(continued from the overview)

The Demb/Gruber Family in Mervits

Clara recalls that her grandmother, Rivkah, was "an only child of wealthy parents." Rivkah's father, Moshe Gruber, "owned a brass and copper foundry, employing about two hundred laborers." The size of the foundry appears to be exaggerated in Clara's memory since she left Mlynov when she was about seven-years-old and there is at least one external source that mentions an iron-casting shop in Mlynov employing 60 people in 1903–1904.^[8]

This Rivkah Gruber and her father Moshe appear to be the "Rivka" and "Moshko-Leib" Gruber who are listed in the smaller of two Gruber households in the 1850 and 1858 censuses from Mlynov. These censuses (or "revison lists" as they were called in Russian) show a small household of five individuals who have been living in Mlynov since at least 1830 and may have been there when Mlynov became part of Russia in 1793. In the 1858 record, Moshko-Leib is head of household, age 34, with an implied birth year of 1824. His father's name was Srul-Noah (i.e., Israel Noah). Moshko is married to a woman named Surah, age 32. Rivka is 16 in 1858, not yet married, with an implied birth year of 1842. According to this census, Rivka had two siblings: a sister, Molka-Roislya, age 4, and a brother Mordko, who had died in 1855 at the age of 9.

Patriarch and Matriarch Israel Jacob and Rivkah (Gruber) Demb. Photo courtesy of Ted Fishman.

The Nine Demb Children. Courtesy of Demb descendants: Tamara Kirson, Carol Engelman, Barry Laken, Marvin Demb.

Israel Jacob Demb and Rivkah became the patriarch and matriach of the Demb family and had nine children: Six of the nine immigrated to Baltimore between 1909-1921. By 1930, there were thirty Demb descendants living in Baltimore.

The Demb children who migrated were: Pesse Demb (later Bessie Hurwitz) (1864–1939) and her husband David (Rivitz) Hurwitz (1867–) and five children, Pearl Malka Demb and her husband Tsodik Shulman (1863–1947) and five of their seven children and their families,Yenta Demb (1870–1962) and her husband Chaim (Hyman) Schwartz (1865–1933) and three sons (Benjamin, Norton and Paul), Motel Demb (Max Deming) (1871–1929) and his wife Freida Korusnia (1881–1966) and one of their children, and Aaron Demb (1876–1970) and his wife and two sons.

The Sherman household #3 in the 1850 Mervits revision.

Simha (Demb) Gruber (1864–1913) remained in Europe and apparently remarried. Family oral tradition speculates that he was given his mother's maiden name of Gruber instead of Demb to avoid conscription in the Russian military. The three children from Simha's first wife, Chava, all immigrated to Baltimore. They were Malka (Mollie Gruber) Herman, Nathan Gruber and Samuel Gruber. According to oral traditions from the Herman family, Malka (Mollie) Gruber, the eldest daughter of Simha Gruber:

left home when, after her mother died when she was 13, her father married his second wife, Chaindel. Mollie did not get along with her stepmother. It is unknown whether there were children by the second marriage [ed note: a photo from the Gruber clan suggests there might have been]. Mollie went to Berdichev where she worked in a dress factory sewing sequins onto dresses. She later was back in Mlynov and married Israel Herman (see Herman family below) and they had their first child there.

We don't know much about other two Demb children who are remembered in family trees only. One, Edle, died young, in a possible drowning, and there is no family information about another daughter beyond the name of Hannah.

I recently discovered and connected with descendants of another Gruber family in Mlynov and Mervits who were Shoah survivors and are living in Israel. Rachel and Sonia Gruber were daughters of Yosef Gruber and Shifra Teitelman. Their grandfather was Mordechai Gruber. Both of them became part of the Teitelman family through marriage. It is not known how this Gruber line was related to Moshe Gruber from whom the Demb line descended.

You can purchase a printed copy of The Demb Family Journey from Mlynov to Baltimore from JewishGen or Amazon or download an earlier version of the full length digital version.

Compiled by Howard I. Schwartz
Updated: July 2024
Copyright © 2024 Howard I. Schwartz, PhD
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