found one entry for September 30, 1922.  Although the groom’s name was not included in the index, this obviously had to be Nellie’s marriage to Leopold Frank.  Even after marrying Leopold Frank on September 30, 1922, she continued to use the name Nellie Austrian in her listings in the New York City directory as a publisher.  Looking back again at the 1925 census, I now realized that David and Rhea Frank not only had Leopold and Nellie and Raphael living with them; Nellie’s sister “Diona” (indexed as “Siona” here, but more likely “Ilona”) Wolkerstein was also living in the household.

By 1925, all four of the children of Francis Nusbaum and Henry Frank were thus finally on their own.  Senie was living in Philadelphia with her husband Joseph Hinlein, and her three stepchildren were all married and out of the house.  Cora and her husband Joseph Lehman were living in Dayton, Ohio, and her daughter Dorothy was a student.  David Frank and his brother Leopold Frank and their wives were living in New York City where David and Leopold were apparently working together in the dress business.

Their father, Henry Frank, died June 18, 1925, of heart disease.  He is buried at Mt. Sinai cemetery.

Ancestry.com. Pennsylvania, Death Certificates, 1906-1963 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014.

Ancestry.com. Pennsylvania, Death Certificates, 1906-1963 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014.

The 1930s and after

By 1930 Francis Nusbaum Frank, now a widow, had moved in with her daughter Senie and son-in-law Joseph Hinlein in Cheltenham, outside of Philadelphia.  Her daughter Cora and her husband were still in Dayton, Ohio, and Joseph was now in the airplane parts business (maybe the same as the 1920 company, but I cannot tell).  The 1933 directory lists him as the treasurer of the United Aircraft Company, as does the 1936 directory.  Cora’s daughter Dorothy Gattman was no longer living with her mother and stepfather.

As of 1930, David and Rhea Frank were still living in New York City, and David was still in the women’s clothing business. In 1930 Leopold Frank and his wife Nellie were also still in New York; Nellie was still a publisher, and Leopold, like his brother David, was still selling women’s clothing.

In November, 1935, David Frank died at age 53; he was residing in Philadelphia at the time and is buried at Mt. Sinai cemetery.  I’ve been unable to locate a death certificate for him or an obituary, but according to two family trees on ancestry, he died in Atlantic City.  Rhea Frank returned to her home town of Reading, Pennsylvania,[3] where she died seven years later in October, 1941; she was also 53.  They are buried together at Mt. Sinai.

After losing her youngest child David in 1935, Francis Nusbaum Frank died on September 13, 1938, of a stroke.  She was 86 years old.  Like the other family members, she was buried with her husband Henry at Mt. Sinai.

Ancestry.com. Pennsylvania, Death Certificates, 1906-1963 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014.

Ancestry.com. Pennsylvania, Death Certificates, 1906-1963 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014.

In 1940, Senie and Joseph Hinlein were living with their son Stanley Hinlein and his family in Cheltenham.  Joseph Hinlein died in 1950 at 81, and Senie died the following year on May 22, 1951.  She was 74 and died of heart disease.  She and Joseph are buried at Mt. Sinai cemetery in Philadelphia.  Their three children all lived long lives; Florette died in 1993 at 100 years old.  Stanley died in 1983 at 90, and Milton died in 1982 at 87.

Cora and Joseph Lehman were still in Dayton in 1940, and Joseph was the treasurer of an aircraft company.  The last record I have for them is a record of Joseph’s death on June 14, 1959.  Cora was still alive at that point, but I have no further record for her or for her daughter Dorothy Gattman.

Leopold Frank and his wife Nellie seem to have disappeared after 1930.  I cannot find either of them on the 1940 census.  I know that Nellie’s son Raphael was married and living on Long Island in 1940, but I cannot find a trace of his mother or stepfather.

Looking back at the family line that began with Leopold and Rosa Nusbaum, I see a family with a lot of tragedies.  Leopold and Rosa lost their young son Adolph when he was just a little boy.  Their daughter Francis had four children.  The oldest three all had either children or stepchildren who had lost a parent when those children were still quite young.  Both Leopold and Senie married people who had lost a young spouse, and Cora suffered the loss of her first husband at a very young age. (David had no children.)  By 1940, there were no biological descendants of Leopold and Rosa living other than Dorothy Gattman, who I cannot locate.  The family lines of the Hinlein children, who were raised in large part by Senie Frank and whose children undoubtedly saw her as their grandmother, did continue on, and I am hoping to find some of those descendants to fill in some of the gaps left in this story.

 

 

 

 

 

[1] Senie and Joseph did not have any biological children together.

[2] Since I have not yet been able to get permission from living descendants, for privacy reasons I am not disclosing the names of those born in or after 1915.

[3] Since Rhea Heilbron, David’s wife, was also from Reading, Pennsylvania, I wonder whether she was friendly with the Austrian family and thus introduced Nellie to Leopold after Julian died.

 

Does Anybody Really Care about a Fifth Cousin?  Are Collateral Lines Relevant?

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y Sg647112c (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

y Sg647112c (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons

I have been spending many hours recently researching the children, grandchildren and other descendants of the siblings of my three-times great-grandparents.  Sometimes I find myself thinking, “Why am I researching these people?  They are my third cousins twice removed or my fifth cousins or my second cousins four times removed…or whatever.”  Although I’ve had moments of wondering this before, it’s been especially true for the Nusbaum clan, who for the most part flew under the radar and did not have lots of juicy or interesting stories to tell—they were mostly law abiding merchants; they lived their lives quietly and out of the public eye.  They were not politicians or inventors or criminals or performers.  They did not change history.  Sometimes when I learn that a particular relative had no children, I am relieved.  One more line has been completed.

So why do this?  Does anybody really care about such distant relatives? Do I even care? Is it just my general compulsive need for a sense of completion? For being thorough? Or is there something pushing me forward, person by person, line by line?

Some of it is definitely my neurotic need to finish things.  Until recently I would finish any book I started even if I hated it.  Then finally I realized, “Hey, I hate this book.  I do not need to finish it.”  It was tough, but I started realizing no one was grading me if I put the book away.  And it is not just books.  When we moved into our new home five years ago, I stayed up past 3 am just to put away every last dish, fork, pot, and coffee mug in the kitchen.  Craziness.

But I do think that something else impels me to keep researching and writing about all these distant cousins.  First, it gives me the big picture about the lives of my ancestors.  I start to see trends and patterns.  For example, I would not have seen how important the liquor trade became in the family and the country if I had not followed all those Simon and Nusbaum relatives who started selling liquor in the 1870s.  I would not have understood how important the peddler trade was to early German Jewish immigrants if I did not study all the Nusbaum siblings. I would not have sensed the broad impact of the 1870s depression by studying just my direct ancestors.   And as I move into the 20th century, I would perhaps not have seen how suddenly education became a much bigger factor in the lives of these families as both sons and daughters started getting a college education.

So in order to appreciate the larger society in which our ancestors lived, it is important to research not just your direct line but those collateral to it.  But there is more there.  Because I could do all that research and not blog about these people.  I am no fool; I know that it doesn’t make for sexy reading to follow the life of someone who was born, grew up, sold hats, got married, had children, and died.  So why even bother posting on the blog about that ordinary person? Partly because we all live ordinary lives.  Most people are never in the paper for anything “interesting.” Most of us are not politicians or entertainers or criminals.  Most of us are born, grow up, go to work, have families, and die.  Don’t we matter? Won’t our grandchildren want to be able to tell their grandchildren something about their ancestors?  I hope so.

By Citynoise (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

By Citynoise (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons

And then there is this other thing.  It hasn’t happened a lot, but it’s happened to me enough that I know it can happen.  Someone googles their great-grandfather’s name, say Simon Nusbaum, for example.  They land on my blog, and they learn something about their great-grandfather that they never knew—for example, that he was Jewish or that he was the son of a once successful merchant in Philadelphia. And they leave a comment on the blog, and I now have a new cousin with whom I share a family history and some smidgeon of DNA.

Isn’t that worth it?  Right now I am searching for the living descendants of my three-times great-grandparents and their many siblings, and I have found a number of them.  They are mostly my fifth cousins with a few fourth cousins mixed in.  Some I have already emailed, others I will today.  I have not heard back from those I emailed, as is often the case.  Maybe they think I am a crazy person.  Maybe they have no interest today.  But maybe in a month or a year they will wonder about their ancestors and find my blog or find me.

And even if just one of them responds to me, it is worth it.  Maybe they will have a picture of John Nusbaum and Jeanette Dreyfuss or one of their children.  Even if they don’t, I will have helped them learn about their family’s history, and that will make all of this worthwhile.

 

The Dinkelspiel Descendants in the 20th Century

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In my last post, I covered four of the five children of Paula Dinkelspiel and Moses Simon.  The remaining child was their fourth child, Flora, born in 1868.  Flora Simon married Charles Mayer in 1889.  Charles was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in 1857, the son of Jacob Mayer and Mathilde Shoyer.  The family had moved to Philadelphia by the time Charles was three.  His father was a merchant on the 1860 census and in the wholesale liquor business on the 1870 census, but by 1880 and thereafter, he listed his occupation as a dentist.  He was a man with eleven children, and that made me wonder how he became a dentist while raising such a large family.

Most early “dentists” were actually barbers, blacksmiths, or apothecaries.  Sometimes physicians would do extractions.  Infection control was minimal, as was anesthesia.  According to the American Dental Association website, the first dental school in the world was established in 1841 in Baltimore.  Alabama enacted the first law to regulate the practice of dentistry also in 1841, but it was never enforced.  The American Dental Association was founded in 1857.  Pennsylvania had three dental schools by 1880, the newest being that established by the University of Pennsylvania.

Perhaps Jacob Mayer attended one of these, although I do not know when he would have had the time.  The earliest reference I could find to a Pennsylvania law regulating the practice of dentistry was this April, 16, 1879 article from the Harrisburg Telegraph, describing a bill being considered by the state legislature.

Harrisburg Telegraph April 16, 1879 p.1

Harrisburg Telegraph April 16, 1879 p.1

The bill was passed on a second reading, according to a May 16, 1879, article in the same paper (p.1).  Here is a description of that bill as reported the next day:

Harrisburg Telegraph May 17, 1879, p. 4

Harrisburg Telegraph May 17, 1879, p. 4

Thus, by the time Jacob Mayer was practicing dentistry, there was some state regulation of the practice.

At any rate, his son Charles did not follow him in to this practice.  By 1875 when he was eighteen, Charles was working as a salesman, though still living at home.  In the 1879 Philadelphia directory, he is listed as a bookkeeper, and on the 1880 census, he is a clerk, but in the 1880 directory, his occupation is salesman.  He was still living at home with his parents at this time.

After marrying Flora Simon in 1889, Charles and Flora remained in Philadelphia for a few more years and  Charles continued to work as a salesman.  Their first child Jerome was born in 1890, and their second child Madeline was born in 1892.  A third child, Evelyn, was born in October, 1895 according to the 1900 census (although her headstone says 1894), but I am not sure whether she was born in Philadelphia or in Lancaster because by 1896, the family had relocated to Lancaster, where Charles had been born almost forty years earlier.  He is listed in the 1896 Lancaster directory as the proprietor of the Parisian Cloak and Suit Company.  The family remained in Lancaster until at least 1901, when Charles is still listed as the proprietor of the same company.

"Downtown Lancaster, Pennsylvania 1874" by Author unknown. From the personal collection of historian Ronald C. Young of Brownstown, Pennsylvania. Published in the Lancaster Sunday Newspaper in November 2008. - http://articles.lancasteronline.com/local/5/229862/mon2. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Downtown_Lancaster,_Pennsylvania_1874.jpg#mediaviewer/File:Downtown_Lancaster,_Pennsylvania_1874.jpg

“Downtown Lancaster, Pennsylvania 1874” by Author unknown. From the personal collection of historian Ronald C. Young of Brownstown, Pennsylvania. Published in the Lancaster Sunday Newspaper in November 2008. – http://articles.lancasteronline.com/local/5/229862/mon2. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons – http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Downtown_Lancaster,_Pennsylvania_1874.jpg#mediaviewer/File:Downtown_Lancaster,_Pennsylvania_1874.jpg

By 1904, however, the family had returned to Philadelphia, and Charles is listed as affiliated with the A.J.S. Bowers Company, also known as the Philadelphia Cloak and Suit Company.  He listed his occupation on the 1910 census as a clothing manufacturer and continued to be associated with A.J.S. Bowers.  By 1914, however, he had started his own business, Charles S. Mayer & Co, and on the 1920 census described his business as a manufacturer of ladies’ dresses.

The three children of Flora and Charles Mayer, all now in their twenties, were still living at home with their parents in 1920.  Jerome was working as a salesman of ladies’ dresses, presumably in his father’s business.  Madeline was a primary school teacher, and so was her sister Evelyn.

Madeline married Gustave Winelander in 1925. Gustave was a 1914 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania with a B.S. in Chemistry.  He served in the US military forces during World War I and then was working as a chemist in 1918 according to the 1918 Philadelphia directory.  The 1920 census records that he and his father Max had their own extract business, and from later census and directory listings I determined that he was selling flavoring extracts used in baking.   Gustave and Madeline would have one daughter, Joan.

Flora and Charles Mayer’s youngest child, Evelyn, married Irving Frank sometime in or before 1922, as their son Irving was born in York, Pennsylvania, in January, 1922.  Irving, Senior, was born in New York City in 1893, but by 1903 he and his parents and siblings had relocated to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where his younger sister Mildred was born.  In 1910, his father was a milliner, like Flora’s uncle, Joseph Simon.  Since York was only 26 miles from Lancaster, perhaps the two hat merchants knew each other.

Irving attended Lehigh University in 1912 and 1913, as a civil engineering major.  On his World War I draft registration, he listed his occupation as a manager at M. Frank in Lancaster, but by 1920 he was living in York with his aunt and uncle, working as a clerk in a department store.  Maybe he met Evelyn while working there when she was visiting her aunt and uncle, Joseph and Emilie Simon.  After marrying sometime thereafter, Irving and Evelyn settled in York, as Irving is listed a buyer there in the 1925 York directory.  By 1927, however, he was the proprietor of the Fashion Millinery in Lancaster, joining the same trade as his father and Evelyn’s uncle Joseph Simon.

Jerome, Madeline, and Evelyn’s mother Flora Simon Mayer died August 20, 1927, and was buried at Mt. Sinai cemetery in Philadelphia.  She died of bronchial pneumonia.  She was only 59 years old.

Ancestry.com. Pennsylvania, Death Certificates, 1906-1963 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014.

Ancestry.com. Pennsylvania, Death Certificates, 1906-1963 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014.

After Flora died, her husband Charles and her son Jerome continued to live together and work together in the women’s clothing business at least until 1930.  Sometime between 1930 and 1940, Jerome married Mabel Bamberger Sichel, who had a daughter Marion from an earlier marriage.  On the 1940 census, Jerome, Mabel, and Marion are living in the same house on Diamond Street that Jerome had lived in with his parents and sisters, and his father Charles and Mabel’s mother Rose Bamberger were living with them as well.  Jerome was working in the cheese business.

Irving  Frank remained a milliner in Lancaster for many years, at least until the early 1940s.  He died November 14, 1946, and was residing in York at that time. He was only 53 years old.  He was buried at Prospect Hill cemetery in York where Joseph, Emilie, and Moses Joseph Simon were buried.

 

Charles Mayer outlived his wife Flora by almost thirty years, dying at the age of 98 on July 7, 1955.  He was buried with her at Mt. Sinai cemetery.  His son Jerome died in December 1966 and is also buried at Mt. Sinai with his wife Mabel, who died in 1973.  Jerome’s sister Madeline died in 1968; her husband Gustave lived until 1989 when he was 95 years old; they also are buried at Mt. Sinai in Philadelphia.

For longevity, however, the prize goes to Evelyn Mayer Frank, who died in 2002 at the age of 107.  She is buried with her husband Irving in the Prospect Hill cemetery in York, Pennsylvania.  Imagine the changes she saw in her world between her birth in 1894 and her death in 2002.  I hope that her descendants and her siblings’ descendants had many opportunities to learn from her experiences and to hear her stories.

 

 

No More Dinkelspiels

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My three-times-great-grandfather John Nusbaum had one sister who settled in the US (or at least she is the only one I’ve found): Mathilde Nusbaum, who married Isaac Dinkelspiel in Germany and immigrated with him to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. As I have already discussed, Mathilde died in 1878, and her husband Isaac Dinkelspiel died in 1889.  Their son Adolph died in 1896, and he had no children who survived him.  That left Mathilde and Isaac’s two daughters, Paulina and Sophia, to continue the family line, although not the Dinkelspiel name.  Sadly, Adolph Dinkelspiel was the last member of my family to have this rather unique and interesting name.

This post will focus on the family of Paulina Dinkelspiel. Paulina had married one of the three Simon brothers, Moses, and in 1880 they were living in Baltimore with their children: Joseph, Francis, Leon, Flora, and Nellie, ranging in age from eighteen down to eight years old. Moses was in the retail liquor business.  Moses remained in the liquor business throughout the 1880s and 1890s until he died on February 12, 1899, at age 64.  His wife Paulina Dinkelspiel Simon died five years later on March 29, 1904.  She was 63.

Paulina Dinkelspiel Simon death certificate

Paulina Dinkelspiel Simon death certificate

 

The terms of Paulina Dinkelspiel Simon’s will were disclosed in a news story in the April 16, 1904, edition of the Baltimore Sun, page 8.  She left her house and its contents to her daughter Nellie.  Her granddaughter Madeline Mayer (daughter of Flora Simon Mayer, to be discussed in my next post) was given $500, and the rest of the estate was divided evenly among her five surviving children, Joseph, Francis, Leon, Flora, and Nellie.  It is interesting that she singled out one child and one grandchild over the others.

Baltimore Sun April 16, 1904, p 8

Baltimore Sun April 16, 1904, p 8

Paulina was buried at Oheb Shalom cemetery in Baltimore along with her husband Moses, her parents Isaac and Mathilde (Nusbaum) Dinkelspiel, and the two children who predeceased her and Moses, Albert and Miriam.

Paulina and Moses Simon’s oldest child Joseph Simon had married Emilie Baernstein in July, 1889, in Baltimore, where she was born and raised.  By 1902, Joseph and Emilie had moved to York, Pennsylvania, where Joseph purchased a millinery shop.

York Daily, January 13, 1902.

York Daily, January 13, 1902.

Joseph and Emilie had a son Moses Joseph Simon, born in 1902, who died in May, 1908.  Unfortunately, I could not locate a death certificate for Moses, so I do not know the cause of death.  All I could locate was this notice of his funeral in the York Daily newspaper and his headstone.

York Daily May 4, 1908 p. 5

York Daily May 4, 1908 p. 5

 

Joseph and Emilie did not have any other children. They were members of the Hebrew Reformed Congregation in York and supporters of the local symphony orchestra. Joseph worked as a milliner in York for many years until his death in April 1928.  Emilie lived another twelve years.  After Joseph died, she relocated to Baltimore, where she died in 1940.  They were buried with their son Moses at the Prospect Hill Cemetery in York, Pennsylvania.

simon-joseph-0 headstone simon-amelia-0

(Emilie’s official name appears to have been Amelia.)

 

simon-moses-0

(All headstone images found at http://usgwarchives.net/pa/york/1picts/cemeteries/prospect-hill-york-city/main/prospect-hill-s.htm )

Joseph’s younger brother Francis Simon, known as Frank, was working as a clerk in 1895, and in 1900 he was living with his mother and younger sister Nellie, still listing his occupation as a clerk.  Like his brother Joseph, Frank married a woman born and raised in Baltimore, Bertha May.  According to the 1930 census, Frank married Bertha when he was 40 years old and she was 34, or in 1904.  They did not have any children.  In 1910, Frank and Bertha were living with Bertha’s father and her sister Tillie and brother-in-law Joseph Wurtzburger and their children.  Frank was working as the treasurer of a mercantile business.  In 1920 Frank and Bertha were living on their own, and neither was employed.  Frank was 54, and Bertha was 50. In the 1922 Baltimore directory, however, Frank is listed as being in the soft drinks business.  The 1930 census again lists them without occupations.

Frank died January 31, 1932, and is buried at the Baltimore Hebrew cemetery; Bertha was living with her widowed sister, Tillie Wurtzburger, at the time of the 1940 census.  Her sister Tillie died in 1945, and Bertha died in June, 1951, at the age of 81.

The third child of Paulina Dinkelspiel and Moses Simon was Leon Simon, born in 1866, two years after Frank.  By 1895 Leon had his own company, L. Simon and Co., listed in the Baltimore directory as a cloak manufacturing company.  He married Helen Wolf the following year in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.  Helen was born in Harrisburg, and her father William was a real estate agent there, according to the 1880 census.  Perhaps Frank’s mother Paulina had known the Wolf family when she was growing up in Harrisburg.

Leon and Helen had two sons, William Wolf Simon, born in 1897, and Mervyn Moses Simon, born in 1900: the first named for Helen’s father and the second for Leon’s father, who had died the year before.  Leon had no occupation listed on the 1900 census, but the 1902 Baltimore directory still listed him with L. Simon and Co.  On the 1910 census, however, his occupation appears to read “General Manager Furniture Business;” in the 1914 directory, his firm name now appears as Salontz & Simon, so it would seem that his cloak business no longer existed. I found a listing in a 1904 Pittsburgh directory for the Baltimore firm of Salontz & Simon in the fur business category.  The 1920 census is consistent with this, as it gives his occupation as a manufacturer of furs.  In 1930 he was still in the fur business, though now his occupation is described as a fur retail merchant. The 1940 census also described him as a retail furrier.

By Doug Coldwell (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons

By Doug Coldwell (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

All through these decades, Leon and Helen’s two sons lived with them, and they worked in their father’s fur business once they were old enough.  Neither son ever married.  Leon died on August 29, 1941, and his son Mervyn died the following year on August 27, 1942.  He was only 42 years old.  I have ordered a death certificate for Mervyn to determine his cause of death.

UPDATE: Here is Mervyn’s death certificate.

Mervyn Simon death certificate

William Simon, the older brother, continued to live with his mother at least until 1956 when both are listed at the same address in the Baltimore directory.  (No occupation was listed.)  Helen Wolf Simon died November 29, 1965, and William died less than a year later on October 4, 1966.  All four members of the family are buried at Baltimore Hebrew Congregation.

I am going to skip the fourth child Flora for now and move on to the fifth child, Nellie Simon, the one who inherited the house from her mother Paulina Dinkelspiel Simon.  I had a lot of trouble figuring out what happened to Nellie after her mother died in 1904.  In 1900 she had been living with her mother and brother Frank; she was 27 years old and had no occupation listed. She is also listed in the 1902 directory at the same address at 844 North Howard Street, again with no occupation listed.  Since her mother bequeathed that house to Nellie when she died in 1904, I expected to find Nellie living there in 1910.  But I could not find her there, and although there was another Nellie Simon working as a hairdresser in Baltimore in the 1910s, the address was not the same.

One tree on ancestry.com listed Nellie as married to an Adolph Feldstein, but I could not find any direct sources to corroborate that marriage.  I was able to find Adolph and Nellie S. Feldstein on the 1910 census as well as the 1920 and 1930 census reports living in Philadelphia.  The facts about that Nellie seemed consistent with my Nellie Simon: her age, parents’ birth places, and her birth place were all right, although the latter two census reports had her place of birth as Maryland instead of Pennsylvania.  I still felt uncertain until I found a bill from the funeral home in charge of Nellie’s funeral in 1958.  The document listed Horace A. Stern as the person responsible for the bill.  Although at first the name did not ring a bell, a quick search of my own family tree revealed that Horace Stern was married to the granddaughter of Nellie’s sister Flora.  That was enough to convince me that the Nellie who had married Adolph Feldstein was in fact Nellie Simon, the youngest child of Paulina Dinkelspiel and Moses Simon and the grandchild of Mathilde Nusbaum and Isaac Dinkelspiel.

Nellie and Adolph Feldstein did not have any children.  Adolph worked in his father’s business manufacturing “haircloth.”  I had never heard this term before, but a quick look on the internet revealed that according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary online, it is “any of various stiff wiry fabrics especially of horsehair or camel hair used for upholstery or for stiffening in garments.”   Adolph was the secretary and treasurer of the company in the 1910s, and he continued to work in the business throughout the 1920s and the 1930s until his death by suicide in 1937.  As mentioned above, Nellie lived another twenty years, passing away in 1958.

Hair Cloth Loom

Hair Cloth Loom

It’s interesting that three of these siblings were all involved in the clothing trade, although different aspects of it: hats, furs, and haircloth.  (I am not really sure how Frank supported himself and his wife.)  It’s also interesting that three of the five children of Paulina Dinkelspiel and Moses Simon did not have children who survived them.  Joseph’s one child passed away as a little boy, and Frank and Nellie married but never had children. Leon did have two sons who grew to adulthood, but his sons never married or had children, so there were no descendants to carry on his family line.  Only Flora, the remaining sibling, had grandchildren and further generations of descendants.  I will discuss her and her descendants in my next post.

Four Degrees of Separation from FDR

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That’s my great-granduncle Arthur Seligman, son of my great-great-grandparents Frances Nusbaum and Bernard Seligman, standing with the then governor of New York who would soon be President of the United States, Franklin Delano Roosevelt.  This was taken while FDR was campaigning in New Mexico in September, 1932.

FDR with Arthur Seligman

(Was FDR really that tall, or were all those politicos from the West really that short?)

(I just looked it up.  FDR was 6′ 2″.  Those guys must have been at least 8″ shorter.  I am not surprised my relative was short; we are not a tall family.  But all three of them together?  Didn’t they feed people well out West?)

And I once thought I was the member of my family who’d gotten closest to a future US President when I shook Jimmy Carter‘s hand very early in his run for President.  At the time, I’d never heard anything about him and never thought he’d end up as President.  I was just being polite to a man who’d come to speak at the school I was attending. And no one took our photograph.

Thanks to my cousin Pete for sharing this.  More about the photo can be found here.

The Children of John and Jeanette Nusbaum from 1890 to 1925

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John Nusbaum died in 1889, leaving behind his widow Jeanette and their six children: Adolphus in Peoria, Simon and Frances both in Santa Fe, Julius in Iowa, and Miriam and Lottie both in Philadelphia.  By 1925 Jeanette and all six children were gone.  This post will describe their lives in the decades between 1890 and 1925.

Jeanette and Lottie: In 1890, Jeanette Dreyfuss Nusbaum was a widow, living in Philadelphia with her daughter Lottie.   In 1900, Jeanette and Lottie were still living together in Philadelphia.  According to the 1900 census, they were living as boarders in the home of another German-born widow named Jenette Oberdorf and her children. Lottie was working as a stenographer, according to two Philadelphia directories in the 1890s.

Miriam and Gustavus: In 1890, Miriam and her husband Gustavus Josephs had one surviving child, Florence, who was now ten years old. Their son Jean was born in 1893.  After researching more about Gustavus, I learned that he had served in the Civil War as a musician.  According to Wikipedia, “The rank of Musician was a position held by military band members, particularly during the American Civil War. The rank was just below Corporal, and just above Private. In some units it was more or less equal to the rank of Private.  During the American Civil War, military leaders with the Union and Confederate Armies relied on military musicians to entertain troops, position troops in battle, and stir them on to victory — some actually performing concerts in forward positions during the fighting.”

Perhaps Gustavus is one of the musicians depicted in one of these videos:

 

He did not, however, pursue music as a profession after the war.  On the 1880 census, he listed his occupation as an embroiderer, and on various city directories in the 1880s he had been listed as a salesman.  In 1894 and 1896, he is listed as being in the curtains business, and in 1897 he is listed in business with Laurence Frank in the cotton goods business under the firm name Josephs and Frank Co.  Then in 1898 he is still in the cotton goods business, but with a new partner, Louis Wertheimer.

On the 1900 census, Gustavus and Miriam were living with their two children, Florence, now nineteen, and Jean, just six years old.  The 1900 census asked women how many children they had had and how many were still living.  For Miriam, the census reported that she had only had two children, both of whom were still living.  This was obviously not true, as Miriam and Gustavus had had two other children, Milton and Gertrude, who had died.  Was this just bad information given by someone who did not know the facts?  Or were Miriam and Gustavus just in denial?

Gustavus’ occupation on the 1900 census was listed as manufacturing without specifying the type of goods.  The 1901 directory, however, indicates that he was in the upholstered goods business.  Then in 1905 he listed his occupation on the directory as “silks.”  It appears that he was still in the silk business as of the 1910 census, but I cannot quite make out the word that follows “silk.”  I believe it says “silk winder.”  According to the Hall Genealogy website list of old occupations, a silk winder “Wound the silk from the silkworm cocoons onto bobbins.”

Interestingly, by 1914 Gustavus had returned to the embroidery business, or perhaps that was what he’d been doing even in 1910 as a silk winder.  He is listed as an embroiderer thereafter in subsequent directories as well, although on the 1920 census he is listed as a manufacturer in the mill industry.  I am not quite sure what to make of Gustavus’ career path.  Were these really all related businesses or even the same business? He certainly seemed to be involved with fabrics throughout in one way or another.

English: A man sitting cross-legged on a stoop...

English: A man sitting cross-legged on a stoop and embroidering a piece of silk. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Adolphus and Fanny: In 1890, the oldest child of John and Jeanette, Adolphus Nusbaum, was still living in Peoria with his wife Fanny, but he was no longer in business with his brother younger brother Julius. The last Peoria directory to include Julius was the one published in 1887.  Adolphus is listed with only a residential address in the 1890 and 1891 Peoria directories, but beginning with the 1895 directory, he is listed as being in the feed business.  He was still in the feed business as of the 1900 census and the 1900 Peoria directory.

Then on February 8, 1902, Adolphus died “20 miles from Chicago while en route to Chicago,” according to the Nusbaum family bible.  I did not know what this could possibly mean, and I was even more confused when I found a Philadelphia death certificate for Adolphus, given that the last address I had for him was in Peoria.

adolph nusbaum

adolph nusbaum death rec inquest pending

Why did Philadelphia issue a death certificate?  Why was there a Philadelphia address given as the residence?  And why was there an inquest pending? I am still searching for an answer to the last two questions and some answer as to the results of the inquest, but I found some answers in this article from the February 9, 1902, Chicago Daily Tribune:

Chicago Daily Tribune, February 9, 1902, p. 4

Chicago Daily Tribune, February 9, 1902, p. 4

But this article also raised more questions.  As far as I know, in 1902, Adolphus did not have a brother in Philadelphia, unless Julius had relocated there at that time.  Simon was still living in Santa Fe.  And what had Adolphus been doing in Washington?  He must have been traveling by train.  Did he have a heart attack or stroke while traveling? Was his wife Fanny with him?  I don’t know.  It’s also interesting that despite having lived in Peoria since he was barely in his 20s and having married a woman who had been living in Indiana in 1863, Adolphus was buried at Mt. Sinai cemetery in Philadelphia with the other members of the extended family, including his father John.

UPDATE on the coroner’s report can be found here.

Frances and Bernard: In 1890, two of the children of John and Jeanette continued to live in Santa Fe, my great-great-grandmother Frances Nusbaum Seligman and her brother Simon Nusbaum.  Frances was busy with her charitable and social activities in Santa Fe.  Her children Eva, James, Minnie and Arthur all went off to Swarthmore in Philadelphia in the 1880s, where Minnie died at age eighteen in 1887, as I’ve written about previously.  Frances herself died in July, 1905, two years after her husband Bernard.  She was 59 years old.  As I described when writing about Frances and Bernard, both were warmly praised and well-loved by the Santa Fe community.  Both were buried, however, back in Philadelphia at Mt. Sinai cemetery.

It must have been terrible for Jeanette to lose her son Adolphus in 1902 and her daughter Frances 1905, not that many years after losing her husband John as well as so many grandchildren.  Jeanette herself died on January 12, 1908, from edema of her lungs, according to the death certificate.  She was 90 years old.  She was buried along with her husband, her children Frances and Adolphus, and numerous grandchildren and other relatives at Mt. Sinai cemetery in Philadelphia.

Ancestry.com. Pennsylvania, Death Certificates, 1906-1963 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014.

Ancestry.com. Pennsylvania, Death Certificates, 1906-1963 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014.

Julius: As for Julius Nusbaum, who had once been Adolphus’ business partner in Peoria, as noted above he was last listed in the Peoria directory in 1887 and then disappeared from Peoria.  He next surfaced in 1900 in Grinnell, Iowa, living alone as a single man and working as a tobacco merchant. Grinnell is over two hundred miles from Peoria and over a thousand miles from Philadelphia.

Restored Rock Island Line station in Grinnell,...

Restored Rock Island Line station in Grinnell, built in 1892. Now a restaurant. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

What had taken him to Iowa and when had he gotten there? Had he gone into the tobacco business for the same reasons that his father John had gone into the cigar business in the mid-1880s?  In 1891 Julius is listed in the Waterloo, Iowa directory as a cigar dealer, and on the 1905 Iowa State Census he is living in Grinnell.  It does not thus seem like he was living in Philadelphia in 1902 when Adolphus and Fannie came to visit.  Was the newspaper just wrong about that detail, or was the 1905 directory wrong? Certainly Adolphus had other family members to visit in Philadelphia, including his mother Jeanette, his sister Lottie, and his sister Miriam and her family.

Julius is not listed in either the 1904 or the 1906 Waterloo, Iowa business directory, and  I cannot find him on the 1910 census anywhere, so I do not know whether he was still living in Iowa at that point. But by 1920 he had returned to Philadelphia, listing his occupation on the 1920 census as a retired cigar merchant and living as a boarder.  Living in the same residence with him in 1920 also as a boarder was a 62 year old widow named Fannie Nusbaum who had been born in Germany; this was obviously Adolphus’ widow, Julius’ sister-in-law.

I could create all kind of romantic stories about Julius and Fannie, but they would be speculative for sure.  Julius had lived with Adolphus and Fannie in Peoria and had been in business with his brother.  Suddenly after working together for over twenty years, Julius left Peoria and moved to Iowa, where he presumably knew no one and where he started an entirely new business selling cigars.  Then Adolphus died in 1902, and I can’t find Julius or Fannie anywhere on the 1910 US census or in city directories.  Ten years later, Julius and Fannie ended up living together in Philadelphia.  Where were they both in 1910?  Of course, it could be completely innocent: a devoted brother taking care of the widow of his older brother.  And it probably was.  I’ve likely read too many novels and seen too many movies.  I have no evidence of any such scandalous events.  I am sure the story is far less interesting than all that.

Simon: Meanwhile, back in Santa Fe, the other Nusbaum brother, Simon, had settled in as part of the community by 1890.  The Santa Fe New Mexican reported in September 1889 that he had returned from a month’s vacation and “looked like a new man,” having gained twenty pounds.  There was no further explanation for the comment, but perhaps Simon had had a rough time after losing his father in January of 1889.  After that, his life seems to have taken a positive turn.  Having served first as a clerk and then as assistant postmaster in Santa Fe, Simon was appointed by President McKinley to be the postmaster there in May, 1898.

His appointment was enthusiastically approved by the press and the people of Santa Fe.  On May 5, 1898, the Santa Fe New Mexican opined on page 2, “As good a piece of news as Santa Fe has received for some time was that of the appointment of Simon Nusbaum to be postmaster of this city.  This appointment was one that had been strongly recommended by the best and leading citizens of this city and indeed by all those desiring a competent official and a honest and proper man in that important office.  Mr. Nusbaum’s political support was also very powerful….He is a skilled accountant and book-keeper, in fact one of the best in the southwest.  He … had held several positions of trust and importance in big business establishments, in this territory and in eastern cities.”

The Santa Fe newspaper also quoted from the Peoria Evening Star, which said, “Years ago Nusbaum & Co. were the great dry goods firm of this city.  One of the members was Simon Nusbaum.  He was a smart, active, pushing man….”  Santa Fe New Mexican, May 19, 1898, p. 2.

Simon was still a single man at that point.  In 1899 he reportedly bought a fruit farm near Tesuque, New Mexico, apparently for a very good price.

Santa Fe New Mexican, September 28, 1899, p. 4

Santa Fe New Mexican, September 28, 1899, p. 4

He later began breeding high bred Belgian hares in partnership with one of his clerks at the post office.

Santa Fe New Mexican, December 6, 1900, p.4

Santa Fe New Mexican, December 6, 1900, p.4

Although Simon was still single as of the 1900 census, he married Dora Rutledge in 1903. It was the first marriage for Simon, who was 57 years old.  Dora was only forty.  She had a daughter from an earlier marriage, Nellie Rogers, who was born in 1897.   Simon and Dora’s son John Bernard Nusbaum, was born on May 15, 1904.  On the 1910 census, Simon was now the assistant New Mexico Territorial Treasurer, and he and Dora and the children must have been living in a boarding house because they had seven lodgers living with them.  In fact, the 1920 census reveals that Simon and Dora were the owners of that boarding house, which was being managed by Dora.  Simon was now 76 years old and Dora was 49.

1916-1925: Years of Loss

When Jeanette Nusbaum died in 1908 at age 90, she had outlived two of her children, Adolphus and Frances, and many of her grandchildren, as well as her husband John.  Four of her children had survived her: Simon, Julius, Miriam and Lottie.  By 1925, all of those children would be gone.  On February 13, 1916, Miriam died of heart disease.  She was 57 years old and survived by her husband Gustavus and two children, Florence, who was 36, and Jean, who was 23.  Gustavus died eight year later at age 75 of pectoris angina.

Ancestry.com. Pennsylvania, Death Certificates, 1906-1963 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014.

Ancestry.com. Pennsylvania, Death Certificates, 1906-1963 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014.

Simon Nusbaum died on February 25, 1921.  He was 76.  Unlike his siblings, he was not buried at Mt Sinai in Philadelphia, but in Santa Fe, where he had lived the last forty or so years of his life.  He was survived by his wife Dora, stepdaughter Nellie, and son John, who was only 16 years old.  Thanks to my cousin Pete, I have a copy of Simon’s obituary.  It reports that Simon had had a stroke in September, 1920 and had not been himself since, but that prior to the stroke, he had been “able to walk around as briskly as he had for decades, and he was a familiar figure in the plaza and sitting on the swing in front of his apartment house on Washington Avenue.”  Here is the full obituary:

simon obit santa fe new mexican feb 25 19221

(Santa Fe New Mexican, February 25, 1921)

I winced at the references to “bad Indians” and “red chiefs,” trying to keep in mind that this was 1921.  I was intrigued by the references to Simon’s time living in Missouri and South Dakota, as I have seen no documentation of his time in either place.  He was still in Philadelphia in 1860 when he was 17, and he was in Peoria starting in 1863 until 1877.  By 1880 he was in Santa Fe.  So perhaps he had spent those years in between in Missouri and South Dakota.

The image of Simon as the postmaster sorting the mail in his nightgown at midnight is wonderful.

Just two years later, Simon’s brother Julius Nusbaum died in Philadelphia on January 3, 1923.  He was 74 years old and died from “Dil of heart, superinduced by acute indigestion.”  I googled this phrase and found that it was often used as description of a cause of death in the early 20th century, but I could not find any medical dictionary that explained what this meant.  Dilation of the heart refers to an enlarged heart that cannot adequately pump blood, what we might refer to today as heart failure.  But I have no idea what “superinduced by acute indigestion” means or whether that is today considered even medically accurate.  Perhaps my medical consultant will fill me in.

Update here.

Ancestry.com. Pennsylvania, Death Certificates, 1906-1963 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014.

Ancestry.com. Pennsylvania, Death Certificates, 1906-1963 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014.

 Finally, the last of the children of John and Jeanette Nusbaum, Lottie died on December 23, 1925, of nephritis and diabetes.  She was 64 years old.  Both Julius and Lottie did not have any children.

Lottie Nusbaum death cert

Thus, as of 1925, all six children of John and Jeanette were gone. Three of them had no children to survive them, Adolphus, Julius, and Lottie.  The other three siblings had together six surviving children: the three surviving children of Frances Nusbaum and Bernard Seligman, Eva, James, and Arthur; the two surviving children of Miriam Nusbaum and Gustavus Josephs, Florence and Jean; and the son of Simon Nusbaum and Dora Rutledge, John Bernard Nusbaum.  If I include Simon’s stepdaughter Nellie, who was after all referred to as his daughter in his obituary, that would make seven surviving children.  And there were the four grandchildren who had died as children, Florence and Minnie Seligman and Milton and Gertrude Josephs.

I have already written about the surviving Seligman children, my great-grandmother Eva and her brothers James and Arthur.  In a later post, I will follow up on the other surviving grandchildren of Jeanette Dreyfuss and John Nusbaum, Florence and Jean Josephs and Nellie and John Nusbaum and their families.