| Joel
Levinson family
history "Memories of
Europe" |
courtesy
of Joel
Levinson
|
An
interview with Joel's
grandmother and her sister
talking about their memories of
life in Europe prior to 1904.
The family came from several
smaller towns that were near
Dunilovichi. They lived on
a farm that was on an estate
that belonged to a Polish count
named Shizdevski, very near
Varapareva. It was about
20 miles from Dunilovichi, and
the family went there on market
days.
|
| The Family
of Chaim Yoshe Schneider and
Itte Ceplowitz |
courtesy
of Linda Wilson,
re-told by Helen Kessler Gresky |
An
interview with Rose Schneider,
daughter of Chaim Yoshe
Schneider (1849-1891) and Itte
Ceplowitz Schneider (1847-1921)
at re-told by her daughter Helen
Kessler Gresky. The story
recalls their life in
Dunilovichi from their marriage
in 1862 through the immigration
of five of their daughters to
the United States.
Family names
include Schneider, Ceplowitz and
Reichel.
|
| The Family of
Pesach Mordechai Raichel |
courtesy of
Susan Weinberg |
The
history of the Raichel, Zinger
and Kodish families from
Dunilovichi as told by Susan
Weinberg. On a recent visit to
Dunilovichi, Susan found the
tombstone of her great-great
grandfather Pesach Mordechai. In
this narrative she traces his
descendants from Dunilovichi to
the United States and Great
Britain linking cemetery records
and immigration records to
reconstruct family
relationships.
|
THE
FAMILY CHAIM
YOSHE AND ITTE SCHNEIDER
Recollections
of Rose Schneider daughter of Chaim
Yoshe Schneider & Itte Ceplowicz
Retold
by Helen Kessler Gresky, daughter of
Rose Schneider
Our
family history begins in Danilowicz,
Lithuania,
twenty kilometers from Vilna, with Chaim
Yoshe Schneider who was thirteen when he
married Itte Ceplowicz, sixteen. He was
sometimes delayed getting home from shul
because he hung around with his friends
there. Chaim
Yoshe had at least one brother who we
know was the father of Barney Schneider.
We
know that Itte (Edith) was a blond and
an only daughter. She
had several brothers, described to me as
tall men who came into Danilovitz
occasionally. Edith
also remembered a little brother of
five, who was picked up and carried away
by one of the tsar’s soldiers who came
through town on horseback.
This was a fairly common
occurrence when a soldier needed a boy
to shine his boots or to take care of
other chores. Sometimes these boys
remembered where they came from and
returned later on to help out their
families. This
little brother never returned. Another of
Edith’s brothers was Itzhak Pesach
Ceplowicz, father of Etta, who later
married Nathan Metz.
Their children were Morris,
Henry,Rose and Eleanor.
To
pick up on their life together, Chaim
Yoshe and Edith Schneider lived in a
house with a dirt floor and something of
a front porch. There
was also a smaller house at the back of
the property. Chaim
Yoshe was a glazier and a carpenter, and
Edith ran a bakery and inn. We could
hardly call it an inn, except that
sometimes a peasant would come in with a
fish that he had caught and Edith would
prepare the fish for him.
He might sleep overnight on the
floor if he was too drunk or if it was
too late for him to get back home.
Should
anyone
want
to
try to find Danilovitz, there were many
towns with that name.
This particular one was almost
completely surrounded by water, probably
of a lake or river. We know that the
water was badly polluted because a
Russian scientist once tested the water. He said this
was the reason for all the bad teeth he
saw. All
the children learned to swim, however. My mother did
a dog paddle.
Chaim
Yoshe
and
Edith
served liquor illegally, so eventually
Chaim Yoshe had to spend a year in
jail. Edith
brought him kosher meals, but there were
rough characters, also incarcerated, who
took the food from him.
He became ill as a result. When he was
taken to Vilna to see a real doctor,
(they had only the local “felsher” in
Danilovitz) he was diagnosed as having
“TB of the throat” – more likely cancer. Edith went on
serving liquor and she too went to jail.
She had very good relations with the
locals, so she sat all day and did her
knitting, and the jailer let her go home
to take care of her family at meal
times. The
non-Jewish peasants would also warn her
of impending pogroms so she could close
the shutters and keep the family out of
sight.
Edith
and
Chaim
Yoshe
had thirteen children, two sets of twins
among them. Only
seven of the thirteen reached adulthood.
Chaim Yankel was the first born and the
only son to survive.Chyenke (Hannah),
who married Louis Reichel, was the first
to marry. Chaim
Yoshe was already ill, but Hannah had
friends who came of more prosperous
families, so she had a trousseau, a
dowry and a wedding.
Chaim Yankel was engaged at the
time of his father’s death, in 1891, and
his marriage was postponed. His
father had always promised that when
Chaim Yankel married, he would have to
live in the little house at the back of
the property, but Chaim Yoshe was gone
by the time that marriage took place, so
Chaim Yankel and Neshke Gitlitz moved
into the large house and life changed
for the girls. The
usual in-law problems developed and were
a factor in the girls beginning to
emigrate to America.
A
gypsy had taken Edith’s hand when she
was a youngster, and she predicted that
Edith would be a young widow. Although she
had had thirteen children, she was not
an old lady when Chaim Yoshe died. At the time
that these seven children were growing
up, girls in small towns usually got no
education, but Edith wanted to be sure
that her girls would be able to write to
her if they left home.
They were taught to read and
write Yiddish. Chaim
Yankel, of course, had gone to Cheder.
The
first of Edith’s children to come to the
United States
were Anna and Nechameh.
They came together; both went to
school and learned English. (Author’s
note: later, we inherited books that
proved that either one or both had gone
to high school.)
Anna, especially, became
interested in trade unions, communism,
anarchism, and “free love”. They both went
to lectures of Emma Goldman, Alexander
Berkman etc. Anna
was way ahead of her time; she “shacked
up” with a married man who much have
been a Union organizer because after
living with him in New
York, she went with him to
Chicago.
The
two, Anna and Nechameh, lived on the
lower East Side of Manhattan and worked
I sweat shops – hence, their interest in
unions. Nechameh
was very much impressed with the “heroic
deeds” of some of the other lecturers
who had left Russia
in fear for their lives because of their
revolutionary ideas.
The factories where the girls
worked would slow down at various
seasons of the year, “slack seasons”,
and few jobs were available. One year when
Anna got a job and Nechameh didn’t,
Nechameh became depressed and committed
suicide. She
drank carbolic acid.
I think I remember my mother
saying she left a note saying that she
didn’t want to live if she couldn’t do
something heroic with her life.
Rose
(Ruchel Leah) was the net to come to the
states. She
took some English courses, started going
to lectures with Anna, and worked in a
shirtwaist factory. (They were both
lucky not to have worked in the Triangle
Factory. The
fire there in 1912 resulted in the first
fire safety regulations).
Rose wouldn’t work on “shabbos”
at first, but she wanted to go along
with Anna to the lectures, so she soon
forgot her religious scruples, worked on
Saturday, and was able to go along with
Anna and her friends.
After five years, in 1906, Rose
went back to Danilovitz to see her
mother. The
Russo-Japanese War started while she was
there, and during the year that she
spent there, she realized that she
preferred life in America. She returned
in 1907 and continued working in a
shirtwaist factory until her marriage in
1912 to Morris Kessler, introduced to
her by her sister Ida Gitlitz.
I
don’t know when Ida and Louis Gitlitz
(brother of Chaim Yankel’s wife, Neshke)
came to this country.
My earliest recollections of them
are of the Bronx. My parents,
Rose and Morris Kessler, had settled
there immediately after their marriage
and the Gitlitzes lived a few blocks
away, near Bronx Park.
Their
children, Herman and Eleanor, were
several years older than we, so Ida was
able to help my mother occasionally. (My mother had
given birth to four children within a
five and a half year period; the first
was stillborn.) My
mother and Aunt Ida were as close as
sisters could be. Ida
would back and bring us challahs and
cakes. Eleanor
babysat for us and Norma (Helen’s
sister) stayed at Aunt Ida’s house when
I had chicken pox.
We
finally come to the family that was the
last to leave Danilovitz, Hannah and
Louis Reichel’s family of seven. Louis was a
carpenter, and he and Hannah and their
brood had lived on a large estate
outside of Danilovitz – probably owned
by a Russian noble.
Louis ran a mill and did all the
maintenance work. They
had vegetable gardens, a lake or pond
with freshwater fish, and plenty of
living space for the children. Occasionally,
one of Hannah’s sisters would come out
for a few days to help out with the
children. Unfortunately,
a law was passed that forced the Reichel
family out of their pleasant existence. The law
forbade Jews from living on these
Russian estates. In
any case, the family moved into
Danilovitz, surely into more crowded
quarters, and Louis couldn’t make a
living. Grandma
Edith would press a few kopecks into
Sam’s had, so that he wouldn’t pick up
anything form the stands without paying
for it.
Louis
Reichel
left
first,
with Sam and Ida. They probably came to
the east side of Manhattan,
but by the time Hannah came with the
other five children, it was to Brownsville, Brooklyn, to a
cold water flat with a wood-burning
stove. Louis
had gotten a job as a janitor in the
building. They
weren’t called supers yet in those days. The tiled
hallways and stairways had to be swept
and washed, and the girls dragged pails
of water, with aching backs, as they
helped out. Sam
and David were pleasant looking, but the
girls were beautiful, smart and
hard-working…successful in all they did.
Aunt
Anna Schneider, although busy and
distracted, was there for them with
advice about schooling, always
encouraging. They
all looked up to her and loved her. Unfortunately,
she became ill with cancer. I think a Dr.
Berg performed some kind of surgery at a
Manhattan
hospital. When
she returned from Chicago
and went to see Dr. Berg, he could do
nothing for her. She
died in the hospital of some kind of
gynecological cancer in the spring of
1916.
Now
that we’ve brought the Reichels to the
States, who was left in Danilovitz? Chaim Yankel
and Neshke with their two children, and
Esther, her husband, and their three
children. The
fourth child, Celia, had come here. She married
Harry Ehrlich probably in 1917 and five
days after giving birth to Charlie in
1918, died in the flue epidemic. When the
famine and epidemics hit Danilovitz
during and after WWI, Chaim Yankel,
Neshke and Esther all died. The sisters
here began planning to send Sam Reichel
to bring Edith here, but she died,
blind, before the plans could be carried
out.
My
mother corresponded with her nieces for
a number of years, but that petered out
during the early 20’s.
Most immigrants from the various
little towns formed fraternal societies
here; they were especially important for
those who had left large families
behind. The
Danilovitzer were no exception, and they
periodically gave “balls”.
Everyone shined up and showed off
their children. The
Metz
children attended these affairs also,
and I’m sure we were there at the same
time.
Danilovitz
may
still
be
there. My
mother followed all the reports, in the
Jewish Daily Forward, of Hitler’s
atrocities and learned that Hitler’s
troops had come through Danilovitz. They did this
in many towns; they herded all the Jews
into the synagogue and torched it. Some may have
escaped; we don’t know if Chaim Yankel’s
children had remained in Danilovitz and
we don’t know Esther Schneider’s family
name.
Return to family histories
THE
FAMILY OF PESACH MORDECHAI
RAICHEL
as
told by his great-great
granddaughter Susan Weinberg
In 1904 my
great-grandfather, Schloime Raichel
(1860-1932), was the first family
member to immigrate to the United States.
He went to stay with his nephew
Mendel Brach (?) on Belmont
Avenue.
His profession was a joiner which I
believe would be a carpenter.
In 1906 he brought over his oldest
daughter Jennie. Along with
her on the boat was
Nachman
Reichel
and Esther Reichel.
Nachman
is found in another Reichel
family referenced on this site and
his presence on the same manifest
page points to a connection, yet
unknown. He was a contemporary
of my great-grandfather and also
indicated his profession was a
joiner. Esther indicated that
she was going to her father Schloime Raichel,
even though there was no record of
an Esther as a daughter.
Presumably she was a cousin who
thought her arrival would be
expedited if she was going to a
parent. She was released to my
great-grandfather so was presumably
family of
some sort.
Over
the next twenty years Schloime Raichel
brought over his other children,
Mary (1907), Abram (1911) and Chana
(1923). Chana/Anna
had been one year old when he left
in 1904. His
wife Malka
didn’t join him until 1925, over 20
years after his original departure. During
this time his oldest daughter
managed the home for him until her
marriage to Abraham Schwartz.
Abram
(Raichel)
Rothchild’s
son reported on a name change which
ensued after immigration. “The
family name was originally Raichel. I
was told that some cousins, when
they arrived in America
(I remember the name Morris, who
lived in Borough
Park,
Brooklyn),
had changed their name to Rothchild
because they heard it was a
prominent name and could help them
do better in the Golden
Medina. My father(Abram)
and his father (Schloime)
went along and changed their names
accordingly.”
My
aunt who was born in 1918 shared her
childhood memories of her
grandfather. “I used to travel on
the train with him to different
places in the Bronx
when I was nine years old. He was
the patriarch of the family, my
grandfather. He
was well loved by all the cousins,
the children of other relatives.
Everyone referred to him as the
uncle. He was a very clean old man
with a beautiful Van Dyke, always
wore a fedora. My grandfather lived
with Tante
Jenny. Tante
Jenny was his eldest daughter and
until his wife came he lived with
her. When his wife came from the
other side they got an apartment for
themselves in Brooklyn...on
Pitkin Avenue.”
It
was not until recently that I began
to flesh out this branch of the
family tree. My great-grandfather is
buried in the Dunilowicz section of
the Baron
Hirsch
Cemetery
in Staten Island,
NY. On his
tombstone it indicates that his
father was
Peisch Mordechai. As I
prepared for a trip to Belarus,
I had the good fortune to obtain a
translated list of Dunilovichi
tombstones from another researcher. That list
is now posted on this site. I scanned
the list for any names which
resembled this name and my eyes lit
on Pesach Mordechai,
the father of Eska
Zinger. My
parents spoke of Abraham and Sadie
Singer, contemporaries of my
grandparents, as cousins related in
some fashion of which they were
uncertain. The
tombstones indicated that the source
of the connection was a daughter to
my great-great-grandfather who had
married a Singer.
When I referenced immigration
records it confirmed that Abraham
Singer, son of Eska and Benes
Zinger, was going to his “cousin”
Abraham Schwartz (cousin by
marriage), the husband of Jennie, Schloime’s
oldest daughter.
Another Singer also indicated
that he was going to his uncle Schloime Raichel. By
crossing the immigration records
with cemetery records I was able to
build out a family tree linking the
Raichels
and Zingers who later become the
Rothchilds and the Singers in the
United States. On a recent visit to
Dunilowicz, I had the opportunity to
complete the circle by saying the
Kaddish at my great-great
grandfather's tombstone as well as
doing rubbings of family tombstones.
In
addition to the Singers, I began to
explore those original Reichels who
changed their name. Long ago I had
found a record for an Awsaj Rajchel
going to his son Morris Rothchild. Here the name
change was captured within one
record. Born in 1857
he was of the same generation as my
great-grandfather. He came over in
1923 and after that I lost his
trail. I
could find no record of him in the
1930 census so assumed he may have
died prior to then.
From an obituary
for Morris Rothchild,
I found the Mt. Carmel Cemetery
in which he was buried in New
York. In the Rothchild
plot there was also an Israel Rothchild
listed who had died in 1927 at age
75. I
ordered photos of the tombstone
which revealed that his name was Osias in
English, but in Hebrew it translates
to Yoshua. As
expected his father was Pesach Mordechai. Now I knew
that my great-grandfather had two
siblings, a sister Eska who
stayed in Dunilowicz and a brother
who immigrated late in life to the United States.
I
am also researching a branch of the
family that went to England
by the name of Kodish.
A
cousin of my father recalled getting
boxing gloves as a holiday gift from
them. When the cousin died, I
received his photos among which I
found one with the inscription “from
your cousin Louis Kodish” on the
back. I’ve found immigration
records for Louis and his wife
Katherine going from Glasgow to his
cousin Abraham Singer in New
York.
From there they made their way to Chicago where
the 1930 census indicates that both of
his parents were from Russia.
In
1934
they
made
their
way
back
to
Glasgow.
His
immigration record told me his
father's name was Marks. After
ordering the visa records for Louis
Kodish, I obtained his birth record
which gave his mother's name as Kate
Epstein. By researching both
Scottish records and the Jewish
Chronicle, I found the death record
for his father, listed as Max
Kodish. Interestingly it gave
his mother's name as Sarah Rothchild,
wife of Barnett Kodish. My US
relatives changed their name from
Raichel to Rothchild and it is quite
likely that a parallel transition
occurred with family in England and
Scotland. It is likely that
Sarah was the sister of Pesach
Mordechai given the time periods and
that is the linkage to the Kodishes of
the UK. I now have identified
Solomon and Jacob, additional children
of Barnett and Sarah, and hope to
eventually find the descendents of
those branches.
Return to family
histories
.
