Story of a Pavoloch Orphan
(Revised December 2007 by his son
Richard Spector)
This is the story of a child born to fear and poverty in the small 19th century shtetl of Pavoloch who managed to immigrate to the United States as a young orphan and become an eminent, nationally recognized physician before his tragically young death at 52. This is a story that ends with the most important questions about his life and his large extended Pavoloch family unanswered. But most of all, this is the story of the father I never knew but whose life I painstakingly reconstructed more than 60 years after he died.
Hyman Ischia Spector was born Chaim Ovsey Spector on July 15, 1894 in the shtetl of Pavoloch in present day Ukraine (then Russia), which was located in the Kiev Gubernia (province) about 61 miles southwest of the city of Kiev. Pavoloch still exists today. He was the second of three children and the first son of Morris David Spector and Shaindel Garber, whose Americanized name as chosen by Hyman was Jennie. Jennie had a daughter, Tsivia (Civia or Celia in its Americanized form), in 1882-1883 by her first husband, whose name was Boruch Vladimirsky. Morris David had a daughter Basheva in 1871-1872 with his first wife. Basheva married Avrum Frenkel, born in 1867-1868, and they had a son Yos born in 1894. Nothing more is known about Basheva and her family.
There are family stories that Hyman had a brother who was in the Russian army and was killed sometime before or during World War I. Family legend has it that Hyman’s brother was killed while Hyman was still in the Ukraine and that Hyman may have witnessed his death. Until at least the late 1930s, Hyman had a photograph of his brother. However, it is fairly certain that this brother was an older half brother, brother of Basheva. Hyman did have a younger brother Shmul-Perets born in 1896 but he could not have been the person to whom the family stories refer. Nothing more is known about Shmul-Perets.
About 1887Jennie and Morris had their first child together: Chave (Eva). The family story has it that Morris David Spector was an “old” man, possibly as much as 30 years older than Jennie, and that he was a yeshiva bocher (scholar); see the next paragraph. According to this story Jennie was forced by her family to divorce her first husband when he obtained gainful employment as a lens maker and turned away from being a yeshiva bocher. The family legend also tells that Jennie died shortly after Hyman was born and that Morris died about that time as well. However, this is incorrect to the extent that it is known from census records that they had another child about two years after Hyman was born and they didn’t die until at least 1896. It is possible that these stories refer to the birth of Hyman’s younger brother Shmul-Perets.
In 2007 research into Jewish census records for Pavoloch discovered that Morris Daivd (Moishe Duvid) Spector was born in 1835. He was the son of Meier Spector (b.1818) and Rysia (b.1816), daughter of Itsko. Meier was the son of Kisil (1793-1842) and Khaya Ruchla (b.1794). Kisil was the son of Yudko who was born no later than about 1775. It is quite possible that Yudko had no surname since surnames weren’t adopted until about 1800. Morris David Spector had an older brother Itsko (1833), a younger brother Yankel (b.1838), two younger sisters, Braina (b.1846) and Malka (b.1848), and a much younger brother Yekusiel, known as Kisil (1867-1868). As we will see later on, some of these names definitively establish the relationships of Hyman to other contemporary Spector families in this country. Given that Kisil’s mother would have been about 52 when Kisil was born and the fact that there was a 20 year gap between Kisil and his next older sibling, it appears that Kisil was either a menopause baby or his mother was a second wife of Meier.
A note about names: it has been suggested that the name “Spector” comes from the Russian word “inspektor” which means the same in Russian as it does in English. There were committees of inspectors in the shtetlach that kept watch over the observance of Jewish customs and ritual. Thus it is plausible that the name “Spector” (“Spektor” in the Russian spelling) did come from the word for inspector. Indeed, the name “Spector” was not an uncommon surname in Eastern Europe around 1900. Various members of the Gerber family spelled their name “Garber” on the ships’ passenger manifests when they immigrated. Once in Chicago they changed the spelling to “Gerber.” Both spellings mean “tanner,” the first in Yiddish and the second in German. In addition, the Ukrainian word is “garbar.” Finally, the name "Ovsey" and the name "Ishia" are variants of the root name "Iisus” which is the transliterated Ashkenazic Hebrew name "Iegoyshia" from Exodus 17:9. Hyman used a phonetic transliteration of his name as "Ischia" early in his life in this country. Later he styled himself Hyman I. Spector.
What is known for
certain is that Pavoloch was in existence by the early 16th century
and in an area controlled by Lithuania until it came under Polish control in
1659 and then Russian control in 1793. There were only three Jews in Pavoloch
in 1683 but by 1886 there were 1,659 Jews. Three years after Hyman immigrated
in 1907 to America there were 3,686 Jews in Pavoloch and the surrounding
villages. It therefore seems unlikely that Hyman’s ancestors lived in Pavoloch
itself in the late 17th century. But whatever the origins of the Jewish
community into which Hyman was born, it had certainly been there for many, many
centuries in the Lithuanian/Polish/Russian area surrounding Pavoloch.
Jennie came from
the nearby shtetl of Brusilov, which was (and still is) less than 25 miles NNE
of Pavoloch. Jennie’s first daughter Civia married Jacob Gerber who was
Jennie’s nephew. That is, Civia married her first cousin. This is important in
understanding Hyman’s relationship to his family in later years. Jacob’s
father, Chaim (Jennie’s brother), was a tanner in Brusilov and Jacob’s
grandfather (Hyman’s maternal grandfather) was a tanner as well, according to
Jacob’s son Vulf (Bill) Gerber. About
1917-1918, Jennie’s brother Chaim (Hyman’s uncle) was attacked by three Cossack
soldiers. Jennie’s uncle, a big man who refused to run and take cover in the
fields when the attack was imminent, killed all three Cossacks. Unfortunately,
during the attack he was mortally wounded and bled to death the next day.
Chaim’s grandson Bill Gerber witnessed the scene of Chaim lying on the floor,
bleeding, surrounded by three dead Cossacks. In his 90s he could still recall
being lifted by his grandfather out of a vat of tanning fluid that he fell into
as a small child and he remembered the bodies piled in the barn in the winter
because it was too cold to dig graves in the earth. He could recall fleeing
through the forest and across the river into Romania when he, his mother, and
his two siblings fled from the Ukraine. Several hours of his memories of the
Ukraine and Chicago were recorded in January 2003 and then put on a CD by
Hyman’s son Richard. Bill Gerber died on May 10, 2006 in Huntington Beach,
California.
We know very
little about Hyman’s life in Pavoloch except that his earliest memory,
according to what he told his daughter Judy, was of hiding under a table when
the Cossacks were rampaging through Pavoloch. His sister Eva (“Chava”) was also
born Pavoloch. Kamenetz, probably Kamenetz-Podolsky about 175 miles WSW of
Pavoloch, is the town from which she emigrated to America in 1907. It is
unclear why she emigrated from there. Since it is accepted by family legend
that both Morris and Jennie died before the year that Eva and Hyman came to
America (1907), it is quite likely that the two children were young orphans taken
in by relatives or friends. Perhaps a family in Kamenetz took in Eva and a
different family took in Hyman in Pavoloch.
The year 1907 was
the peak year for immigration through Ellis Island. Among those immigrating was
Eva who arrived on January 29, 1907 aboard the Holland America line’s Potsdam
which sailed from Rotterdam on January 19, 1907. She was traveling alone and indicated that
she was going to her uncle, Abraham Goldman, a carpenter, living at 150 Spring Street
in New York. Abraham had a wife Lena and four children living with him in 1920
in Brooklyn. Efforts to determine how he was Eva’s uncle have only turned up
evidence that is unhelpful or puzzling.
At this time it has not been possible to make the connection. Eva was
definitely in Chicago by December 25, 1909, the day she married Max Silverman.
It is most likely that she went to Chicago shortly after arriving in New York.
It is known that
Eva had a cousin who immigrated to Chicago from Pavoloch in June 1905. This
cousin, also Hyman’s cousin, was Anna Feldman who later married Harry Gomberg.
Anna was almost exactly Eva’s age and eventually became Eva’s best friend. Anna
is known to have visited Hyman in St. Louis about 1924-1926 accompanied by her
two children, Betty and May, and to have kept in her family photo album Hyman’s
graduation picture from his junior college. Eva may have stayed with Anna when
she went to Chicago before Eva was married. There is evidence to be discussed
below that Hyman did indeed stay with the Feldmans when he first came to
Chicago. Anna and Hyman were young childhood friends (and relatives) in
Pavoloch and knew each other before they immigrated to Chicago.
For a number of
reasons, because she came from Pavoloch and because she was also related to
another branch of the Spector family, Anna was certainly a relative on Hyman’s
father’s side, in other words a Spector, rather than a Gerber relative on his
mother’s side. Anna was likely Hyman’s cousin but it is not known at this time
if the relationship was through Anna’s mother, Ida Reader Feldman, or her
father, Eli Feldman. Since Ida had very extensive family in Chicago and Eli did
not, it is possible that the relationship was through Ida. However, more
convincingly, it is also known that Anna was related to the Morris and Froma
Spector branch of the Spector family described below. Being related to two
different branches of the Spector family almost certainly means that the
relationship to these branches was through a female Spector ancestor of Anna’s.
The maiden name of Anna’s paternal grandmother (Eli’s mother) is not currently
known while the maiden name of Anna’s maternal grandmother (Ida’s mother) is
known and it is not Spector. If Eli’s mother was a Spector and a sister of
Morris David Spector, then Hyman and Eli were first cousins. If she was a
sister of Morris Spector (who married Froma and was the nephew of Morris David;
see below), then Eli and Hyman would have been second cousins. Any more distant
ancestral connection between the families would have made Hyman only remotely
related to Eli which doesn’t seem to be the case given Eli’s close relationship
to both Chicago Spector branches. Vague stories about having siblings in
Brooklyn and Canada have proved difficult to track. Finding a sibling of Eli
might enable the discovery of his mother’s name.
Hyman sailed to
New York on the Russian Volunteer Fleet’s Saratow (Saratov) which left Libau
(now Liepaja), Latvia on October 14, 1907, arriving in New York on October 31
or November 1, 1907 after a stop at Rotterdam on October 19, 1907. A picture of
this ship exists and can be obtained from the Steamship Historical Society of
America at the University of Baltimore in Baltimore. (The ship was built in
1895 for the Russian Volunteer Fleet by R. & W. Hawthorn, Leslie &
Company in Hebburn-on-Tyne in England. It was sold to Greek owners in 1920 and
renamed the Bernina. It was sold again to Egyptian owners in 1923, renamed the
Egypt, and scrapped in 1924.)
Hyman traveled
with a family, four children and their parents, Joss (Yos) and Ester Ruhkla (later
Joe and Rose or Rachel) Bassovsky, who also came from Pavoloch. (Three
Bassovsky children had each immigrated separately earlier.) Their final
destination was New York. Joss Bassovsky listed himself on the manifest as a
“joiner” (carpenter). Joss listed a Schiel Spector as his closest
friend/relative in Pavoloch. Who was Schiel? It was not Hyman’s paternal
grandfather who was named Meier and was most certainly dead by 1907.
However, it is
quite likely that Schiel was a distortion or variant of the given name of Yekusiel
Spector whose nickname was Kisil, especially since the name Schiel appears not
to be an identifiable name at all, neither Russian, Yiddish nor Hebrew. (It
must be remembered that information on a ship manifest was recorded by a
non-English speaking ship’s officer from the verbal information provided by the
immigrant who generally pronounced English poorly.) Yekusiel Spector, as
mentioned earlier, was Hyman’s uncle, being the youngest son of Meier Spector.
Kisil immigrated from Pavoloch with his wife and six of his seven children to
Philadelphia in 1913. A seventh child was born in Philadelphia. Yekustiel’s
children are now all dead but a large number of his descendants still survive,
in particular Israel (Sulie) Spector, a grandson who lives in Vancouver,
British Columbia, Canada. He is alive and well in December 2007 and I visited
him in April 2001 and May 2004. It is interesting to note that Kisil’s second
son was named Meier (his first son was named after his wife’s father) so we
find that the father/son combination of Kisil/Meier is found both as Hyman’s
great-grandfather and grandfather and as the grandfather and uncle of Sulie;
looked at another way, four generations of Sulie’s male line ancestors,
beginning with his great-great-grandfather and ending with his uncle were
named: Kisil, Meier, Kisil, Meier..
In October 2004 it
was established that Sulie Spector and Hyman’s son Richard had a perfect 12 for
12 y-chromosome marker DNA match meaning that, since they have the same surname
and had fathers from Pavoloch, there is essentially a 100% probability that
they share a common ancestor within the last 200 years. This is to be expected,
of course, since, as wasn’t discovered until 2007, Kisil was Hyman’s uncle,
both being sons of Meier Spector.
Why did Hyman travel
with the Bassovsky family? It is likely that Joss or Ester was related to him.
There were nine Bassovsky children and one of them, Jennie, traveled to America
with another Spector family arriving at Ellis Island on July 25, 1907, just a
few months before most of the rest of her family arrived with Hyman. On the
same ship with Jennie (the Moskwa, which had also sailed from Libau) were Risse
(Mollie) Spector and her five children. Mollie, her children, and Jennie
Bassovsky were headed to Chicago where Kiva Spector, the head of the family,
had immigrated about four years earlier through Canada. Jennie listed Kiva on
the ship manifest as her cousin so there is a link between the Bassovsky family
and the Kiva Spector family. The Kiva Spector family and the Bassovsky family
all came from Pavoloch. We know that Kiva Spector was related to Hyman (see
below) and, therefore, it is highly likely that Jennie, and hence either Joss
or Ester, was related to Hyman as well. This would make sense, as well, since
the Bassovksy family would have been unlikely to add Hyman to their group and
undertake the burden of bringing him to America unless he was a relative.
While the precise
link between Hyman and the Bassovsky family hasn’t yet been uncovered, a number
of obvious possibilities can be ruled out. However, there is just one obvious
possibility that cannot be ruled out and which makes sense. If Morris David
Spector, Hyman’s father, had a sister named Sarah and she was married to Ester
Bassovsky’s mother, then everything falls into place (we know Ester’s mother
was named Sarah). Ester would be the neice of Hyman’s father and Jennie would
be the first cousin of Kiva’s father. No other relationship connection between
the two families that can be conjectured consistent with the known evidence is
this simple. Moreover, it is interesting that Ester also had the named Ruchla
as did Meier’s grandmother.
In November 2007
two of Joss Bassovsky’s grandsons and many great grandchildren are alive and
well spread out between New York City and northern California. One branch of
the of the family had changed their surname to Bass sometime in the 1950s or
1960s and two living descendants are William Bass and his daughter Sherry.
Also alive at this
time in Winnetka, Illinois outside Chicago is Kenneth Spector, a grandson of Kiva
Spector. Kisil Spector, Joe and Ester Bassovsky and Kiva and Mollie Spector
(see the connection to Hyman spelled out below) have many, many descendants so,
assuming the Bassovsky family was part of Hyman’s family, Hyman’s descendants
have m of relatives living all over the United States and Canada. If the
relationship if through Ester Bassovsky’s mother, then there is also a
relationship to the descendants of her two sisters: Jennie Male Gerr, New York
City, and Eva Male Portman, Cleveland.
Hyman passed
through Ellis Island and arrived in Chicago on November 10, 1907. Why didn’t
Hyman stay with the Bassovsky family in New York? By 1910 Joe and Ester were living with four
of their numerous children, Ester’s sister, and her sister’s two children. It
is likely that their apartment must have just been much too crowded for them to
keep Hyman. Besides, Hyman had a sister and many other relatives in Chicago, as
we shall see.
Charlotte, Hyman’s
wife, told the story after he died that he lived with a very poor family when
he came to Chicago. She added that the family had a daughter of the right age
to marry Hyman (obviously in later years, as Hyman was only 13 when he arrived
in Chicago) and pleaded with him to marry her but he refused to do so. It is
known that from sometime after January 1916 and before January 1, 1920 he moved
into the home of Ida and Eli Feldman and their two younger children. By April 15, 1910 he was living with Eva and
her husband Max at 1100 S. Sangamon. So it seems quite likely that he and his
sister Eva lived with the Feldman family until Eva married on December 25, 1909
and Hyman moved in with Eva and Max in early 1910. Eli Feldman had immigrated
to Chicago about 1900 and the rest of the Feldman family immigrated in June
1905 so they were well settled in Chicago when Eva and Hyman arrived. It is
also known that the Feldman family in June 1905 lived on S. Sangamon. Since he
lived with the Feldmans later on (when Eva’s place became crowded with four
children) it is highly likely he lived with them from 1907 until 1910 when he
moved in with Eva. It is not plausible that he lived with strangers when close
relatives were available. What gives this story credibility is that the
Feldmans had a daughter, Ethel, who was two years younger than Hyman. She
married about 1917 at age 21 but in the few years before that she would have
been of the perfect age to marry Hyman. However, in an audio tape Charlotte
made in 1976 she said that she had met the woman once in Chicago and that the
woman never married. Whether Charlotte’s memory was correct or the woman really
was Ethel we may never know.
Another
possibility is that Hyman was living with his cousin Ida Aisuss and her husband
Sam. The Aisuss family and its close relationship to Hyman is discussed below.
Sam and Ida in 1910 probably lived at 714 S. Laflin where they had a grocery
store at least by September 1915. They had a daughter Anne who was born in
December 1901 so she was about 7 ½ years younger than Hyman. However, by the
time Hyman was in medical school she would have been old enough to marry him.
She did marry someone in February 1921 so, like Ethel Feldman, she does not meet
Charlotte’s description of a woman who never married.
That address at
1100 S. Sangamon is now part of extensive athletic fields at the University of
Illinois at Chicago. Assuming he had
been living on S. Sangamon with either family for a year or two he undoubtedly
attended the no longer existing Goodrich grade school at 915 W. Taylor (which
has also been replaced by the athletic fields) since it was less than two
blocks north of where he was living. He likely graduated grade school in 1909
and began high school in the fall.
By September 1912
he was living at 1456 Washburn and was in high school at Joseph Medill High
School, which survives as a red brick and stone building (not now used as a
high school) backing onto the southern side of the present day Joseph Medill
elementary school at 14th Place and Throop.
A large Spector family
in Chicago can now be exactly linked to Hyman. Morris David Spector’s brother
Itsko had a son named Morris Spector (b.1850) who was, therefore, Hyman’s first
cousin. Morris died in Pavoloch but his widow Froma immigrated to the United
States. One of her sons was Kiva Spector who immigrated on March 15, 1903 and
his wife and five of their six children on July 25, 1907. Kiva was the oldest
of five siblings, who were, in order of age, Chave Spector who had married
Issac Schwartz in Pavoloch, Louis Spector who had married Sophie Kubernick in
Pavoloch, Jacob Spector who married Anna Aerobuch in Chicago, and Dora Spector
who married Jacob Koob in Chicago. Chave died in Pavoloch but her husband and
six children immigrated to Chicago as did Louis and his family, Jacob, and
Dora.
The children of
some of these five Chicago Spector siblings were still alive in March 2002 and
remember Hyman as their parents’ cousin. Indeed, one of them, Dora Spector
Koob’s daughter Eve Koob Schwarz, remembers stories about Froma buying Hyman a
suit for $12 to use when he graduated medical school in 1922. Another family member thinks it was her
father Jacob who bought the suit. One of Jacob’s daughters, Evelyn Spector
Sugar, remembers Hyman visiting Dora in the hospital when she was dying in
1935. Evelyn remembers that she drove to St. Louis in January 1942 on the way
to Hot Springs, Arkansas for her honeymoon. Hyman invited her to dinner at the
house at 910 Buena Vista. She called Hyman because her father told her that he
had a cousin in St. Louis who was an important doctor. She remembered the
household as a warm, loving environment. The five Spector siblings had 23
children not all of whom lived to adulthood and had children, but many did, and
the number of descendants alive today is so far uncounted but very large.
Resuming the story
of Hyman’s life, in April 1913 Jacob Gerber came to Chicago. Jacob was both
Hyman’s brother-in-law, by virtue of being married to Civia, and Hyman’s first
cousin. Civia and her three children did not join Jacob until July 1922. At
some point Jacob became a partner with Max Silverman in a fruit store.
Meanwhile, Eva and Max were starting a family with the first child Jean born in
November 1910. (Jean later married Hyman Miller and has several children and
grandchildren who now live in Texas and the East Coast. She died on May 21,
2002.) There were five children in all, the last one, Morris (!), born in 1920
who died as a child of 8 in 1928. All of them are dead now. The four that lived
to adulthood married and had many children and grandchildren, who are now
spread from Virginia to Texas and perhaps even more extensively. The entire
time Hyman lived in Chicago he was surrounded by an ever-increasing group of
nephews and nieces as well as a sister, a brother-in-law, a first cousin, and
cousin Anna and her quite extensive Reader family, all the Spector cousins, and
the Bolasny/Aisuss cousins described below. Anna had seven Reader first cousins
in Chicago, among other relatives. (One
of Anna’s uncles, Velvel Vulf Reder, died in 1942 in the Holocaust at Babi Yar.
If Hyman’s relationship to Anna was through her mother, then Velvel Vulf was
also a relative of Hyman and his descendants.)
In the fall of
1913 Hyman entered Crane Junior College. The site, on Bell just north of Van
Buren, exists today as the location for Crane Technical High School, although
the current building dates from 1922. At the time Hyman attended, the junior
college shared the building with the high school and was part of the Chicago
Public Schools system. Crane Junior College was the first junior college in
Chicago and one of the first in the country. Opened in 1911 and accredited in
1917, it was the result of an aggressive public campaign by John Dewey, Jane
Addams, the founder of Hull House, and other prominent people. They wanted an
institution that would provide affordable higher education for the poor and the
new immigrants that were flooding into Chicago. Had it not existed Hyman might
not have been able to pursue his dream of becoming a doctor. Although Crane has
had a turbulent history, including several closings, it has persisted to the
present day. It became Malcolm X College in 1969 a few years after the City
Colleges of Chicago system became independent of the Chicago Public Schools
system in 1966. Its physical plant is currently located several blocks to the east
of the original site.
By September 18,
1915 Hyman was living by himself or perhaps with a relative at 1456 Spruce
Street, which is now named W. Lexington. It is a short street running between
S. Laflin and S. Loomis just south of Roosevelt. Just a few doors away Max and
Eva lived at 714 S. Laflin. By this date he was using the name Hyman rather
than Chaim. After graduating Crane Junior College in 1915, he went to work and
moved into his own apartment. The earliest known photograph of Hyman is what
appears to be his graduation picture from Crane. Eva and Max had just had their
third child in 1914 and their apartment must have been getting cramped. Hyman
was now just 21 and wanted to go to medical school. It is likely he went to
work for a year to earn enough to get his own place to live and put aside some
money for medical school.
On January 13,
1916 Hyman became an American citizen, expressly foreswearing allegiance to
Nicholas II, Emperor of all the Russias. His witnesses on his September 18,
1915 petition for citizenship were his brother-in-law Max Silverman, who at the
time was a presser in a clothes factory (a common occupation then), and Louis
Aisuss who listed himself as a cigar maker.
As was mentioned above, later Max Silverman ran a small fruit store.
Sometime after June 5, 1917 (the date on Hyman’s World War I draft registration
card) and before January 1, 1920 Hyman moved in with the Feldman family.
Louis Aisuss was
Hyman’s cousin through Hyman’s mother’s Gerber family in a manner now lost.
Louis, who died on May 28, 1973, was the son of Malka Bolasny and Meir Giligich
but for some reason, apparently to aid him in immigrating, he adopted the
surname of Malka’s first husband, Aaron Aisuss. The Bolasny and Aisuss famlies
were interrelated since a number of cousins married each other. Indeed, Louis’
wife, Rose Bolasny (later Block), was likely his cousin. The Bolasny family was
very large with one branch coming from Brusilov where Hyman’s mother came from.
The other branch was from Radomyshl which is about 20 miles north of Brusilov.
One of the Radomyshl Bolasny members was Ida Bolsany Aisuss (Ida married Sam
Aisuss, one of Aaron’s sons). Mary, the youngest daughter of Sam and Ida, was
born in 1911 and was alive and well in August 2005 in Chicago and she remembers
Hyman from her youth.
Mary remembers
that her mother Ida used to make sandwiches for Hyman when he was in medical
school. Mary, who was living at her mother’s grocery store at 714 S. Laflin
(Sam committed suicide in 1915), remembers Hyman bringing in mice to experiment
on in the basement. Mary, being a youngster, was mad at Hyman for bringing his
mice into the house but Ida was quite supportive of Hyman’s studying the mice.
Also living there at that time was Hyman’s cousin and brother-in-law Jacob
Gerber who was living with Ida (his childhood sweetheart to whom he had been
engaged but never married). Hyman’s sister Eva was furious with Jacob over the
affair he was having with Ida which caused a permanent split among between Eva
and Ida and Jacob. Eva even wrote a letter to her half-sister Civia and told
her she had better come to Chicago as soon as possible. Mary remembers the
large, warm, close and supportive family that surrounded Hyman during his
school years.
The Bolasny family
is very large with branches in Canada, the east coast of the United States from
New England to Florida, Chicago, and Melbourne, Australia. Although the
connection between the Gerber and Bolasny families is now lost, perhaps
forever, Hyman’s descendants have distant Bolasny cousins all over the world.
The areas that
Hyman lived in, especially when he lived at 1100 S. Sangamon, were part of the
historic Maxwell Street area. This was a
district teeming with tens of thousands of Eastern European Jewish immigrants.
Its bustle, noise, crowded conditions, poverty, lack of sanitation, and street
carts resembled in every way the famous Lower East Side of New York at the end
of the 19th century. Maxwell Street peaked in about 1905-1910 after
which the Jewish community began to move further to the west. However, it
continued in existence, although in much altered form, into the 1960s even as
other ethnic groups moved in. However, the building of the Dan Ryan Expressway
split the area in half essentially killing it. As late as the 1970s there were
still vestigial remains of what had been the Maxwell Street area. But slowly
the parts that were not taken over and demolished by UIC in 1994 were reduced
to abandoned buildings and boarded up storefronts. As late at early 2000 one
block of these still existed, although it is impossible to see what Maxwell
Street was like 100 years ago.
When Hyman
graduated from high school in 1913 he was nearly 19 years old, about a year
older than his classmates. This was a very common situation with immigrant Jews
from Eastern Europe in that era because of their lack of secular western
education and severe language problems. Many were more than a year older than
their classmates. Most of these immigrants dropped out of school early. Few
finished high school and fewer still went on to a college education as Hyman
did. An extraordinarily small percentage went on even further to professional
schools of law or medicine. We can only be awed by Hyman’s tenacity, ambition,
drive, and ability to do what most other immigrant families accomplished only
in their first or second generation of Americans. We do know that he worked
part time earning money as a cigar worker, but he must have had substantial
financial and emotional support from his sister and her husband.
An interesting
conjecture is that Anna Gomberg’s husband Harry who was a doctor may have
influenced and encouraged Hyman to go to medical school. Hyman lived for many
of his school years with Eva who was best friends with Anna. Because of this relationship
Hyman must have been exposed to Harry’s presence quite frequently. Perhaps he
was instrumental in causing Hyman to set his goals so high as to go to medical
school which would have been quite ambitious for a young orphan immigrant.
Despite a search,
no grade school, high school, or junior college records of Hyman’s days in the
Chicago public schools have yet been found.
In June of 1916
Hyman entered the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine. In
those days only two years of higher education were required before entering
medical school. At that time the campus was not at its present location but
somewhat to the west between Paulina and Ashland where the present day Rush
Presbyterian St. Lukes medical campus stands. The normal program was four years
of classroom work and one year of in-hospital experience. However, for reasons
not known today, Hyman was admitted as a special student who, it appears, was
required to spend six years to get his medical degree. The reason may have been
that he graduated from an unaccredited junior college. The only thing we know about his medical
student days is that he was a member of the Student Army Training Corps. While
his obituary says that he served in the military and received an honorable
discharge, Hyman listed himself on the 1930 census as never having served in
the military.
On June 5, 1917
Hyman filled out his mandatory World War I draft registration card indicating
he was a medical student. On the line asking if he claimed exemption from the
draft he specified that he wanted to complete his (medical) training and that
he had “heart trouble.”
By January 1, 1920
he was living with the Feldman family at 1549 S. Kedzie just west of Douglas
Park. The street is quite rundown now and that precise address is an empty lot.
However, at the time it was in an up and coming Jewish district that was, if
not fashionable, at least respectable. He most likely rode the streetcar to
medical school, as it was a bit far to walk. By this time Max and Eva and their
five children had moved somewhat to the north and lived at 2720 Thomas Street,
just southeast of Humboldt Park. Jean still had memories of Hyman’s medical
instruments lying around her apartment as she was growing up.
In 1921 Hyman and
three of his classmates went to the St. Louis City Hospital to do their final
year of hospital internship. Most of his classmates went to Chicago area
hospitals but, according to his daughter Judy, he was unable to get a position
in Chicago because of being Jewish and an immigrant. He formally obtained his
medical degree on July 1, 1922 in Chicago but he lived the rest of his life in
St. Louis after moving there in 1921.
Not long before
Hyman moved to St. Louis his half sister Civia tried to immigrate to Chicago
with her three children, Joe, Jennie (named for Civia’s and Hyman’s mother),
and Bill. However, for reasons that are now unclear, Civia’s immigration was
not permitted and she and the children returned to Paris where they lived for
about two years until they were finally able to immigrate on July 22, 1922 to
rejoin Jacob who had been in Chicago for nine years. It is known that in about
1918 Civia was living in Bucharest, Romania with the children and there is a
picture of her from that time taken with her daughter Jennie. It is not known
why she was there but it was wartime and she may have gotten stuck there after
fleeing the Ukraine. She was in her very early 30s when the picture was taken
and she was strikingly beautiful, unlike her half sister Eva who was quite
short, about 5 feet, and pudgy. Jennie died on August 7, 2001 near Los Angeles
where she had been living in a nursing home for some time. Joe eventually moved
to Detroit and died there in 1990 although his grandchildren still live there.
His daughter Renee Weinenger lives in Tucson, Arizona.
After his year of
internship Hyman moved to Robert Koch Hospital where he became a resident,
chief resident, and then superintendent from 1923 to 1925. Koch Hospital was
the municipal tuberculosis sanatorium at that time and was located at an
isolated location on the edges of St. Louis. He probably got the position of
superintendent only a year out of medical school because no one else wanted the
job. However, he turned this position into a launching platform for an
impressive medical career. Initially he lived in the housing provided by the
hospital for physicians. There is a picture of him in those days standing in
front of the very southern looking white board residence building. At some
point before he married in 1927 he lived at 3701 Lindell Boulevard.
Tuberculosis was a
widespread disease in the 1920s and for several decades thereafter. We cannot
imagine today the attention it received in the press, from political office
holders, and from the medical community. Although Hyman represented himself as
an internist he specialized early in diseases of the lung, especially
tuberculosis, and that brought him to local and, ultimately, national
prominence as a chest physician. In 1925 he became Tuberculosis Controller of
St. Louis but resigned after one year due to political infighting involving
health matters among the Democrats and Republicans on the city council.
In 1932 Hyman
again was appointed Tuberculosis Controller of St. Louis, a position he
retained until he was appointed Assistant Health Commissioner of St. Louis on
June 15, 1934. He was also chief of the medical section of the St. Louis Health
Department. He retained these positions until 1943. During the period from 1934
to 1943 Hyman was a well-known public figure and was mentioned in over 55
articles in the St. Louis newspapers. His wife Charlotte clipped these articles
and put them into a scrapbook. The originals still exist. They show how
tirelessly he worked to improve hospital conditions and hospital availability
for the poor and, especially, the blacks who were in those days forced to use a
separate hospital. They also show that the newspapers often sought him out on
medical matters involving lung diseases.
In addition to his
public duties, Hyman ran a private medical practice, which he started about
1926, and about 1928 he became affiliated with the medical school of St. Louis
University. He rose to Associate Professor of Internal Medicine in 1944 and was
chief of the Chest Division. He was a prolific writer and published over 30
papers between 1935 and 1945, half of them on diseases other than tuberculosis.
Moreover, he devoted time to the American College of Chest Physicians holding
the office of Regent from 1945 until he died and serving as chairman of the
Board of Examiners. He was vice president of the St. Louis Tuberculosis Society
and a member of the Executive Committee of the National Tuberculosis
Association. He also served on many committees of the organizations to which he
belonged.
Hyman was Chairman
of the Committee of Industrial Health for the Missouri State Medical
Association from 1944 until 1946 and was instrumental in formulating a
comprehensive program for safeguarding the health of industrial workers. Hyman
considered this to be one of his finest pieces of work.
Hyman also kept in
close contact with his family in Chicago, certainly his mother’s Gerber family
and probably his Spector family. One of Anna Gomberg’s daughers remembers that
there was something of a falling out with the Feldman/Gomberg family so Hyman
may not have stayed in touch with them. He traveled to Chicago, sometimes with
his wife, to visit with them and they traveled to St. Louis to visit him. Eva’s daughter Jean remembered the trips she
took to St. Louis. So did Bill Gerber, Civia’s youngest son. Anna Feldman
Gomberg’s two children May and Betty in 2001 still remembered the trip they
took with their mother in about 1924-1926 to visit Hyman. Betty remembers him as being very kind and
sweet to her during the visit (she was about seven years old) and that he lived
in a house with a maid (likely provided by the hospital). We know he visited
his cousin Dora Spector Koob in about 1935 when she was dying in the hospital
in Chicago. We also know that when Hyman’s half sister Civia was in the
hospital dying of cancer in August 1941 Hyman went to Chicago to be her
attending physician and to do what he could for her.
Years later,
Hyman’s niece Mildred Braus (a daughter of Eva and Max Silverman) named her son
Harvey after Hyman. In addition, Renee Weinenger, the daughter of Hyman’s
nephew Joseph Gerber, named her younger son Harold after Hyman. On March 13,
2005 Hyman’s great granddaughter, Tenley Hope Tuschman who is the daughter of
Jennifer Spector Tuschman (Richard Spector’s third daughter), was named Chaya
after both Hyman and Jennifer’s
husband’s maternal grandfather.
On August 9, 1937
Hyman left for a month’s trip to Europe. The reason for the trip is not clear
although he visited with many doctors on the trip and went to a number of
hospitals and laboratories. Yet he also did an extensive amount of sightseeing.
Charlotte could not go because she was pregnant with Richard. A copy of Hyman’s
diary in his own hand still exists. He
sailed from New York on the Queen Mary (“Marie”) and shared a cabin with two
others. In an unintentionally amusing comment he writes “as compared with 30
years ago ocean travel has certainly changed.” He was, of course, referring to
his immigration to American 30 years earlier on the Saratow at age 13,
undoubtedly traveling in steerage! The comment does strongly suggest that his
1937 trip was his first trip back to Europe since he came to America in 1907.
He stayed at the Park Lane Hotel in London but did not care for it. He
complained about the high prices and the “rotten” coffee. While in London he
went to Windsor Castle, the “London Art Gallery,” and the Tower of London, which
was his favorite. He complained about the lack of nightlife. He took the cross
channel ferry from Dover to Ostend and then went by train to Germany. Seeing
all the uniformed soldiers in Germany he wrote that “one gets the impression
that we are in a militaristic country.” He spent the night in a German hotel
and wrote that he “felt unsafe in this Hotel—was unable to sleep whole night.”
On the train trip to Vienna he again commented on seeing German soldiers in
uniforms of all descriptions everywhere. In Vienna he saw Schoenbrunn Castle
which he liked better than Versailles which he visited later on the trip.
He heard from a
doctor in Vienna that the Jewish professors were being let go and he wondered
if it was the “Hitler influence.” In Venice he complained about the mosquitoes
and smell but enjoyed the works of Titian and Tintoretto. He also went to the
beach at the Lido. He went on to
Florence and admired the statues of Michelangelo and Titian. In Genoa he especially
liked the cemetery since “people of all religions are buried in the same
cemetery.” He noted that “the Tower of Pisa …is crooked.” Was he expressing
droll humor or making an unintentionally humorous comment? His daughter said he
had no sense of humor and it is unlikely to be a droll comment. Her view
accords with the memories of Hyman that other people had. He did a tour of the nightclubs in Paris but
complained that they were no better than the ones in Chicago or New York. He
set sail for America on September 9, 1937 on the Vulcania from Lisbon, Portugal
and noted that on the ship he met an opera star from La Scala. He docked in New
York on September 16, 1937. He carried
Passport No. 463209 issued at Washington, D.C. on July 10, 1937; exactly 28
years to the day before his grandchild Jacquie Spector would be would born.
All those in St.
Louis, California, and Chicago who remember Hyman describe him as a sweet,
soft, gentle, kind man, serious and quiet. He loved to read and greatly loved
the opera and almost never used a swear word. He had an accent (Yiddish being
his native tongue) and it bothered him that he couldn’t pronounce certain words
correctly. His daughter described him as “urgent,” meaning he was driven to get
on with making a success of his career and his life. She says that only once
did she ever see him burst out in laughter. It happened when a pony she was
riding stopped dead in its tracks and decided to urinate. Charlotte called him
“the kindest man who ever lived.” Charlotte told the story of how he once went
to attend an ill, poor woman at her home who had to be sent to the hospital.
Hyman babysat with her children until her husband could get home from work.
Many stories tell of his gentle, kind way with his family and his patients.
Typical of Hyman is what he did in 1946 when he knew he was dying. He had a
trip to San Francisco scheduled where he was to deliver a paper at a medical
convention. Despite the fact that he was ill and knew he was dying he went to
California early, taking his son Gene with him, and went to Venice, near Los Angeles, so they
could visit with his nephew Bill who had moved there a few years before.
He collapsed in
San Francisco and was taken to the hospital. Charlotte came out to be with him.
He wished to die at home so, accompanied by his son Gene and his wife, Hyman
boarded the train for St. Louis. On July 6, 1946 he died of myocarditis aboard
the Union Pacific train in Laramie, Wyoming. He was buried in New Mount Sinai
Cemetery in St. Louis on July 10, 1946. In remembrance his name has been placed
on the Ellis Island Wall of Honor on plaque 565.
Thirty-one years
later Charlotte in describing his funeral said, “The most ardent, the most
devout mourners, the people who cried the most were the raggedy, the poor, the
deformed, the sick who came from his clinics and wept. They had lost a friend.”
How did this frightened but determined little orphan from the shtetl of Pavoloch rise to become an eminent leader of his profession and such a respected, kind, and gracious man? How did he defeat innumerable obstacles to accomplish what he could have only dreamed of as a little boy? Indeed, how did he even form the dreams that drove him all his life? And, finally, how are all the intertwining Pavoloch families related? These are the most interesting questions, but sadly we will never know the answers.