Henry and Isidore: The Schoenthal Brothers in Little Washington 1890-1910

Posted on November 9, 2015 by Amy

Now that I have a better feel for my great-great-uncle Henry Schoenthal and the man he was, I will return to telling his story and that of the extended Schoenthal family with a fresh perspective. In this post, I will cover the 1890s and the first decade of the 20th century in Washington, Pennsylvania.

Old Fairgrounds Washington, PA 1897
http://www.washingtonpa.us/washingtons-past/

My great-grandfather Isidore Schoenthal had arrived in Washington, Pennsylvania in 1881, twenty-five years after his older brother Henry. By 1890, Isidore had married my great-grandmother Hilda Katzenstein, and they were settled in Washington, Pennsylvania, with their first son Lester. Their second child, Gerson, was born in 1892. Although there were several family members just 30 miles away in Pittsburgh, the only other Schoenthal family member in Washington was Henry and his family. Henry and his wife Helen nee Lilienfeld had three children; in 1890, Hilda was sixteen; Lionel, thirteen, and Meyer, seven.

Henry continued to own a book and stationery store in Washington, as this ad from the 1892 yearbook for Washington and Jefferson College indicates:

Ancestry.com. U.S., School Yearbooks, 1880-2012 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010.

In October 1895, Henry’s store suffered $10,000 worth of damage from a fire that also damaged two adjoining stores.

Pittsburgh Daily Post, October 29, 1895, p.4

Two years later Henry sold his store:

Daily Republican (Monongahela, PA), January 6, 1897, p.1

As the news article reveals, Henry was by then involved in the Washington Glass Company, which had been chartered in September 1896 with Henry as one of the founding directors.

Henry is listed in the 1897 Washington city directory as the secretary and treasurer of the Washington Glass Company.

Along with steel and coal mining, glass manufacturing apparently was one of the principal industries in Washington County and in western Pennsylvania generally. Among the major glass manufacturing companies that existed in the area while my family was living in Washington County were Duncan & Miller Glass Company, founded in 1865 and operating in some capacity until 1980, and Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company, founded in 1883 and still in existence today. Here are an illustration of a product made by Duncan & Miller and also a photograph of its factory in Washington, PA.

Duncan and Miller ruby pitcher
By Nomoreforme at English Wikipedia [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ADuncan_Miller_Glass_plant.jpg

According to Glass & Pottery World, Volume 4, (January 1, 1896, Trade Magazine Assocation), Washington Glass Manufacturing Company “was a new company, just commencing the manufacture of lamp shades, globes, chimneys, and specialties. A. W. Pollack is president, Henry Schoenthal, secretary, and C.N.L Brudenwald, general manager. They occupy the plant of the old Washington factory, and are all prominent men and have the prospect of success before them.”

1897 was a big year for Henry in other ways. He and Helen celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary that year.

Pittsburgh Daily Post May 16, 1897 p. 10

Thanks to Carly at the Heinz History Center at the University of Pittsburgh, I now finally have a photograph of Henry Schoenthal and of his family. The photo was taken in 1897 on the occasion of Henry and Helen’s 25th anniversary and was used again in 1922 when they celebrated their 50th anniversary. It is on file with the Rauh Jewish Archives at the Heinz History Center.

Helen, Lionel, Hilda, Henry, and Meyer Schoenthal 1897
http://www.jewishfamilieshistory.org/document/schoenthal-golden-wedding/?post_id=2664

Henry certainly was a prominent man. He was described this way in the Beers biography written in 1893: “Henry Schoenthal … by a life of plodding industry and judicious economy, coupled with keen foresight and characteristic prudence, has risen to no small degree of prominence as one of the well-to-do and progressive citizens of Washington borough.” He was a member of four secret societies: A. F. & A. M., Heptasophs, Royal Arcanum, and Protected Home Circle as well as president of the local B’nai Brith lodge and a founding member of Beth Israel, the synagogue.

Prospect Avenue, Washington, PA 1890
http://www.washingtonpa.us/washingtons-past/

I am not sure exactly what my great-grandfather Isidore was doing for a living in the early part of the decade, but by 1897 he was listed in several business categories in the Washington directory: cutlery, china, glassware, lamps, and house furnishings. I assume that his lamps and glassware were at least in part the products of his brother’s company.

Isidore Schoenthal

On the 1900 census, Henry described himself as a china merchant. All three of his children were still single and living at home. Lionel, 23, was a merchant and a violinist. He had graduated from Washington and Jefferson College in 1899 with a Bachelor of Science and had also participated in the Glee Club and played the violin in the Mandolin Club.

Old Main of Washington & Jefferson Colege, Washington, Pennsylvania, United States. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

When the new courthouse was dedicated in Washington in November 1900, Lionel led a twelve piece string orchestra at the festivities.

Washginton County Courthouse
By Canadian2006 (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

Henry and Helen’s younger son Meyer was sixteen in 1900 and was working as a china salesman. Their daughter Hilda and her mother Helen were not employed outside the home.

My great-grandfather also listed himself as a merchant on the 1900 census. His children Lester and Gerson were now eleven and eight years old, respectively. A third child, their son Harold, was born in Washington on August 28, 1901. In the 1903 directory for Washington, Pennsylvania, Isadore and Hilda were living at 47 South College Street, and Isadore’s store was at 106 South Main Street; he was selling china, glassware, and house furnishings. He even had a telephone.

Main Street, Washington, PA
http://www.washingtonpa.us/washingtons-past/

Sometime between 1900 and 1903, Henry’s older son Lionel married Irma Silverman; he seemed to be in a business competing to some extent with his uncle Isidore, as he was also selling china as well as books, stationery, toys, and fancy goods. Lionel had phones both in his store and at his residence.

In 1903, his father Henry was living at 203 East Beau Street with his wife Helen and their other two children, Hilda and Meyer, both of whom were working as clerks for their brother Lionel. Henry was now an agent for New York Life Insurance Company.

1903 directory for Washington, PA
Ancestry.com. U.S. City Directories, 1822-1989 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011.

On March 4, 1904, my great-grandparents had their fourth child and first and only daughter, my grandmother Eva. She was a truly beautiful baby.

My Grandma Eva

In 1905, another child joined the family. Henry and Helen’s son Lionel and his wife Irma had a baby girl on March 22, whom they named Florence.

Aside from these new babies in the family, nothing much changed between 1903 and 1905, as seen in the Washington directory for 1905.

1905 directory for Washington, PA
Ancestry.com. U.S. City Directories, 1822-1989 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011.

My great-grandfather was still selling china and glassware, now at 15 North Main Street, and the family had moved to 196 Allison Avenue; Lester, however, was living at the 47 South College Street. He would have been seventeen years old; the directory says he was a student, so I assume he was living at and attending Washington and Jefferson College.

Henry was still living at 203 East Beau Street and working for New York Life; Hilda and Meyer were still living at home, and Lionel was living with his wife and child elsewhere in town. Lionel was still running his store, as described above.

North Main Street, Washington, PA
http://www.washingtonpa.us/washingtons-past/

But things did not stay the same after that. My great-grandparents may have thought that they were permanently settled in the comfortable surroundings of Washington, Pennsylvania, with Henry and his family close by and other relatives not too far away. But their son Gerson had developed asthma, and the doctors had recommended that they move to a drier climate. So by 1907 Isidore and Hilda and their four children had moved all the way to Denver, Colorado. The 1907 Denver directory only has a listing for Isidore and their residence without an occupation, but in 1908 there is a listing for Lester as a bookkeeper. Isidore still has no occupation listed. In 1909, however, he is listed as working as a clerk for the Carson Crockery Company, a well-established distributor of fine china.

By 1910, he was the manager of the crockery store, according to the census report and this advertisement I found in the December 15, 1911 edition of the Denver Post (p.2).

My great-uncle Lester, now 21, was a hospital apprentice for the US Navy. His brother Gerson, now 18, had a clerical position in an office. All four children were still living with their parents. Harold was nine, and my grandmother was six years old.

Things were also changing back in Pennsylvania for my great-great-uncle Henry Schoenthal and his family. As Hilda wrote in her biography of her father, her brother Lionel moved to New York where he worked for Gimbels. On the 1910 census he listed his occupation as a china buyer. His parents moved to New York City to be near him in March, 1909, according to Hilda, and in 1910 they were living with Lionel, his wife Irma, and their daughter Florence. Henry was still working as an agent for New York Life.

The former New York Life Insurance Company Building, also known as the Clock Tower Building, at 346 Broadway between Catherine and Leonard, was expanded from the original building by Stephen Decatur Hatch and McKim, Mead & White, between 1894 and 1899. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I found a detailed biography of Henry and Helen’s other son Meyer written in 1922, which reported on Meyer’s early life as well as his adult life:

The public schools of his native city afforded Meyer L. Schoenthal his early education, and after leaving school he gained most valuable experience through his association with his father and older brother in the china and glass business and the manufacturing of glassware. With these lines of enterprise he continued his active connection at Washington, Pennsylvania, until 1907, when he was called to Belleville, Illinois, to assume charge of the promotion of a theater enterprise. He remained there one year, and met with success in effecting the erection and equipment of a modern theater, and for the ensuing two years he represented New York manufacturers in .the Middle West. In 1910 he married, and in the same year he and his wife established their home at Los Angeles, California…

(John Brown, Jr. and James Boyd, History of San Bernardino and Riverside Counties, Volume III, the Western Historical Association, 1922, The Lewis Publishing Company, Chicago, ILL. Transcribed by Peggy Hooper 2011)

In 1910, Meyer married the former Mary McKinnie, as seen in this news clipping from The Daily Post (Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, January 10, 1910), p. 1:

The Daily Notes (Canonsburg, PA, January 10, 1910). p. 1

The Washington Seminary was a Presbyterian seminary for women. I wonder what Henry Schoenthal thought of his son Meyer marrying a young woman who was not Jewish and from so far away. The 1910 census reports that Meyer and Mary Schoenthal were living in Los Angeles, and Meyer was working as a manager for an investment company.

I could not locate Hilda Schoenthal, Henry and Helen’s daughter, on the 1910 census, but she appears in the 1911 directory for Washington, DC, working as a stenographer.

Thus, by 1910 all of Henry Schoenthal’s family had left Little Washington as had the family of my great-grandfather Isidore. In both cases it was their children who had provided the reason for the move. Isidore and Hilda moved to find a better place for their son Gerson. Henry and Helen moved to be closer to their son Lionel. Little Washington must have been too small to provide sufficient opportunities for the next generation.

They all had left before the big centennial celebration in Washington, commemorating its founding in 1810.

http://www.washingtonpa.us/washingtons-past/

There were, however, representatives of the extended family still there: the sons of Jacob Schoenthal, the Schoenthal brother who never left Germany. More on them in a later post. First, I need to catch up with the members of the family who were living in Pittsburgh as the 19th century moved into the 20th.

My Great-great-uncle Henry: The Real Man Revealed

Posted on November 2, 2015 by Amy

This was a major find, a discovery that has greatly inspired me and uplifted me.

I’ve been researching the Schoenthals in depth for quite a while now, and I’ve been so fortunate to find as much as I have about the family both in German and American records. As I was preparing a post about Henry and Isidore, my great-grandfather, I decided to see if I could find a picture of Henry. After all, he was a prominent man in Washington, Pennsylvania for many years. There had to be a picture of him in a newspaper or archive somewhere. So I tried Google.

Unfortunately, I didn’t find a photograph of Henry. But what I found was amazing and did in fact give me a better picture of Henry. The Jacob Radosh Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, Ohio, had four entries for Schoenthal in its collection: three labeled Henry Schoenthal, one Hilda Schoenthal. They were titled as papers, a biography, a diary, and a sermon. I saw this the other evening and was excited, but had no idea how I could see these papers without going to Cincinnati. So the next morning I called the Marcus Center and spoke to an extremely helpful man there named Joe. Joe explained that they would scan all the pages of the documents for me for 25 cents a page and email them to me. There were forty pages in total, and so in less than hour and for only ten dollars, I had the four files in my email.

The folder of Henry’s papers, which date from 1863 to 1866, are in German. I am going to have to find someone to help me translate them. But here’s one that confirms Henry’s (then Heinemann) birth date and place and his father’s name; I think it is a certificate of his training to be a Jewish teacher at the seminary in Cassel, Germany:

Israelitische Lehrerbildungs for Henry Schoenthal
Available at the Marcus Center, Cincinnati, Ohio

The biography is a one page biography of Henry Schoenthal written by his daughter Hilda in 1952. Although much of it was information I already knew, it adds another dimension to this man, making him come to life for me. I want to look first at the first section of that biography because it will provide greater background to the diary and to the sermon, the remaining two files I received.

Hilda Schoenthal, Biography of Henry Schoenthal dated January 16, 1952. Available at the Marcus Center, Cincinnati, Ohio

Again, although I knew most of the facts reported here, it was wonderful to read it in words written by Henry’s own daughter. I didn’t know how he met his wife or that her father, Meyer Lilienfeld, was a cantor. And I did not know that Henry was a shochet (kosher butcher) and a chazzan (cantor) as well as a teacher back in Germany. I wish Hilda had expanded on the political and economic conditions that drove her father to emigrate. And I found it interesting that Washington was considered somewhat of a center of culture and intellectual activity because of the presence of Washington and Jefferson College in the town. It also gave me a sense of Henry as someone interested in the life of the mind—someone who preferred selling books to students than selling clothing.

Western side of McMillan Hall on the campus of Washington & Jefferson College in Washington, Pa. .. Built in 1793, it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places (Wikipedia)

The diary, which starts in 1866 when Henry arrived in America, starts out in German, but after the first several pages, Henry began to write in English and to use script which I can read. Reading those pages was very moving, and I will share some of them below. Thanks to my friend Matthias Steinke, I was able to get the initial pages translated into English.

The diary begins on July 10, 1866, just a few weeks after Henry had arrived in New York, and says that he had just arrived in Washington, PA, and was working for his cousin Jacob Goldsmith in his clothing store (for some reason “clothing store” is written in English).

Diary of Henry Schoenthal 1866-1868
Available at the Marcus Center, Cincinnati, Ohio

By the next day he had written to his parents and sent them three gold dollars. He did not receive his first letter from his parents until August 9th and immediately responded, sending them ten dollars in “greenbacks.” On August 16th, he described a visit from the Democratic candidate for governor of Pennsylvania, Hiester Clymer, and the fanfare surrounding that. Then there is a long entry about the some criminal activities going on in the town. Most of the pages in German report on his correspondence with various people back home.

By January 1867, Henry was writing in fluent English. Just six months in the US, and he was already comfortable with and even preferring to write in English. I was impressed. Much of what he continued to write about was his correspondence— naming those to whom he had written and those who had written to him. This page, with several entries dated in April, 1867, I found particularly interesting.

On Tuesday, April 12, 1867, Henry mentioned that he was beginning to give German lessons to some residents of the town. On these pages, he also mentioned writing letters not only to his “dear parents” and sending them money, but also writing to his uncle Juda Hamberg from Breuna, who was his mother’s older brother, and to Helene and Recha Lilienfeld. Helene would later become his wife, and there are numerous mentions of correspondence between Henry and the two Lilienfeld sisters. On this page he also mentioned that he sent the Lilienfeld sisters his pictures. I sure wish I could see a copy of those pictures.

Of greatest interest to me on this page, however, is Henry’s comment on Monday, April 22, that he went to Pittsburgh “last Friday and stayed there for the first two days of Passover.” I was touched that Henry was making an effort to hold on to his traditions and heritage while alone without his parents and siblings nearby. Of his family members already in the US in 1867, the only one likely to have been in Pittsburgh was Simon Goldsmith, widower of Fanny Schoenthal and thus Henry’s uncle by marriage.

Although Henry may have had his heart set on Helene (also called Helen) Lilienfeld, he was not sitting home. He mentioned at the bottom of this page that in May 1867 he went to a show with a Miss Emma ? and a Mrs. Flora Conner (?) and did not get home until half past eleven.

One of my favorite diary entries also is dated in May 1867:

Why do I like this entry? Because it mentions my great-grandfather and by his original name, Isaac. Henry referred to all his siblings by their original names. Malchen was Amalie, Hannchen was Hannah. Selig became Felix. I also liked that Julius was listed, confirming once again that Julius Schoenthal was a sibling. I imagine Henry writing all those names and looking at the pictures his “dear parents” had sent to him and being somewhat homesick.

But there was some news to alleviate that homesickness. He mentioned on the next page that Malchen wanted to come to the United States. He said that she was “anxious to come to this country and I expect to let her come by next fall.” This seems to suggest that the decision was up to Henry, not his parents or his sister Malchen. Was this about money? Henry often mentioned sending money home to his family.

But on June 18, Henry wrote that his sister Malchen and brother Simon “intend to come over here next fall,” so perhaps he really did not have control over their decisions to emigrate.

Although Henry was continuing to correspond with “dear Helene” and her sister, he was also exchanging pictures with a Miss Therese Libenfeld in Frankfort and teaching German to several young women in Washington.

On September 9, 1867, Henry reported that he had received a letter from his parents informing him that his brother and sister, Simon and Malchen, had left Bremen on August 17 to sail on the ship SS Watchen. This is consistent with the ship manifest I found for Simon and Amalie, which has them arriving in New York on September 23, 1867. The only inconsistency is that the ship manifest record states that the ship was named Wagen, not Watchen. Close enough.

After that the diary peters out with very few entries between September 1867 and February 1868, the date of the last entry. My guess is that Henry was busy with his siblings, helping them to adjust to the new country, and perhaps less in need of keeping track of his correspondence.

The very last entry, dated February 24, 1868, records a piece of US history. Henry wrote: “The House of Representatives just resolved to impeach President Andrew Johnson.” Unfortunately Henry expressed no opinion or reaction to this occurrence. Was it upsetting to him? How did he feel about American democracy? I wish I knew.

I loved reading the diary. Although it is not terribly intimate or revealing in its content, I can imagine this young man in his early 20s sitting down to keep track of everyone from back home with whom he corresponded. The fact that the diary ends shortly after the arrival of his sister and brother make me think that the diary’s purpose had at that point been served. Henry now had some of his family with him and no longer needed the ritual of the diary to help him feel connected.

Returning to Hilda’s biography of her father and her description of his life after 1868:

I found Hilda’s final paragraph particularly interesting:

This was not the image I had of Henry from the documents I’d found or even the newspaper articles. Henry wasn’t just a successful businessperson. He was a committed Jew working hard to create and maintain a Jewish community in this small town in western Pennsylvania. He was still a teacher many years after leaving Trendelburg, Germany, a man interested in books and students and Jewish traditions. Now I see a whole new dimension to this man who was my great-great-uncle.

The remaining file that I obtained from the Marcus Center was the so-called sermon. For me, this was the most exciting document of all. The sermon was written by Henry in 1912, three years after he had moved away from Washington to live near his son Lionel in New York City, as mentioned by Hilda. Henry was by this time almost 70 years old. From what I can infer, the sermon or speech was to a fraternal organization in Washington given on the occasion of Henry’s return to Washington for a visit. I will quote the portions I found most touching and most revealing:

He wrote:

I love to come back to Washington to revisit the scenes of my early manhood. For to this place I had come a stranger and you had taken me in. Here I have spent the greater portion of my years and Washington has been my real home. To this place I had brought my bride and here my children were born and educated. Here I made many, many friends and possibly a few enemies. Here I have lived many happy days and my full share of the other kind. The latter I have forgotten long ago, the former are ever present in my memory and help to brighten and to make happy the declining days of my years.

I do not know whether I shall pass this way again, for the shades of evening are lengthening and the goal may not be very far off. I gratefully acknowledge that God has been very gracious unto me and that he has blessed me beyond my merits. He has guided me with a father’s hand to reach and to pass safely the 3 score and ten of which the Psalmist has spoken, and if it should be his holy will to grant me another short space of years, I may even reach the limit of four scores.

But whether this should be the last time it is destined for me to have the happiness to meet with you, you may rest assured that I shall always remember this evening, that I shall never forget the courtesy you have shown, the friendship and the fraternal feelings you have extended to me. And I shall always pray for your happiness and in parting I shall bless you, bless you not in my own words, but the in the words of the High Priest of old when he stood before the assembled multitudes stretching forth his hand and pronouncing the words:

May the Lord bless you and keep you!

May the Lord cause his light to shine upon you and be gracious unto you!

May the Lord turn his face unto you and grant you peace, now and forever more. Amen!

I admit that my eyes well up with tears every time I read and re-read these words. I am moved by so much of what he said here: his attachment to Washington, PA, as his home, a place that had welcomed a very young man in 1866 and given him a safe place to settle and work. He mentioned good times and bad, but overall his memories of this place are filled with love for the people he knew there. I feel his love for this place and for the people and his joy in being there and the sadness he feels in leaving it and perhaps not being able to return another time. We all have those feelings about places we have lived–whether it is a childhood home, a college campus, a first apartment. We move on, but a piece of our heart remains behind.

I am also moved by the beauty of his writing. It’s hard to believe that English was not his first language, as with my cousin Lotte. Henry’s writing is so poetic, so evocative. I read it with wonder.

And then Henry closed with the traditional priestly blessing read even today in Jewish prayer services and used as a blessing on many occasions in Jewish life. A blessing we said to our own daughters on Friday nights when they were children. A blessing that Jews have said and shared for centuries. I am moved knowing that my ancestor shared in this tradition as well.

Henry had left the seminary, but that experience had never left him. He remained, as his daughter said, committed to his heritage and proud of it. He remained a religious man.

Finding these papers was another one of many highlights in my continuing search for the story of my ancestors. They inspire me to keep looking for more and to keep telling the stories. Henry Schoenthal wanted history and traditions to continue, and I want his story to live on as well.

Brotmanblog: A Family Journey

Adventures in Genealogy

Tag Archives: Washington & Jefferson College

Henry and Isidore: The Schoenthal Brothers in Little Washington 1890-1910

My Great-great-uncle Henry: The Real Man Revealed

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