Jacob Yankel David Sadovnick (Sadoff)

Jacob was born in Klishkivtsi, Bessarabia in 1904 to Hersh Zvi Sadovnick and Frieda Krohn. Jacob had two sisters — Chaika and Pauline. Jacob, his sisters, and their mother began their journey to America from Chotin Bessarabia (now Ukraine) in 1920 using a Romanian passport. The quartet traveled through Italy and Yugoslavia, eventually boarding a ship at the port of Boulogne-sur-Mer in Northern France. Arriving at New York City's Ellis Island, they then traveled to Philadelphia, where their father, Hersh Zvi, was living. Their father had preceded them to America where he had saved enough money in the Immigrants Bank to pay for their passage.

Jacob was fifteen when he arrived in America. He attended and completed high school in Philadelphia. Some time later, the family moved to Brooklyn, New York.

Jacob worked in the garment industry as a cutter, designer, and pattern maker. He was a member of the International Ladies' Garment Workers Union. Jacob opened his own dress factory in Miami, Florida. In 1940, he was a delegate to the Democratic Convention.

Jacob was married five times, for a total of sixty-four years. He had three children — Milton, Rose, and Harriet — with his first wife, Helen, who died after thirty-four years of marriage. He has eleven grandchildren and ten great-grandchildren. Jacob retired at the age of seventy-seven; he passed away at the age of ninety in Atlanta, Georgia and is buried there.

The following letters were written by Jacob to his daughter, Harriet Belfer Sadoff Kasow. The letters, in which Jacob describes his life in Bessarabia during the period from 1914 to 1920, were sent to his daughter intermittently over a number of years.

– Harriet Belfer Sadoff Kasow

Below is a slideshow album consisting of the letters that Jacob sent to his family describing his life in Bessarabia. The letters are handwritten; the penmanship is challenging. A typewritten version is coordinated with the letters' captions and can be read here.

Click the following photo to begin the slideshow.
Then click the arrows to manually cycle through the images.

To enlarge an image of a letter's page, place mouse pointer over the image and click.
To return to the slideshow to continue viewing the images, close the tab at the top of the enlarged image window by clicking the "X".