Researching my family history, I've focused mainly on my mother's family, in part because it's been so easy to trace back; early New Englanders kept excellent records.
My father's side has been far more difficult: his mother's family was of Irish descent, and his father Bernard K was a Jewish immigrant who fled the pogroms of post-World War One Poland.
I've begun to turn my attention to this paternal grandfather's family.
He passed away eighteen years before I was born, at the relatively young age of 55 (renal failure), so I never knew him. All I knew about him until a couple of years ago was that he came here from Russia*, that he owned a delicatessen, and that he had several siblings with funny-sounding Yiddish names like Yonkel and Geisie, many of whome settled in Canada because they couldn't get into the U.S.
And I knew that his mother's name was Naomi. No last name, no father's name, nothing.
I ended up connecting with a second cousin online through a random searching of my very unusual real last name. I emailed him through his website, and he put me in touch with another second cousin, who is also into family history. She sent me a large manila envelope containing a map of Poland, hand-drawn family trees, photos of my great-grandmother, my grandfather, and his siblings-- and a short family history written by the daughter of my grandfather's half-sister. This little history is the main source of information I have about my grandfather's family.
Today I'm going to focus on my great-grandmother Nachama (anglicized to Naomi when she arrived):
Nachama's maiden name was SMUTER, according my my grandparents' marriage record, and she was from the town of Krasnystaw (pronounced "KRAZ-ni-stov"), born around 1860. She was betrothed at the age of 9 to a local boy named Moishe Millstein. Apparently it was a tradition for a girl who was engaged to spend the Passover holiday with the family of her intended. She was playing some game that involved tossing walnuts, and because she was losing, she cried and asked to be taken home.
Nachama married Millstein when she was just 15, and he was 21. He was a dandy and a bad provider, preferring to get dressed up and go to shul to study the Torah than work or help Nachama with the difficult chores that needed doing. He was, however, an affectionate father to their kids, Velvel and Sheva.
Moishe Millstein died after only five years of marriage, and Nachama found herself a 20-year-old widow with two children to provide for. She opened a dry goods store, and a few years later she married my great-grandfather, Menashe K.
Menashe was the polar opposite of her first husband: he treated Nachama like a queen, but was extremely mean to the children, beating them horribly. And if he was so cruel to his own kids, you can just imagine how he treated the steps; it was Velvel who bore the brunt of Menashe's temper, and he ended up running away to Canada and changing his name. Sheva had to be sent to live with grandparents much of the time as well.
Nachama and Menashe had 11 children together, only seven surviving to adulthood; their youngest was my grandfather Boruch (later called Bernard).
After World War One, Jews were being persecuted; after Cossacks raided the family's dry goods store, they decided it was time to go. My grandfather and his family left Poland throughout the 1920's. Immigrant families couldn't usually all leave together; one would come over, find work, and then would send money back to allow others to follow.
Nachama's immigration information has not been found, but she did come over at some point, her name being anglicized to Naomi. She ended up living with daughter Sheva and her family in Philadelphia; it seems that none of her other many children wanted her, which is interesting.
The writer of this history-- Sheva's daughter and Nachama's granddaughter-- recalls Nachama living with them; she would go to services at the synagogue, and when she would come back she would make fun of the other old ladies at the temple whose nylons had runs and whose wigs were crooked (Nachama was meticulous about her appearance, as my grandfather also was). When she was chastised for speaking so uncharitably about other people, she answered, "So God will punish me and I'll live to be old."
She died around or a little after 1933.
I didn't know her, but the picture painted by the writer is of a woman who had to be strong and resourceful at an early age, but who might have been rather... unlikeable.
Why did her children not want her in their homes-- was she unpleasant, or overbearing? Did her children resent her for allowing their father to abuse them? Did his abuse of the children bother her? Did she just stay with him because she had no other option, or was she happy as long as he was taking good care of her?
This raises so many questions-- ones that can't be answered by tracking down records.
*Krasnystaw, the town my grandfather's family was from, was in Russia until the borders changed after World War One; now it's in Poland.
Karen K |