Are These Two Photographs of the Same Woman?

Posted on January 16, 2017 by Amy

Sharon, one of my readers and a fellow genealogy blogger, asked in response to my last post whether I thought the woman in this photograph of Lawrence Baer and his son John Degen Baer could be John’s grandmother. Certainly the way his hand rests on her shoulder suggests that she was someone he knew well and felt comfortable with:

Lawrence Baer, John Degen Baer, unknown person, 1924

John’s paternal grandmother was Amalia Hamberg, the woman in the photo I’d posted in an earlier post. People thought that photo was taken in the 1880s or about 40 years before the one above:

Amalia Hamberg and Jacob Baer

Could the woman in the top photo also be Amalia? In 1924, Amalia would have been 73 years old. Her face is obviously much thinner in the later photograph, but are the mouth, nose, and eyes similar? Do you think this is the same woman in both photographs?

And if any of Amalia’s descendants can help, please let me know.

(I tried to use the pictriev tool that Cathy Meder-Dempsey blogged about, but the photo of Amalia and Jacob was too small for pictriev to detect the faces.)

More Gifts of Photographs

Posted on January 12, 2017 by Amy

In my last post, I shared the wonderful photograph I received of Amalia Hamberg and Jacob Baer from one of their descendants. Before posting it here, I shared it with other descendants of Amalia and Jacob, and that prompted some of those descendants to share some other photographs. Thank you to the extended Baer family for allowing me to publish these photos.

First is a photograph of Lawrence Baer, Amalia and Jacob’s youngest child, born in 1891 in PIttsburgh. Lawrence became one of the principal innovators and executives at the family-owned jewelry business, Attleboro Manufacturing. This photograph was taken in 1924. The little boy in the center is John Degen Baer, Lawrence’s son. He would have been three years old in this photograph. The individual on the right is not known.

Lawrence Baer, John Degen Baer, unknown person, 1924

Here is a photograph of Lawrence Baer’s first wife and John Degen Baer’s mother, Donna Degen. This photograph was not dated, but it looks like the 1920s to me.

Donna Degen

This is another picture of their son John, dated 1924:

John Baer, summer of 1924

How adorable is he!

Finally, here is a photograph of Olivia Ganong Baer, Lawrence Baer’s second wife, and Minette Brigham Baer, John Degen Baer’s first wife, with Lawrence in the background.

Olivia Ganong Baer, Minette Brigham Baer, and Lawrence Baer

John Degen Baer grew up to be a very accomplished business leader like his father. He died just a little over a year ago on November 3, 2015.

According to his obituary,

Baer attended both Yale and Brown Universities, graduating from the latter in 1943. He served in the U.S. Marine Corps during World War II, having been attached to the Second Marine Division in the Pacific theater and int he Occupation of Japan. He resigned his commission in 1950. He was the owner and C.E.O. of the Bishop Company, an Ophthalmic Manufacturing Company, which he merged with the Univis Lens Company of Dayton, Ohio in 1960. The merged company, Univis, Inc., was headquartered in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, with branch manufacturing plants in Puerto Rico, Tennessee, New York and Massachusetts. Univis was sold to Itek, Inc. in 1970. Mr. Baer established a consulting company in Atlanta, Georgia, and in 1970 joined the Edwards Baking Company as Executive Vice President. He retired from Edwards in 1978. While residing on Sea Island, Georgia, he participated in the construction and management of the Island Retreat and the Island Square apartments.

Baer and his family moved to Blairsville in 1985 where he and his wife founded and managed the Truck & Gas Market. The business closed in March 1992. Baer then retired from all activity. While residing in Massachusetts, Baer served as a member of the Attleboro Zoning Board of Appeal for 12 years. He was also a Director of a local Bank and the Chamber of Commerce. For several years he served as a director of the Optical Manufacturers Association, located in New York City. While living in Oxford, Georgia, Baer was elected and served on the town Council.

Thank you again to his children for sharing these photos and allowing me to see the faces behind the names of these cousins of mine. Here’s a chart showing how we are related.

The Last Chapter of the Story of Amalia Hamberg

Posted on August 4, 2016 by Amy

Finally, I come to the two youngest children of Amalia Hamberg and Jacob Baer to survive to adulthood[1]: Elsie Baer Grant and Lawrence Baer. With this post, I close the chapter on Amalia Hamberg, first cousin of my great-grandfather Isidore Schoenthal, or my first cousin, three times removed. Her children were my second cousins, twice removed (or my grandmother Eva Schoenthal’s second cousins).

Elsie Baer was born in Pittsburgh in 1886 and married Jerome Grant in 1913. For almost their entire married lives they lived in New York City, where Jerome worked for Baer & Wilde, one of the family jewelry businesses based in Attleboro, Massachusetts. Elsie and Jerome had two daughters, Marjorie and Elinor. As of 1930, they were still living in New York City, and Jerome was still working for the family jewelry business. The same was true in 1940; both daughters were still at home.

In the next decade both daughters married. Marjorie married Richard E. Weinreich, whose family was also in the jewelry business. Richard’s father, Sol Weinreich, had founded Marvella Pearls, a jewelry wholesale business with his brother in Philadelphia, where Richard was born in 1915. By 1930, the family and the business had relocated to New York, and by 1940, both Richard and his father were working in the business.

I assume that Richard and Marjorie met as a result of the fact that both families were in the jewelry business in New York. Richard and Marjorie would have one child. Richard eventually became president of Marvella. According to this antiques website, “Marvella was purchased by Trifari in the early 1980s and eventually became part of the Liz Claiborne group. As of 2010, jewelry is still being distributed in department stores and other retail outlets on cards bearing the Marvella name.”

Marjorie’s sister Elinor served for over a year with the Red Cross in India in the early 1940s. On December 19, 1946, she married Alan Fredrick Kline of Chicago.

Alan was a graduate of Dartmouth College and had served in the US Naval Reserves during World War II. His father Jacob was one of the founders of Kline Brothers, a department store chain that started in Lorain, Ohio, and eventually had a large number of stores in the Midwest.

Elinor and Alan had two children before Alan died at only 37 years old on October 1, 1950, leaving Elinor with two very young sons. Elinor would eventually remarry.

Elsie Baer’s husband Jerome Grant died on July 29, 1964; he was 75. According to the death notices in The New York Times, he was a Mason, a member of The Golden Circle, and a member of the Maiden Lane Outing Club.

Like her sisters Josephine, Tilda, and Amanda, Elsie Baer Grant lived a long life, dying many years after her husband in May 1983 at age 96.

Unfortunately, the daughters of Elsie and Jerome were not blessed with their mother’s longevity. Marjorie predeceased her mother, dying in May, 1978; she was only 59. Her sister Elinor died at age 72 on November 2, 1993.

As for Elsie’s younger brother Lawrence, the youngest of the children of Amalia Hamberg and Jacob Baer, he played, as I’ve written here, a critical part in the success of the family jewelry business in Attleboro. He not only invented the Kum-A-Part cufflinks that made the company highly successful in the 1920s; he also invented and received patents for several other jewelry products. For example, in 1922, Lawrence received a patent (No. US 1420232 A) for a jewelry contained, described as “a container which can be carried in the pocket or in a traveling bag or the like or placed in an article of furniture in the home, for holding buckles, brooches, buttons, and any article of jewelry.” He also received during the 1920s and 1930s patents for a number of other inventions: necktie holders, a belt fastener, a bill holder, a shirt holder, and a display device.

As noted in my earlier post, Lawrence had married Donna Degen in 1919, and they had one child, a son named John Degen Baer, born in 1921. As of 1942 when Lawrence registered for the draft, they were still living in Attleboro and Lawrence was still working for the family jewelry business, now known as Swank, Inc. But by 1946, Lawrence was listed with his second wife, Olivia Ganong, in the West Palm Beach, Florida, city directory. He and Olivia lived in Florida for the rest of his life. Lawrence died in May, 1969, in Lake Worth, Florida. He was 77 years old.

His son John remained in Attleboro even after Lawrence remarried and moved to Florida. According to his obituary, John attended Yale and Brown, graduating from Brown in 1943. During World War II, he served in the United States Marine Corps in the Pacific theater and in the occupation of Japan.

In 1946, the Attleboro city directory lists John as serving in the United States Marine Corps and married to a woman named Minette. In 1953, he was the executive vice-president of The Bishop Company in Attleboro. According to his obituary, John “was the owner and C.E.O. of the Bishop Company, an Ophthalmic Manufacturing Company, which he merged with the Univis Lens Company of Dayton, Ohio in 1960. The merged company, Univis, Inc., was headquartered in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, with branch manufacturing plants in Puerto Rico, Tennessee, New York and Massachusetts. Univis was sold to Itek, Inc. in 1970.“

In 1963, John was still listed with Minette in the Attleboro, directory, but that is the last listing I can find for him there. Sometime in the 1960s, John relocated to Florida, living not far from where his father was also living at that time. He also appears to have married his second wife, Jane Rollins, during this time period.

After he sold Univis in 1970 (a year after his father died), John moved again, this time to Atlanta, Georgia, where he was executive vice-president of Edwards Baking Company until 1978. In 1985, he relocated yet again, moving to Blairsville, Georgia, where he started and managed the Truck and Gas Market until 1992, when he retired. John Baer died on November 3, 2015. He was 94 years old. (All this information comes from his obituary, which also includes a number of photographs of John.)

*****

Thus ends the recounting of the lives of all of the children (and the children of the children) of Amalia Hamberg and Jacob Baer: Maurice, Hattie, Josephine, Amanda, Flora, Tilda, Elsie, Alfred, and Lawrence. I am once again amazed by the fact that two immigrants who came to the United States in the 19^th century raised children who achieved such remarkable success both in business and in the arts.

Perhaps it is a lesson to us all about the contributions that immigrants have made and will continue to make this country. We should be very wary of anyone who seeks to exclude immigrants from this country. After all, most of us living in the US today are descended from immigrants.

[1] Alfred Baer, the second youngest child, had died years before.

Tilda Baer Stone and Her Children: Massachusetts Cousins

Posted on July 14, 2016 by Amy

Like Amanda and Josephine, her two older sisters, Tilda Baer lived a long life (a few months shy of ninety) and outlived her husband by close to twenty years. But she didn’t live in a big city like Philadelphia or New York; she spent her entire adult life in Attleboro, Massachusetts, where she raised her four children.

As written about here, Tilda married Samuel Einstein in about 1907, according to the 1910 census, and their first child, Stephanie, was born in June 1908 in Attleboro. They had three additional children, Samuel, Jr. (1910), Harriet (1913), and Babette (known as Betty, 1919). By 1927, the family name had been changed to Stone, which was the name used by all family members thereafter (until the daughters married and adopted their husbands’ surnames, that is). Samuel was by 1930 the President of Attleboro Manufacturing, and he and Tilda remained in Attleboro for the rest of the lives, living almost all those years at 224 County Street in that town.

Samuel and TIlda Baer Einstein/Stone and children from 1923 passport application
National Archives and Records Administration (NARA); Washington D.C.; NARA Series: Passport Applications, January 2, 1906 – March 31, 1925; Roll #: 2295; Volume #: Roll 2295 – Certificates: 304850-305349, 08 Jun 1923-08 Jun 1923

Their daughter Stephanie graduated from the National Park Seminary in Washington and the Garland School of Homemaking. She married “the boy next door” on November 14, 1936—or at least the boy down the street. Her husband was Royal Packer Baker, who was a native of Attleboro like Stephanie and whose family also had lived on County Street (#148) as of 1920. Royal was four years older than Stephanie, and he came from a family with a long history in Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

Boston Herald, November 15, 1936. p. 61

Royal’s father, Harold Baker, was the owner and co-founder of Attleboro Refining Company, a gold, silver, and copper refining business. According to the website for the Attleboro Area Industrial Museum, which is housed in what was once the Attleboro Refinery Company building:

In 1899, Harold D. Baker and his brother George W. Baker, both of Providence, Rhode Island, formed a partnership to establish the Attleboro Refining Company in Attleboro, Massachusetts. It specialized in the refining of gold, silver and copper byproducts. The refinery followed established refining methods used at that time known as a stripping process. The process dated back to the late 18th Century. Base metals such as copper and zinc were eaten by a compound-acid solution. The precious metals underwent succeeding operations where they were reduced to a certain degree of fineness.

By 1907, however, the Bakers were convinced that better methods were available that would involve lower costs. They experimented with the then-existent electrochemical equipment available and finally succeeded in adapting the ELECTROLYTIC process to jewelers’ scrap. Theirs was the first refinery in New England to do so. The process underwent continuous improvement and development where gold was finally purified to .9991/2 fine and every trace of silver or other precious metal was re-claimed in the chlorination and succeeding copperas processes.[1]

Although his older brother Harold Jr. worked at the family business from the start of his career, Royal started his career taking a different path. He was a graduate of Dartmouth as well as the University of Virginia, according to the wedding announcement. By 1935 he was a lawyer practicing in Attleboro.

According to the 1940 census and their wedding announcement above, like their parents Stephanie and Royal also lived on County Street in Attleboro (#170), and Royal was working as an attorney in private practice. In 1941, their son was born. In 1946, Royal was listed along with his father and older brother Harold Jr. as an owner of Attleboro Refining, but was still practicing law. By 1949, however, he was the treasurer of Attleboro Refining and no longer listed himself as a lawyer in the Attleboro directory. (His brother was now the president of the company; their father had died in 1947.)

Former building of Attleboro Refining Company https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3500/4561405595_a2f6c67d9f_b.jpg

Stephanie’s younger brother Samuel Stone, Jr., graduated from Michigan State University and Babson Institute. In the 1935 Attleboro directory, he is listed as married to “Ruth M” and working as the treasurer of Quaker Silver Company, a company in North Attleboro that manufactured silver products such as flatware, bowls, and salt and pepper shakers.

Ruth M was Ruth Mills, born in Massachusetts on February 5, 1913. Samuel, Jr. and Ruth had two daughters born in the 1930s, according to the 1940 census, which lists Samuel’s occupation as a jewelry manufacturer. On the 1939 Attleboro directory, he is listed as the president of C H Eden Co., another jewelry company originally created by his father in 1901 that was acquired in substantial part by Charles Eden in 1903. (Apparently, Samuel Stone, Sr. and Maurice Baer established a number of separate companies in Attleboro, all engaged in some aspect of jewelry manufacturing.)

By 1946, however, Samuel Jr’s marriage to Ruth had ended as he married his second wife, Marie Eames, on May 1, 1946. Unfortunately, that marriage did not last either as they were divorced in 1952.

By 1956, Samuel, Jr was listed in the Attleboro directory as the president of Swank, Inc., the successor to Attleboro Manufacturing Company, the company his father first founded with his uncle Maurice Jay Baer back in the late 1890s.

As for the two younger daughters of Tilda Baer and Samuel Stone, Sr., Harriet attended the Northampton School for Girls, then Wheaton College, and received a degree from Simmons College. (Cape Cod Times, September 6, 2002, GenealogyBank.com (http://www.genealogybank.com/doc/obituaries/obit/100B3AE9F09E0868-100B3AE9F09E0868 : accessed 13 July 2016))

In 1941 she married Lionel O’Keeffe. He was the youngest son of Irish immigrants and was born and raised in Boston. His father had worked in the grocery business, and in 1930 two of his brothers had been working as purchasing agents for First National Stores, a supermarket chain (later known as Finast). Lionel was a graduate of Boston Latin High School and Dartmouth College. (Boston Herald, December 22, 1987, p. 53.)

On the 1940 census, he was living as the head of household in the house at 61 Pond Street in Jamaica Plain, the same house where he and his family had lived when he was a child. But in 1940 he was living there without any other family members, but with a maid. He listed his occupation as an executive of a chain store, which according to his obituary, was First National Stores. The following year he married Harriet.

Lionel enlisted in the military on May 8, 1942, and he and Harriet had their first child five months later in September, 1942. Lionel was discharged from the military on January 3, 1946, having served for the duration of World War II. He and Harriet would have two more children during the 1940s. In 1948 they were still living at 61 Pond Road in the Jamaica Pond section of Boston, the same house where Lionel’s family had lived, and Lionel was working as a buyer, according to the Boston directory for that year. He continued to work for First National Stores for the rest of his career.

The youngest child of Tilda Baer and Samuel Stone was their daughter Babette, also known as Betty. She graduated from the Northampton School for Girls in 1937 and then graduated from Smith College, later getting a Masters in Social Work from Simmons College. In 1944, she married John Saunders Parker, known as Jack. He became a doctor. They would have two children. (Boston Globe, February 21, 2013.)

Samuel Stone, Sr., the father of Stephanie, Samuel, Harriet, and Babette, died on February 4, 1957, when he was 84 years old.

Samuel Stone Sr obit February 5, 1957 Boston Traveler p 58-page-001

Boston Traveler, February 5, 1957, p. 58

His wife, my cousin Tilda Baer Stone, daughter of Amalia Hamberg and Jacob Baer, died on August 2, 1974. She and her husband Samuel are both buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in Attleboro, Massachusetts, the place they called home for their entire married life and where they raised their four children, two of whom also spent almost all of their lives in Attleboro.

As for the children of Tilda and Samuel, Stephanie’s husband Royal Baker continued to work as the treasurer of Attleboro Refining for the rest of his career. Then on April 3, 1967, Royal died suddenly at age 62. A year later Attleboro Refining was sold to another company. According to the Attleboro Area Industrial Museum website, “on June 26, 1968, Handy & Harman Refining Group, Inc. purchased the Attleboro Refining Company. In November 1973, Handy & Harman left 42 Union Street for a new facility located on Townsend Road in the “new” Attleboro Industrial Park.” Handy & Harman is still in business today engaged in the recycling of metals.

Stephanie Stone Baker died on March 1, 1993; she was 84.

Her brother Samuel Stone, Jr., died at age 70 on December 28, 1980.

The third child, Harriet Stone O’Keeffe, lost her husband Lionel on December 20, 1987. He was 76 years old. She lived another fifteen years, dying on September 5, 2002, when she was 88. According to her obituary, “Mrs. O’Keeffe lived in Brookline for many years and was active in volunteer work. She spent summers in Hyannisport and moved there year-round in 1973. She enjoyed gardening and bridge. She was a member of the Hyannisport Club, the Oyster Harbors Club and the Mid Ocean Club in Bermuda.” (Cape Cod Times, September 6, 2002, GenealogyBank.com (http://www.genealogybank.com/doc/obituaries/obit/100B3AE9F09E0868-100B3AE9F09E0868 : accessed 13 July 2016))

The youngest sibling, Babette, died just three years ago on February 19, 2013, at age 93. Her obituary reported that:

She loved people and was a frequent volunteer in the activities of her children and an outgoing devoted friend to so many. She was an active volunteer in the Wellesley Community including the Service League of Wellesley, the Garden Club of Wellesley and was a past president of the Smith Club of Wellesley. She devoted many hours to the support of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and loved her Investment Club and Bridge Club, as well as her activities at the Wellesley Country Club, Wianno Club, The Country Club and The Moorings and Riomar Clubs of Vero Beach, Florida. She cherished all the interactions with the people that were brought into her life by these varied interests. (Boston Globe, February 21, 2013, located at http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/bostonglobe/obituary.aspx?pid=163199572)

I’ve not yet connected with any of the descendants of Tilda Baer and Samuel Stone, but hope to be able to connect with these cousins whose roots are here in Massachusetts where I now live. They are descendants of two people who seemed to have achieved the American dream—Samuel, a German Jewish immigrant who came to the US as a young teenager and became a highly successful jewelry manufacturer, and my cousin Tilda, the daughter of two German Jewish [2] immigrants who grew up in Pennsylvania; she raised four children, all of whom received a higher education and lived their lives in Massachusetts.

[1] There was a bitter dispute between the Baker brothers in 1918, which apparently ended in with Harold as the sole owner of the company. See “Attleboro Receivership Granted for Attleboro Refining Co. Decree Handed down by Superior Court, Wednesday,” Pawtucket Times, April 11, 1918, p. 12.

[2] It seems that at some point Tilda and Samuel and their children became members of the Universalist Church and no longer identified as Jewish.

Attleboro Manufacturing Company: My Cousins, the Jewelers

Posted on June 30, 2016 by Amy

As I mentioned in my last post, the oldest child of Amalia (Hamberg) and Jacob Baer, Maurice Jay Baer, founded a jewelry company in Attleboro, Massachusetts, in the late 1890s when he was in his twenties. The company was originally called Attleboro Manufacturing. The stories of four of Amalia and Jacob Baer’s children are integrally related to the history of Attleboro Manufacturing: two of their sons, Maurice and Lawrence, and two of their sons-in-law Samuel Stone, married to their daughter Tilda, and Jerome Grant, married to their daughter Elsie, were all involved in leadership roles in the company.

At one time, Attleboro, Massachusetts was known as the Jewelry Capital of the World due to the numerous jewelry manufacturers doing business there. But like most of the manufacturing businesses in Massachusetts, jewelry businesses in Attleboro eventually moved elsewhere to save on labor and other costs.



Embed from Getty Images

Attleboro Manufacturing was one of the businesses that eventually moved out of the region; later known as Swank and Company, the company was in business in Attleboro until the closing of its plant there in 2000. Though no longer in Atttleboro, Swank, Inc. is still in business today as a division of Randa Accessories, designing and manufacturing men’s jewelry, belts, personal leather accessories, and gifts. (“Jewelry legacy takes another hit with Swank closing, ” The Sun Chronicle, March 17, 2000.)

The company was founded by Maurice Baer and Samuel Stone. Samuel Stone was born Samuel Einstein in Laupheim, Germany, on February 25, 1872, the son of Moritz Einstein. He immigrated to the US in 1885, according to his 1920 passport application, and settled in Attleboro, Massachusetts. He was only thirteen years old at the time and seems to have come by himself. According to his 1920 and 1923 passport applications, his father was still residing in Germany at those times. Other sources indicate that his parents both died in Germany. This source also concluded that he came by himself to the US.

Samuel Einstein is listed as a jewelry manufacturer as early as 1890 and 1892 in the Attleboro city directories for those years, that is, several years before he and Maurice Baer founded Attleboro Manufacturing together. How did Maurice, who lived in western Pennsylvania, end up doing business with a young man living in Attleboro? Was there a family connection? Not that I have yet found. Perhaps they just met through business, Maurice traveling to New England or Samuel traveling to Pennsylvania.

According to this source:

By chance, Einstein had been doing business for a number of years (presumably wholesale jewellery) with a Pittsburg, PA salesman named Maurice Baer. It probably helped that Baer’s parents were German immigrants and both men were also of a similar age so an apparently close bond developed between the two.

That article and several other sources report that in 1897 Samuel and Maurice started Attleboro Manufacturing Company. Their first year brought an unexpected challenge.

The beginnings of Swank, Inc. can be traced to the year 1897, when Samuel M. Stone [originally Samuel Einstein] and Maurice J. Baer founded the Attleboro Manufacturing Company to produce and sell jewelry for women. The two men took over a building in Attleboro, Massachusetts, that had been constructed decades earlier as a forge to turn precious metals into jewelry.

Unfortunately, less than a year after Stone and Baer began production, one of the largest fires in the town’s history claimed an entire block of buildings, destroying their small enterprise. Many of the company’s employees helped fight the fire and were able to salvage a portion of the machinery and finished jewelry. Therefore, the Attleboro Manufacturing Company was able to resume its operations with the remaining equipment and material in another building nearby, which came to be the center of production for the next century.

The local Attleboro newspaper, the Sun Register, also reported on this history in its March 17, 2000, issue (“Jewelry legacy takes another hit with Swank closing, ” The Sun Chronicle, March 17, 2000) :

The company, starting with 10 employees, was located in a factory at Mill and Union streets. The fire of 1898 leveled a good portion of Attleboro’s jewelry plants, including the Attleboro Mfg. Co. However, volunteers managed to save the equipment of Attleboro Mfg. and within a day, the company was back in operation in the basement of a building adjacent to the present plant on Hazel Street.

Although both of these sources report the almost immediate re-opening of the business after the fire, Maurice Baer may not have yet relocated permanently to Attleboro, as he is listed as residing in Pittsburgh in the 1899 Pittsburgh city directory and on the 1900 census. But soon the company was doing quite well, and in 1908 Maurice and another man named Eben Wilde started a separate division to expand from women’s jewelry to men’s jewelry:

Within ten years, the Attleboro Manufacturing Company was enjoying a good deal of success in producing women’s jewelry and decided to begin expanding into new markets. In 1908, [Maurice] Baer formed a new division, called Baer and Wilde, to oversee the production of men’s jewelry, while Stone remained in charge of Attleboro Manufacturing.

Downtown Attleboro, about 1909 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

At some point, Maurice must have introduced his younger sister Tilda to his partner Samuel Einstein because by 1908 they were married and living in Attleboro where their first child Stephanie was born in June, 1908. They would have three more children, Samuel, Jr. (1910), Harriet (1913), and Babette (or Betty, 1919). In 1910, Samuel was still using the surname Einstein, as he was in 1920, so all four children were originally given the surname Einstein.

Samuel and Tilda Baer Einstein (Stone)
1920 US census
Year: 1920; Census Place: Attleboro Ward 2, Bristol, Massachusetts; Roll: T625_681; Page: 1A; Enumeration District: 9; Image: 794

The family was still using the name Einstein as late as 1923, as that is how Samuel is listed in the Attleboro directory for that year and also the name appearing on his 1923 passport application, but by 1927, they had switched to Stone, as can be seen in this ship manifest for a trip they all took to France that year.

Stone family on 1927 passenger manifest
Year: 1927; Arrival: New York, New York; Microfilm Serial: T715, 1897-1957; Microfilm Roll: Roll 4125; Line: 1; Page Number: 28

The third Baer child whose family was to become involved in the Attleboro Manufacturing Company was Elsie, the seventh child and youngest daughter. In 1910 she was still living with her parents in Pittsburgh, working as a kindergarten teacher. She was 24 years old. Three years later she married Jerome Louis Grant in Philadelphia. Jerome was born in Cortland, New York, in 1888, and in 1910 he had been living with his parents in Philadelphia where he and his father, Theodore Grant, were both working in the fur business.

Two years after marrying, Jerome and Elsie were living in New York City where Jerome was working as a salesman.

Jerome and Elsie Baer Grant and family
1915 NYS census
New York State Archives; Albany, New York; State Population Census Schedules, 1915; Election District: 49; Assembly District: 23; City: New York; County: New York; Page: 60

Jerome Grant’s draft registration for World War I revealed for whom he was working as a salesman: Baer & Wilde, the division of Attleboro Manufacturing Company started by his brother-in-law Maurice Baer. He was a salesman as well as the manager of their New York office. The registration revealed something else: Elsie was pregnant.

Jerome Grant World War I draft registration
Registration State: New York; Registration County: New York; Roll: 1786805; Draft Board: 147

Elsie and Jerome’s first child was born in 1919, a daughter named Marjorie. Their second daughter was born two years later and named Elinor.

Although the 1920 census reported that Jerome was a contractor in the building industry, the 1930 census reports that he was still in the jewelry manufacturing business. Moreover, both the 1920 and the 1925 New York City directories list Jerome as associated with Baer & Wilde, so I believe that the 1920 census is not correct in its reporting of Jerome’s occupation at that time.

Jerome and Elsie Baer Grant 1930 census
Year: 1930; Census Place: Long Beach, Nassau, New York; Roll: 1461; Page: 3A; Enumeration District: 0137; Image: 104.0; FHL microfilm: 2341196

Finally, the other Baer sibling to get involved in the Attleboro business was the youngest child, Lawrence. Even in 1910 when he was only 18, Lawrence was already involved in jewelry sales. By 1917 when he registered for the draft for World War I, he was a part owner of Baer & Wilde and living in Attleboro, Massachusetts. There was a notation on his draft registration saying, “This man employs from 150 to 175 people in jewelry business.” Was this a basis for exempting him from the draft?

Lawrence Baer World War 1 draft registration
Registration State: Massachusetts; Registration County: Bristol; Roll: 1684755; Draft Board: 40

The company did in fact participate in its own way in the war effort:

By the time the United States became involved in World War I, the Attleboro Manufacturing Company was large enough to handle the production of thousands of metal identification tags, better known as “dog tags,” for the military. While this was the company’s most notable contribution to the war effort, it also profited from the production of numerous other emblems for the U.S. government during those years.

But was that enough to keep a man exempt from the draft? Although it would certainly seem that Lawrence was not essential to the operations of the business, given the involvement of his brother Maurice as well as two of his brothers-in-law, he certainly had a major impact on the success of Baer & Wilde:

[Baer & Wilde} operated with marginal success until 1918, when [Maurice] Baer’s brother, Lawrence Baer, came to them with his newly invented Kum-A-Part “cuff button”. It was an immediate success, to the tune of some four million pairs per year. In 1923, with some improvements made to it by Wilde, the design was patented. Kum-A-Part items remained in production until 1931.

Kum-A-Part cufflinks

The tremendous success of the Kum-A-Part cufflinks had a major impact on the future of the company:

[After World War I, the demand for this cuff button was so great that the company stopped making women’s jewelry. By this time Baer & Wilde had absorbed the Attleboro Mfg. Co. facilities.

By the 1920s, Baer & Wilde was selling more than 4 million pairs of cuff buttons a year. The company started to grow with acquisitions and adding other lines such as belt and buckle.

Lawrence Baer’s invention thus changed the fortunes of the company founded by his brother Maurice and brother-in-law Samuel.

Lawrence married Donna Degen on October 20, 1919. Donna was a Michigan native, and in 1910 she had been living with her parents and brother in Grand Rapids Michigan, where her father was a life insurance agent.

Engagement announcement of Lawrence Baer and Donna Degen, Pittsburgh Jewish Criterion, October 24, 1919

Marriage announcement of Lawrence Baer and Donna Degen,
Pittsburgh Jewish Criterion, October 24, 1919

After marrying, Lawrence and Donna were living in Attleboro in 1920; a year later their son John Degen Baer was born in Attleboro. The family was still living in Attleboro in 1930, and Lawrence was listed as the owner of a jewelry manufacturing factory.

The 1920s were years of rapid growth for the family’s jewelry business:

After production of the women’s jewelry line was halted, the company focused solely on the manufacture and marketing of its men’s items. Although its men’s products were already in high demand, the company pushed even harder to gain more market share through the implementation of a new marketing plan and increased advertising. The new marketing plan was originated by [Samuel Einstein] Stone in the late 1920s and dictated that the Attleboro Manufacturing Company employ seven wholesale dealers in different major cities throughout the United States to handle the sale and distribution of the men’s jewelry line. This action helped the company more easily distribute its products nationwide and also increased its advertising range.

Thus, by 1930, there were three Baer siblings living in Attleboro and involved in the leadership of the very successful family jewelry business: Maurice, Tilda, and Lawrence. Another sibling, Elsie, was living in New York, where her husband Jerome was also working for the family’s jewelry business.

As seen in the last post, their three other surviving siblings had no connection to the jewelry business. Josephine was living in New York with her husband Morris Green, who was in the financial industry at that time. Two of the Baer daughters were in Philadelphia: Amanda, whose husband Meyer Herman was in the clothing manufacturing business, and Flora, whose husband Julius Adler was a successful engineer. Two of the nine children had died young: Hattie in 1910 and Alfred in 1923.

By 1930, Jacob and Amalia had thirteen grandchildren: Hattie’s two children, Justin and Richard Herman (raised by her sister Amanda, who had married Hattie’s widowed husband Meyer Herman); Josephine’s son Alan Baer Green; Flora’s three children, Stanley, Jerrold, and Amy Adler; Tilda’s four children, Stephanie, Samuel, Harriet, and Babette Stone; Elsie’s two daughters Marjorie and Elinor Grant; and Lawrence’s son John Degen Baer.

In my next series of posts I will describe what happened after 1930 to the seven surviving children and thirteen grandchildren of Jacob and Amalia (Hamberg) Baer and to Attleboro Manufacturing Company.

The Family of Amalia Hamberg Baer, the Administratrix

Posted on June 27, 2016 by Amy

Back in May, I wrote about the sad saga of Charles Hamberg and his son Samuel Hamberg. Charles, my great-grandfather Isidore Schoenthal’s first cousin, had lost two wives—one was murdered, one died quite young. He had then committed suicide, leaving his nine year old son Samuel an orphan. Charles’ estate was administered by another cousin, Amalia Hamberg Baer, who at the time was living in western Pennsylvania where my great-grandfather and many other Hamberg relatives were then living.

In fact, Amalia (born Malchen) was a first cousin to Isidore Schoenthal, my great-grandfather:

She had come to the US from Breuna, Germany, in 1871, and had married Jacob Baer in 1873, according to the 1900 census. (For more on how I linked Amalia Hamberg to Jacob Baer, see my earlier post.) Jacob was born in the Rhein Pfalz[1] region of Germany in about 1851 and had immigrated to the US in 1867, according to several census records. From entries in the Pittsburgh city directories, he appears to have settled in the Pittsburgh area.

In 1880, Jacob and Amalia were living in Allegheny, Pennsylvania (now part of Pittsburgh), and Jacob was working as a clerk in a shoe store. They already had four children: Maurice Jay (1874), Hattie (1876), Josephine (1878), Amanda (1880).

Jacob and Amalia Hamberg Baer 1880 US census
Year: 1880; Census Place: Allegheny, Allegheny, Pennsylvania; Roll: 1086; Family History Film: 1255086; Page: 198D; Enumeration District: 008; Image: 0402

Between 1880 and 1891, they would have five more children: Flora (1882), Tilda (1884), Elsie Victoria (1886), Alfred (1889), and Lawrence (1891). (The birth years for the daughters as reported in various records are all over the place as they kept making themselves younger as the years went on, so I am relying on the 1880 and 1900 census records when they were still probably young enough not to lie about their ages.) During those years, Jacob was listed as a salesman in the Pittsburgh city directories.

In 1900, Jacob and Amalia were still living in Allegheny with all nine of their children. Jacob continued to work as a salesman, as did their son Maurice (Morris here, now 26). Hattie (24) and Josephine (Josie here, now 21) were working as stenographers. The rest of the children were not employed.

Jacob and Amalia Hamberg Baer 1900 census
Year: 1900; Census Place: Allegheny Ward 5, Allegheny, Pennsylvania; Roll: 1356; Enumeration District: 0050; FHL microfilm: 1241356

In the next decade many of the children began to move on to their own lives. In fact, even before 1900, Maurice, the oldest child, had ventured quite far from Pittsburgh. As I will write about in a post to follow this one, Maurice moved to Attleboro, Massachusetts,[2] and established a very successful jewelry business in which four of the siblings’ families would be involved, that is, Maurice, Tilda, Elsie, and Lawrence. This post will focus on the other five siblings—Hattie, Josephine, Flora, Amanda, and Alfred—and their parents, Amalia and Jacob.

On July 17, 1905, Hattie Baer, the second child who was then 29, married Meyer Herman, a clothing salesman living in Philadelphia who was born in Manchester, England.

Marriage record of Hattie Baer and Meyer Herman
Pennsylvania, County Marriages, 1885-1950,” database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-1951-21130-27078-9?cc=1589502 : accessed 12 May 2016), 004264779 > image 383 of 454; county courthouses, Pennsylvania.

They settled in Philadelphia, where they had two sons, Justin Baer Herman, born in April, 1907, and Richard B. Herman, born in July, 1910. Then tragically, Hattie died on October 15, 1910, of a perforated bowel and peritonitis. She was only 33 years old when she died, and she left behind a three year old toddler and a two and a half month old infant son.

Hattie Baer Herman death certificate
Ancestry.com. Pennsylvania, Death Certificates, 1906-1963 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014.
Original data: Pennsylvania (State). Death certificates, 1906–1963. Series 11.90 (1,905 cartons). Records of the Pennsylvania Department of Health, Record Group 11. Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

Five years later in 1915, Hattie’s younger sister Amanda married her brother-in-law Meyer Herman in Philadelphia and took on the responsibility for raising her two nephews, Justin and Richard, then just eight and five years old. In 1920, Meyer was still a clothing salesman, and the family continued to live in Philadelphia.

Meyer and Amanda Baer Herman 1920 census
Year: 1920; Census Place: Philadelphia Ward 22, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Roll: T625_1623; Page: 8A; Enumeration District: 591; Image: 961

Ten years later in 1930, Meyer had moved from being a salesman to being the owner of a clothing manufacturing business. The two sons were also working; Justin, now 23, was a newspaper editor, and Richard, now 19, was selling real estate. Both were still living at home with Meyer and Amanda in Philadelphia.

Herman and Amanda Baer Herman 1930 census
Year: 1930; Census Place: Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Roll: 2104; Page: 23A; Enumeration District: 0627; Image: 902.0; FHL microfilm: 2341838

Meanwhile, the third child of Amalia and Jacob Baer, Josephine, had married Morris Alon Green on January 2, 1906. Morris was a Pittsburgh native, born there on February 17, 1875, the son of Abraham Green, an immigrant from Holland, and Jeanette Bloomberg, born in Germany. In 1900, Morris was living with his parents in Pittsburgh and working as a bookkeeper.

Marriage record of Morris Green and Josephine Baer
Pennsylvania, County Marriages, 1885-1950,” database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-1942-20622-18713-16?cc=1589502 : accessed 10 June 2016), 004811570 > image 334 of 449; county courthouses, Pennsylvania.

Josephine and Morris settled in Pittsburgh where their son Alan Baer Green was born on October 30, 1906. In 1910, the Greens were living in Pittsburgh as boarders in the household of another family, and Morris was working as a claims agent.

Morris and Josephine Baer Green on 1910 census
Year: 1910; Census Place: Pittsburgh Ward 8, Allegheny, Pennsylvania; Roll: T624_1301; Page: 2A; Enumeration District: 0379; FHL microfilm: 1375314

The next several years must have been successful ones for Morris because by 1918, he was the general agent and executive of the Crucible Steel Company and by 1920 he and Josephine and their son Alan were living in their own (rented) home with a nurse and servant residing with them.

Morris A Green, World War I draft registration
Registration State: Pennsylvania; Registration County: Allegheny; Roll: 1909239; Draft Board: 11

By 1925, Josephine and Morris had left western Pennsylvania for New York City, where they were living at the Hotel Alexander at 150 West 103^rd Street. Their son Alan is not listed as living with them; perhaps he was away at college as he would have been nineteen at that time. In 1930, Alan was living with his parents in Manhattan, working in advertising. His father Morris listed his occupation/industry as “financial.”

Morris and Josephine Baer Green and Alan Baer Green, 1930 census
Year: 1930; Census Place: Manhattan, New York, New York; Roll: 1556; Page: 19A; Enumeration District: 0443; Image: 762.0; FHL microfilm: 2341291

The fifth child of Amalia and Jacob was Flora. In 1907, she is listed in the Pittsburgh city directory as a teacher, residing in Bellevue, a town near Pittsburgh. In 1910, when she was 28 (although listed as 24 on the 1910 census), she was still single and living with her parents and not employed outside the home.

Jacob and Amalia Schoenthal Baer and family 1910 census
Year: 1910; Census Place: Pittsburgh Ward 14, Allegheny, Pennsylvania; Roll: T624_1304; Page: 6B; Enumeration District: 0468; FHL microfilm: 1375317

In 1915, she married Julius Adler. Julius was the son of Simon Adler, a German immigrant who in 1880 was living in Memphis, Tennessee, working in a shoe store. Julius’ mother Elizabeth was a native of Missouri; she married Simon in 1881, and they had four children born in Memphis between 1882 and 1887, when their youngest son Julius was born. By 1900, the family had relocated to Philadelphia.

According to his obituary, Julius graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in engineering in 1908. In 1910, he was teaching at the University of Washington in Seattle. But by 1915 he had returned to Philadelphia, where he married Flora Baer. In 1917, they were living in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where Julius was working as a civil engineer for the state highway department. They would have three children, Stanley, Jerrold, and Amy, born between 1917 and 1920.

Julius Adler, World War I draft registration
Registration State: Pennsylvania; Registration County: Dauphin; Roll: 1893237; Draft Board: 3

In 1920, the family had returned to Philadelphia, where Julius was now employed as a technical engineer for an oil company. According to his obituary, during the 1920s, Julius was working as the deputy chief of the Philadelphia highway department and was involved in supervising the construction of the Benjamin Franklin Bridge, the bridge that spans the Delaware River connecting Philadelphia to Camden, New Jersey (originally called the Delaware River Bridge). In 1930, Julius and Flora and their two sons continued to live in Philadelphia, Julius working as a civil engineer.

Benjamin Franklin Bridge linking Camden, NJ with Philadelphia, PA – Taken from the 22nd floor of Waterfront Square (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Alfred, the second youngest child of Amalia and Jacob, was the only other child not involved with the Attleboro jewelry business. In 1900, he was living with his family in Pittsburgh, but he is not listed with them in 1910, when he would have been 21 years old. There is an Alfred H. Baer listed in the 1907 Pittsburgh directory, working as a clerk, but I am not sure that that is the same person. According to his registration for the draft in World War I, Alfred was living in a sanitarium and “mentally incapacitated for work of any kind.”

Alfred Baer, World War I draft registration Registration State: Pennsylvania; Registration County: Philadelphia; Roll: 1907636; Draft Board: 17

Five years later, at age 34, Alfred died on December 13, 1923. He was buried where his sister Hattie was buried and where later his parents, his sister Flora, and his brother Maurice would be buried at Mt. Sinai cemetery in Philadelphia. I was unable to locate a death certificate, so I do not know the cause of death. According to his burial record, he was residing in Stamford, Connecticut, at the time of his death.

Thus, by 1930, Amalia (Hamberg) and Jacob Baer had lost two of their children, Hattie and Alfred. Their other children were doing quite well. Amanda and Flora had moved to Philadelphia with their husbands and children, and Josephine was living in New York City with her husband and son. The other four children were also living away from Pittsburgh, as we will see in the next post.

Even Jacob and Amalia had left Pittsburgh by that time. In fact, sometime between 1918 and 1922, they had moved to Atlantic City. In 1922, they were listed in the Atlantic City directory, living at The Amsterdam in Atlantic City. The following year on March 27, 1923, their children honored their parents on the occasion of their 50^th wedding anniversary with a dinner at the Esplanade Hotel in New York City.

In 1930 Jacob and Amalia, now 83 and 79 (although the 1930 census says 77), were living at 250 West 103^rd Street in New York City, with Jacob listed as the head of household for what appears to be a small hotel; there are 28 guests listed as living with them. Their daughter Josephine was living not too far away at 666 West End Avenue.

Amalia Baer, born Malchen Hamberg in Breuna, Germany, died on April 23, 1931, in New York City. She was 80 years old. She was buried in Mt. Sinai cemetery in Philadelphia where the two children who predeceased her, Hattie and Alfred, were buried. A year later her husband Jacob died on September 1, 1932. He was 85 years old, and he was buried with his wife and children in Mt. Sinai cemetery. His death notice ran in the September 3, 1932 issue of The New York Times:

NY Times, September 3, 1932

In my next post, I will write about the four children of Amalia and Jacob who were involved in the jewelry business in Attleboro, Massachusetts. Then in a subsequent post I will report on what later happened to the children and the grandchildren of Jacob and Amalia (Hamberg) Baer.

[1] Thank you to Michael Palmer and Cathy Meder-Dempsey of the German Genealogy group on Facebook for helping me decipher Jacob’s birthplace.

[2] I am not sure why Maurice is listed as living in Pittsburgh on the 1900 census as several reports indicate he had established the business in Attleboro before then. Perhaps he was still traveling back and forth between Pennsylvania and Massachusetts at that time.

Brotmanblog: A Family Journey

Adventures in Genealogy

Tag Archives: Baer

Are These Two Photographs of the Same Woman?

More Gifts of Photographs

The Last Chapter of the Story of Amalia Hamberg

Tilda Baer Stone and Her Children: Massachusetts Cousins

Attleboro Manufacturing Company: My Cousins, the Jewelers

The Family of Amalia Hamberg Baer, the Administratrix

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