Remembering Great Aunt Ida

OTD in 1892, my great aunt Ida Mahler (1892-1971) was born at home in a tenement on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. 

Chaya (as she was named on her birth cert, above), was born at 105 Allen Street, in a heavily immigrant neighborhood. By 1900, the family had moved six blocks away to 88 Chrystie Street, also part of the Lower East side where immigrants often lived.

By 1905, however, Ida and her family had relocated way uptown to a newer apartment in Jewish Harlem. That was very fortunate because tenements were firetraps. Ida's birthplace became notorious, sorry to say. 

"Lives Gone in a Puff of Smoke"

As described on the Tenement Museum website, a fire broke out in the basement of 105 Allen Street in the early hours of March 14, 1905. It spread and became a two-alarm blaze that unfortunately took the lives of more than a dozen people, mostly young. 

There were fire escapes but they were blocked, and the door to the roof was locked. Residents were trapped. This fire shocked New York City and led to some changes but it was the even more horrific Triangle Shirtwaist Fire in 1911 that finally forced major safety upgrades across the city. 

Ida grows up

Ida went to school and she also worked, as did all the children in the Mahler family, to support the household after their father died. She and a couple of her sisters were employed in the garment industry, mainly in trimmings factories. 

In 1920, Ida married Louis Volk (1889-1952), a World War I veteran, and they had 2 children together. She died one day short of her 79th birthday. Today I'm honoring the memory of great aunt Ida, who was a favorite of my Dad, and remembering her with affection.