Mendel Solomon traded in horses and oxen

In May, 1908, Rifca Solomon, a young woman in her early thirties, made her way from Rǎducǎneni, a small village in Moldavia, to Manchester, England.  She travelled with her seven children, the youngest born prematurely and still wrapped in cotton wool, the incubator of the time. The vicissitudes of that journey must have been horrific. With no languages except Yiddish and a smattering of Romanian, carrying clothes, possessions, food and drink for all the family, the little group went by horse and cart from Raducaneni to Iasi, the big town. From there, they went by rail north to Hamburg and from Hamburg, they took a boat to Grimsby and on by rail to Manchester. Finally, they went by Hackney cab to the place that was to be their home for the rest of their lives in a working-class district of Manchester, close to the Romanian synagogue and a number of fellow immigrants from the old country. 88 years later, the photograph below of that family was submitted to the Jewish Social Services in response to an appeal for photographs for the cover of a book describing the early days of Manchester Jewry. It was chosen for the frontispiece of the book.   In December, 2004, Marcel Glaskie, the grandson of the eldest daughter, Malka, found himself in Budapest with four days to spare.  He knew about Rǎducǎneni from his grandmother who had told him stories of the village in which she had lived. He took an overnight train to Bucharest and hired a car to Moldavia.   To his amazement, it was like stepping back in time. The village was just as his grandmother had described it: there was one main street about 3 kilometers in length winding through the town crossed by a few dirt tracks with poor,  simple houses on each side with a well to serve every house and populated by simple, village folk. There was no time for him to do more than visit the town council offices and get the birth certificates of a few of the children. A visit to the cemetery proved to be a waste of time as all the gravestones dated from 1901 -1983. It was clear that there had to be another cemetery but there was no time to look for it. The story of the visit excited the members of the family and, at the end of May, 2005, a trio set out to experience the world of their grandparents. "Many of the photographs of Rǎducǎneni in this web site, were taken during their visit to Rǎducǎneni"

The Solomon family shortly after arrival in Manchester in 1908 From left to right, numbers indicate order of birth:                                   Back row:  David (2) Mendel Solomon (father), Milly – Malca (1)                             Middle Row: Kate –Chaya (4) Rifca (Mother) Aba - Harry (3) Front row:  Esther (6), Isaac (7), Fanny-Frima (5) Ten years later, two more sons, Jack & Abraham, were added to the family

Birth Certificate of Mendel Solomon	Birth Certificate of Malca (Dvoirei) Solomon

Birth Record of Fanny Solomon	Birth Record of Kate Solomon

	King Carol I
Back of passport		Passport of Rifca Solomon & children issued in Huşi on 3rd May 1908