Friday's Faces from the Past: Why Isaac Berk Landed in New Brunswick

Sometimes ancestors zig-zag to their destinations.

That's the case with my Grandpa Isaac Berk (later Burk), a skilled cabinetmaker who sailed from Liverpool to Canada on November 24, 1903, via the S.S. Lake Erie. 

Isaac got off the ship on December 5th in Saint John, New Brunswick.

 As the map shows, that's a LONG way from Montreal or New York, where he later lived--major metro centers where he could easily find work as a cabinetmaker.

Henrietta Mahler Burk & Isaac Burk, 1937

And, in fact, Isaac's trail next shows up in 1904, when he crossed the border into Vermont, on a train enroute from Montreal to New York City, where his sister Nellie (or Nella) lived.

So why did Grandpa land at Saint John instead of continuing further into Canada?

Thanks to a phone call from my Canadian 2d cousin, the granddaughter of my great-uncle Abraham Burke, I now know the answer.

The family story is that Isaac got badly seasick and when the ship came into New Brunswick, he got off as quickly as he could!

Isaac never again sailed anywhere, as far as I know--he always took the train.

Sorting Saturday: Magnifying Glass + Brooch = Mahler Identification

This photo of a mystery lady was in a batch of old photos lent by my Cousin E for me to scan and (hopefully) identify.

I got out my magnifying glass and studied her brooch after scanning the photo.

Look at the two adults at the right of the photo below--Tillie Jacobs Mahler and her husband, Meyer Elias Mahler. (Thanks again to Cuz Lois for identifying this photo.)

The mystery lady's pin clearly shows Tillie and Meyer, taken in the same studio at the same time as the big group photo.

The family portrait was taken around 1900, judging by the ages of the children. Knowing that Meyer died in 1910 helped Lois and me guesstimate the timing.

Other, later photos in Cousin E's batch show the mystery lady wearing the same brooch.

In the photo below, taken at the site of Meyer Mahler's grave, the now much older mystery lady has the brooch pinned on.

No magnifying glass needed this time since I blew up part of the photo and put it below.

Wait! There's more . . .

One final photo confirmed the identification and solved the mystery.

At bottom, a cropped version of a photo my cousin Ira lent me several years ago--a photo we know to be of my great-grandma Tillie Jacobs Mahler.

But we never noticed the brooch, which was not sharply defined in this photo from the 1940s.

Now we know Tillie kept this brooch as a memento of a happy family time.

She wore it for four decades after her husband's death, until she died in June, 1952 and was buried next to her beloved husband.

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks #24: Sam "Born on 4th of July" Schwartz & Anna Gelbman

Photo taken at Beldegreen Studios on Avenue C in NY's Lower East Side, 1909

My great-uncle Sam Schwartz (Grandpa Theodore Schwartz's brother) was born in Ungvar, Hungary on the 4th of July in 1883. His original name was Simon but for unknown reasons, he became Samuel when he arrived in New York City in January, 1904, a 20-year-old man trained as a printer.

Sam wasted no time declaring his intention to petition for citizenship in May, 1904. In 1905, he lived as a boarder in the Lower East Side apartment of the Grossman family, at 82 Avenue D. That's the same apartment building where Sam's younger brother Teddy (hi Grandpa!) lived not long afterward.

By 1906, Sam had moved to Bridgeport, Connecticut, where he sold vegetables until he found work as a printer. In October, 1909, Sam became a full-fledged U.S. citizen--and a week later, he married Anna Gelbman (1886-1940), the American-born daughter of a shoemaker from Miskolc, Hungary. Anna's family lived only a short walk from the field in central Bridgeport where P.T. Barnum wintered his circus, elephants and all.

Sam and Anna moved back to New York City by 1915 and in the 1920s, he went into business running Norwood Dairy, a Queens grocery store, with his brother-in-law, Louis Frish (married to Anna's sister Belle). Sadly, his beloved Anna died from cancer in 1940. Sam remarried to a lady named Margaret. Unfortunately, he had a fatal heart attack while mowing his lawn on a hot day in 1954.

On Independence Day I salute my Great Uncle Sam, born on this day 131 years ago, and his gentle wife Anna.

Travel Tuesday: Saluting Slatters on Canada Day

Happy Canada Day! Let me extend a digital salute to hubby's great uncles, John Daniel Slatter (1864-1954), Henry Arthur Slatter (1866-1942), and Albert William Slatter (1862-1935). All the brothers left England to travel to Canada and make new lives as bandmasters of military units.

Their sisters, Ada Mary Ann Slatter and Mary Slatter, also left England and settled in Ohio to marry and raise their families around the turn of the century. Mary Slatter married James Edgar Wood and they are hubby's grandparents.

On Canada Day, the three brother/bandmasters would have been heading the parades in their respective adopted hometowns (Toronto, Vancouver, and London, Ontario).

In honor of the Slatter brothers, here are more WWI badges that were probably given to Captain John Slatter by his brother Captain Albert Slatter, then passed down in the family.

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks #23: Bachelor Brothers in WWI

Yesterday was the 100th anniversary of the flashpoint that started WWI. It reminded me that one of my Farkas great uncles had been a very reluctant conscript.

Julius Farkas (1892-1969) signed his WWI draft registration card in June, 1917, with the notation that he had a "conscientious objection" to the war (see below). Julius and his younger brother, Peter Farkas (1894-1961), were close throughout their lives. Peter also registered for WWI but didn't mention any objection.

Both brothers were drafted and served in the war.

Peter (service record, left) quickly rose through the ranks from private first class to corporal to sergeant during his period of service, May 1918 to March 1919. His service in the 152 Depot Brigade was at Camp Upton, NY, processing recruits and then processing newly returned soldiers at the end of WWI.


Julius, the reluctant soldier, became a cook (see his service record, below) and served from March, 1918 to August, 1919. He was also in a depot brigade, after initial training.

After the war, the Bachelor Brothers, as they were known in the family, were a quiet, affable presence, living together, often operating a dairy store together, and then moving in with one of their sisters late in life. Their stinky cigars were a feature at family get-togethers; my cousin B remembers the stinky cheeses they brought to picnics!

Friday's Faces from the Past: Dad Spent April in Paris (in 1945)

On April 22, 1945, my Dad (Harold Burk) was stationed in Paris with his WWII Army unit. The Allies were advancing on their objectives day by day and the end of the war in Europe was just weeks away.

On this spring day, Dad and his buddies posed for a group photo. Dad wrote the last names of each person on the back, along with the date.

In the top row, left to right:
Burkhardt
Bevis
Felice
Grady

In the bottom row, left to right:
Lustig
Flynn
Endreson
Dad
Hicks

Those Places Thursday: Isaac Burk, Born in the Pale

Grandpa Isaac Burk (1882-1943) kept certain photos all his life and now, thanks to my first cousin who lent me the cache for scanning, I'm finding confirming clues to advance my research into that family's background.

Above, the photographic studio where a lady from Isaac's family back home was photographed. Thanks to Tracing the Tribe members, I have the translation: the photo studio was in Telsiai, Kovenskaya Gubernia - In other words, in Kovno (now Kaunas), Lithuania. Other documents from Isaac's immigration records say he was born in Gargzdai, Kovno, Lithuania.  

It appears that Isaac and his siblings were born in the Pale of Settlement and, while in their late teens and early twenties, four of them left to make new lives in the West, away from pogroms and Russian Army conscription.

As I wrote last week, Isaac and his brother Abraham went to Manchester, England, to stay with their uncle and aunt, Isaac and Hinda Chazan. Isaac left after a couple of years, bound for Canada and then the United States. Abraham married Annie Hurwitz and then continued to Canada, where he settled and sent for his family. Their sister Nellie and brother Myer were in New York City during the early 1900s, but I don't have more information than that...yet.

Although I don't know the exact relationship between the Burk/Birk/Berk family and the Chazan family, I plugged a name into my Ancestry tree and up popped a hint--someone else's family tree with the name in question. I wrote the tree owner and he wrote back, putting me in touch with my Chazan cousins. They not only know the Burk name, they remember my Uncle Sidney visiting Manchester and introducing them to bubble gum--and they have photos of him visiting there, as well. Plus they know some of their family visited the Abraham Berk family in Canada. Those brick walls keep crumbling!