Sorting Saturday: Don't Get TOO Organized!

Sometimes doing too good a job of sorting is a bad thing! Why? Because documents or photos that should be together get put in separate places. By reuniting these things, I'm piecing together a trip that my parents took the year after they were married.

For better organization, I had sorted all my photos and family memorabilia into family archive boxes (one for Mahler, one for Burk, etc.) Today I was looking at a Schwartz box and noticed the postmark on this postcard folder sent by Daisy Schwartz Burk and her new husband, Harold Burk, to Daisy's parents (my grandparents), Theodore Schwartz and Hermina Farkas Schwartz. As usual, the grandparents were staying for a week or two in upstate New York to escape the summer heat of New York City. The postmark on this mailer says July 24, 1947.

Now look at the b/w photo above, taken at the Au Lutin qui bouffe in Montreal, dated July 16, 1947. It shows Daisy Schwartz and her husband, Harold Burk (center), with a mystery man at right. That mystery man is also in my parents' wedding photos on the Mahler side of the family, which is why this was in my Mahler box. Daisy has a wrapped gift on her lap (is it for the mystery guy or from the mystery guy?).**

Clearly both of these are part of the same swing through Canada at the New England border. Neither of my parents could drive a car, which means they took the train--easy enough from New York City. Who is this mystery man? Did he live in Montreal or did he arrange to meet my parents while all were visiting the city?

I'm going to put each item back in its family archive box but with a note about the trip, for cross-reference purposes

Never give up on mystery photos! You just never know when a new cousin connection will result in an "a ha" moment for unidentified relatives.

**UPDATE: The mystery man is my father's first cousin on the Burk side, whose family lived in Montreal. That family has a copy of this photo, as well, so when I connected with them a few years ago, we were able to piece together a lot of the story!

Wedding Wednesday: The Sunday Before Thanksgiving, 1946

Having been engaged since New Year's Day 1946, my parents were married on the Sunday before Thanksgiving:

Mr. and Mrs. Theodore Schwartz request the honor of your presence at the marriage of their daughter, Daisy Ruth, to Mr. Harold D. Burk on Sunday, the 24th of November, 1946 at 12 noon. Hotel McAlpin, Broadway and 34th Street, New York City.

Above, my mother Daisy (in gold lame dress and matching gold shoes) enjoys a joke along with her new husband's Mahler and Markell cousins and in-laws.

Thank you to Cousin Lois for identifying the woman who's standing above my mother's shoulder as Sylvia Ruth Volk, daughter of Ida Mahler Volk and Louis Volk. The young man whose knee my mom is sitting on is probably Daniel Markell.

My parents visited Ida and Louis in 1946, while still engaged, and brought them a house gift: a big salad bowl and a set of scoopers. Sylvia told her daughter Lois the story of that visit and when Lois attended my niece's wedding last year, she gifted the happy couple with the scoopers.

Sentimental Sunday: The House on Rodman Street

Finally, I've seen the house on Rodman Street NW in Washington, D.C., where my great-aunt Ida Mahler Volk and great-uncle Louis Volk lived in the 1940s. It's been a long journey of genealogical discovery getting here!

Before Y2K (remember that?) I was desperately searching for the death cert of my grandfather, Isaac Burk, not knowing where and when he died. Isaac was married to my grandmother, Henrietta Mahler.

Genealogical records weren't as widely available online then as they are now, and it wasn't easy to find out about Isaac. Eventually, I found a terse obit for Isaac in the New York Times, which indicated when he died but not where. It must have been an especially sad time for the Burks because Isaac and Henrietta's two sons (my father Harold and his brother Sidney) were serving overseas in 1943 when Isaac died, and almost certainly couldn't get home for the funeral.

Eventually, an official in NYC suggested that I check with officials in Washington, D.C. That was the hint I needed. Once I sent for and received Isaac's death cert, there were new mysteries to unravel: Louis Volk was the person who gave information to the authorities when Isaac suffered a fatal heart attack at the house on Rodman Street. Why was Isaac, who lived in the Bronx with his wife Henrietta, visiting Washington in the first place? How was Louis Volk involved with my grandfather?

It took many more years to work out who was who and how we were related. Great-aunt Ida and Grandma Henrietta were sisters. Ida and her husband Louis both served as character witnesses when Grandfather Isaac petitioned for citizenship and was naturalized in 1942. Louis served as a character reference when my father, Harold Burk, son of Henrietta and Isaac, applied to be bonded at the beginning of his career as a travel agent.

Here's where the magic of cousin bait comes in: Ida and Louis's granddaughter, Cousin Lois, found me through this blog in 2010. She has filled in much of the missing info, introduced me to Cousin Lil (daughter of another of the Mahler siblings), and welcomed my branch of the family into her life. Sis and I are delighted that she took us to visit the house on Rodman Street, 69 years after Grandfather Isaac and Grandma Henrietta were there to visit Lois's grandparents, the Volks.

Wordless Wednesday: Mystery Burk-Mahler-Markell Celebration

These photos (scanned from negatives) were taken in the mid-1950s. My mother, baby sister, and we twins (shown above) are at a party where my father's Burk, Mahler, and Markell relatives are present.

I don't know who's who (except for Uncle Dave, at center of center photo below). Where are they celebrating, and why? Cousin Lois noticed birthday party things...whose birthday?

Update: Cousin Lois identified the couple above as Joan and Bob, with their son Andy.

Update: Above, the lady on the left is Lois's grandma, Ida. Below, lady on right is Ida's sister, Mary. Thank you for your sharp eyes, Lois!

Happy Birthday to Us!

My twin and I are celebrating our birthday today (no numbers, please!). The top photo shows us at about 6 weeks old. Reportedly, we "never" slept (and neither did our parents, Daisy Schwartz and Harold Burk). I can believe it, looking at that top photo. On the other hand, we weren't even 6 lbs each at that point, and the "scrawny chicken" look lingered on for another month or so, judging by the photos.

The second photo shows us all dolled up for an outing in matching outfits that I would bet our mother didn't buy. Why? Because as a twin herself, she wasn't a big fan of matching outfits and was determined to raise us as individuals, not halves of one whole. Anyway, this was taken alongside our apartment building, near the corner of Carpenter Avenue at East 222nd Street in the Bronx.

Happy birthday to us! And many more. 

PS: We don't actually know who's who in most of these early baby photos.

Friday Family Trivia: Treasures from Early Days

Burk A - how tiny was the wrist that held this bracelet?

Today, a bit of genealogical trivia from my early days. Do you recognize the item in the photo at left? Hint: I'm a twin, and I was the first one born.

It's my ID bracelet from the hospital where I was born. My sis has a Burk B bracelet (photo forthcoming), also with pink beads. This is what I wore during my days in the heated crib where babies under 5 lbs stayed until they weighed enough to be discharged. I've always kept this treasure in my jewelry box.

Next are two photos showing both sides of one object. The front has my initials. The back says:

Farkas Family Tree, Feb 195__

This is the engraved sterling silver napkin ring that my mother's family, the Farkas Family Tree, presented to every new baby. Perhaps the space between the month and the year was left to be filled in later, but it's always looked exactly like this (except that in this photo, I've blurred out the year on purpose). Some babies get spoons, others get mugs, but Farkas Family babies received napkin rings.

Thankful Thursday: Mr & Mrs Harold Burk, 11/24/46

On this day in 1946, my parents, Harold Burk and Daisy Schwartz, were married at the Hotel McAlpin in New York City.

Here they are with Ida Mahler, one of his Mahler aunts, during the summer before they were married.

Although they became engaged on Dec. 31, 1945, after my father closed the deal to become the in-house travel agent of the posh Savoy Plaza Hotel, they soon set their wedding date for November, 1946.

Why wait, especially since they were very anxious to settle down? First, because of the severe shortage of apartments following WWII and second, I suspect, to save up money. In fact, who exactly paid for their wedding is a mystery I hope to solve one day.

On Thanksgiving, I give thanks for their love and for the family ties I've been discovering through genealogy (dear cousins, you know who you are!).

Military Monday: What Dad Did in the War, 1942-1945

Second from left in the front row is Harold Burk, my father. He enlisted on March 7, 1942 at Camp Upton, NY. Maybe this is his basic training photo?

Dad served in the Army's 3163rd Signal Service Company, as a teletype operator and then as a personnel clerk, rising to the rank of Technician, 5th grade (insignia at right) by the time of his discharge in October, 1945. In all, he served for 3 years, 6 months, and 28 days.

The pinnacle of his advancement was becoming a sgt, but he didn't hold that post for long (see earlier blog post about his story about that experience).

Dad's military paperwork shows that he served in Central Europe and Rhineland (red/blue insignia above left), leaving for Europe in November, 1944 and returning to the US in July, 1945. At left are three photos of him, marked "Paris, April, 1945."

He received a "European-African-Middle Eastern Service Medal" as well as a good conduct medal. Sadly, I don't have either of his decorations, and he told precious few stories of his time in the service.

After his service was over, Dad didn't waste any time looking for the right gal to marry. Three weeks after his discharge, he met Mom (Daisy Schwartz) and kissed her on the first date, according to a letter she wrote to her best friend. By New Year's Day, 1946, they were engaged, and because of the severe post-war housing shortage, they didn't get married until November, 1946. My father wooed my mother endlessly during that time, sending her cards and letters when separated, many of which she saved for decades (and passed along to her daughters). He was 10 years older than my mother and eager to make up for lost time by settling down right away!

Sentimental Sunday: Matriarchs--Daisy, Minnie, and Yetta

My mother and grandmothers are gone, sorry to say, but they live on in my heart and in my blog! Happy mother's day to these matriarchs of my family.

At left, smiling broadly, is my mother, Daisy Ruth Burk (nee Schwartz), on her wedding day in 1946 in New York City. She's wearing her fave Persian lamb coat and getting ready to go to Bermuda on her honeymoon with Dad (Harold Burk). Daisy married at 26 and had three much-loved children. She had a passion for reading, was an ace typist, enjoyed crocheting. Cooking wasn't her strong suit but she had a few signature dishes that we children relished (like junk soup and blintzes).  

At right is my maternal grandma (Daisy's mom), Hermina (Minnie) Schwartz (nee Farkas), on her wedding day in 1911 in New York City. She married Theodore (Teddy) Schwartz, who was then selling insurance (?) to immigrants, and after her son Fred and her twins Daisy and Dorothy were born, she and Teddy opened their own grocery store in the Bronx. Minnie was an expert seamstress and the back of her embroidery pieces looked just as good as the front. She was also a great cook: Her native Hungarian dishes (like strudel) were legendary in the family.
 

At left is my paternal grandma, Henrietta (Yetta) Burk (nee Mahler). Yetta, born in Latvia, married my grandpa Isaac Burk in New York City in 1906. Yetta had four children: Mildred, Harold (my Dad), Miriam, and Sidney. She crossed the border to and from Canada following Isaac for about five years as he got carpentry work in Montreal. Thanks to my cousin Lois, I know a bit more about Yetta: She was a lively woman who knew how to laugh, she had a dog named Blackie, and she was particularly close to her sister Ida Mahler Volk.

52 Weeks of Genealogy: Weather--Hot Town! Summer in the...

City. Both my mother (Daisy Schwartz) and my father (Harold Burk) grew up in New York City. They never owned a car and never lived anywhere but a city apartment.

New York was and is a hot town, in more ways than one. Summer in the city meant trying to get OUT of the city heat!

Of course air conditioning was a thing of the future, so they used box fans to cope with summertime heat. And they never slept on the fire escape, not once (nor did I, growing up in a Bronx apartment).

Sometimes my grandparents (Hermina Farkas and Theodore Schwartz) took a week or two off from their Bronx grocery store and rented a room in the "country" (upstate New York, anywhere from Spring Valley to the Catskill mountains). This photo shows my mother and her twin, Dorothy Schwartz (both in front row), with family members at a casual summer resort during the 1930s.

During the 1940s, when she was working as a secretary or typist and living with her parents in the Bronx, my mother made enough money to go to the Catskills or Adirondacks for a week or two to escape the blazing city heat. One year she made enough to go to ritzy Scaroon Manor on Schroon Lake, NY, partly to relax and partly to meet eligible bachelors. (I know this sounds like a typical genealogist's interpretation, but it's actually based on letters written to her by friends, asking about her vacation and any date possibilities.)

My father, who lived in Manhattan until he came back from WWII and met and married my mother, told of spending a summer day as a teen, picnicking with his family in the Bronx. This was in the 1920s, when the Bronx was "country" with farms, dairies, etc. It was an all-day outing to get from Manhattan to the Bronx, unpack and enjoy the picnic, pack everything up, and get back home. My memory of his memory is that the family made the day-journey in a horse-drawn conveyance of some sort. I suspect they used public transportation to get to the outskirts of the Bronx and then picked up a horse-drawn streetcar from there. Summer in the city? Get out (of town)!

52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy--Sports: Rooftops, Subways, and Skating

How about this as a sport: Leaping from rooftop to rooftop without a safety net.

My Dad, Harold Burk, grew up in Manhattan at a time when cars were becoming more common. In addition to dodging traffic to play stick ball (a kind of street softball), he and his friends would dare each other to leap across the rooftops of the 6 or 8 story tenements in their neighborhood. Luckily, he was sure-footed. (When he told me this story, he seemed a bit amazed that he had survived--me too!)

Dad (shown at left, graduating from elementary school) grew up, served in WWII, came home, married Mom (Daisy Schwartz), and had a family. As long as I can remember, he was a rabid Yankees fan. Since we lived in the Bronx, a subway ride away from Yankee Stadium, he'd take my twin and me and our little sister to games several times each summer.

Sometimes the tickets would come from his travel agent connections, and we'd wind up in the box seats behind home plate, with a great view of catcher Elston Howard's back and a chance to hear Mickey Mantle or Roger Maris's bat sock the ball out of the park. We saw many of the Yankee greats of the 1950s and 1960s, way too many to name.

We savvy local fans knew what to do when the ball game got down to the middle of the 9th inning. If the score wasn't close, we would scamper out of our seats, exit the stadium, and run up the stairs to the elevated subway alongside the stadium, subway token in hand. Standing on the subway platform overlooking the ball field gave us a perfect place to watch the final out. Sometimes the subway train would idle there for a moment, waiting for the out (conductors and motormen were fans too) and then we'd jump inside the train as the doors closed, whisked away before the other fans were even out of their seats.

Today my spectator sport of choice is figure skating. It's a great sport to watch on TV when your hubby is out skiing. And it's even better to see live, at a rink where Olympic champs train (Alexei Yagudin has startingly blue eyes up close!) or at an international competition. My most memorable skate world moment was in 2003, watching Shen and Zhao win pairs gold at the World Figure Skating Championships in Washington, D.C., skating to Turandot. Below, I'm at SkateAmerica in 2006, next to Ina and Zimmerman's poster, with a stuffed toy in my jacket to throw onto the ice as a tribute to the skater I like the best.

Those Places Thursday: James Monroe HS, Bronx, NY

My mother, Daisy (Schwartz) Burk, and her twin sister, Dorothy, attended James Monroe High School in the Bronx, at the northern tip of the Soundview section. Wikipedia says the school opened in 1924, so my guess is the first school year ended in 1925 (according to the year on the school's seal, at left).

Today the building houses a number of small, specialized public schools, but it was originally one huge high school, drawing from many Bronx neighborhoods. It awarded academic diplomas, general diplomas, practical arts diplomas, and commercial diplomas.

Mom and Auntie graduated in January, 1936 (see bottom, where their names are listed in the graduation program she saved). They were just 16. Mom immediately looked for work. Her older brother Fred had gone to college (one of the free City University of NY colleges) but there was only enough money for one more to go to college, so Auntie went (to another free City University of NY college) and Mom didn't. Both Fred and Dorothy went on to earn a  doctorate degree. To see Mom and Auntie's yearbook photos, click:

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Mom, who could have done the course work in her teens, only finished a couple of years of college by the time she went at night as a working mom in her 50s. The math and science courses were, by that time, beyond her. She loved the literature courses most of all!

52 Weeks - Spring: Playgrounds, Blue Grass, and Earrings

The Bronx was like suburbia in the 1950s, believe it or not. We lived in an apartment building 1 block from Bronx Park adjacent to the Bronx River in the Northeast Bronx. This park district is now known as "Shoelace Park." By the 1980s, it had become known informally as "Needle Park" and wasn't safe day or night, I understand. (I had moved away long before.)

But back in my day, it was pretty and green and a world apart from the bustle of the city that was a subway ride away.

My mom, Daisy Burk, would pull out the baby buggy every spring, tuck my baby sister Harriet in with a hand-crocheted afghan, and take my twin Isabel and me for a stroll in the park. She wore the fragrance Blue Grass, by Arden, her favorite. (My sister  especially loved that fragrance and the childhood memories it evoked.)

First stop on our Bronx Park spring stroll was "The Circle" aka "The Horse Shoe," a group of benches arranged inside a horse-shoe-shaped stone fence within the park. The moms would sit on benches under the trees while we kids played. Sometimes we'd ride our bikes round and round the circle. Sometimes we'd explore the "woods" outside the bench area.

Another favorite stop was the playground, at E. 227th Street in Bronx Park. In the summer, this playground had free arts 'n' crafts activities for kids and bug-juice (colored sugar water, it tasted like) for a snack. Here's a pair of earrings that one of we twins made for our mom. Unfortunately, these were for pierced ears and hers weren't pierced, but she kept them forever and now I have them in my jewelry box, a treasured memento of Mom and those crafty days.

My twin Izzi just reminded me of one more favorite activity in the playground above--playing King/Queen (a kind of street handball) against one of the retaining walls. Each box was a lower rank, starting from the left. I remember our personal twist on this game. King, Queen, Jack, 10, and then . . . Toilet Bowl, the lowest rank :)

Treasure Chest Thursday: The Brussels Bag

In 1958, my Uncle Sidney Burk flew to Belgium to visit the World's Fair. (Being a travel agent like his older brother--my Dad--he probably got a special deal.)

My parents asked him to bring back something special for me, my twin, and our younger sister. This evening bag is one of the two gifts he brought back for me.

It must have cost the earth, even at that time. It's velvet, with intricate metallic-thread embroidery. Size is 7 1/2 by 4 12 inches. I rarely take it out of its box these days, but I did use it for special occasions years ago.

The other gift Uncle Sidney brought back was a doll in Belgium costume, sitting in a chair and making lace--real lace, not the machine kind we buy in stores today. It was the kind of doll that is put on a high shelf where it can be admired but not played with.

Alas, I always liked to inspect that lace up close, being a needlework fan even then (my mother and grandmother loved to stitch and I learned to crochet before going to kindergarten). After 8 years or so of being closely examined, the doll and the lace somehow separated and eventually the doll became so spindly that I had to say goodbye. Decades later, the memory of that doll and my beautiful Brussels bag bring back the exotic glamor and excitement of my uncle's trip to Belgium.

Fearless Females: Grandma worked as a "finisher" on fine ties

On Monday, February 21, 1977, my mother (Daisy Burk) wrote me a letter about her family's background, which--happily--I kept even though I wasn't as crazed about genealogy then as I am now (!).

My question was prompted by the repeat of the Roots miniseries. Here's some of what Mom wrote about her mother, Hermina Farkas Schwartz:

"I remember Mom telling us that some relative 'did her a favor' for $2.50 a week; she became a finisher on fine ties and worked about 12 hrs. a day and between her and her father [Moritz Farkas] they couldn't earn enough for the family; but she always said she had a good relationship with her father, which was a comfort to her all her life. She became a citizen on his papers (common then, not permitted now) and went to night school for awhile to learn to read and write [English]. She still figured in Hungarian, all her life, though.

"Mom wasn't permitted to do dishes or laundry when she worked because her hands would become too rough for the fine materials she handled; but there was a sewing machine and she did her share at home by sewing for the household. And after she was married she had the girls [her younger sisters] come one at a time to visit (and take care of my brother Fred after he was born) so she could make clothes for them to enable them to go to school here. She never forgot; but I don't ever remember anyone of her sisters mentioning this. I know her 2 bachelor brothers, Julius and Peter, had hard times and she always poured money into their hands when they needed things. Of course, when she and Pop [my grandfather, Theodore Schwartz] needed to open a new store, they gave generously also, I'll say that, too."

Update 2022: The man who did grandma a favor was a Roth cousin who owned a necktie factory. Many other relatives worked for him when they arrived as new immigrants in New York City!

Grandma when she was young (in Hungary?)

52 Weeks - You Are What You Eat? Junk Soup and Blintzes!

What my mother (Daisy Schwartz Burk, below) cooked wouldn't have made Auguste Escoffier happy...but she had a few notable dishes.

One was junk soup, so-called because anything she found in the fridge was fair game. She started with chuck steak, cut it up into chunks, browned it with a bit of onion, and then into the giant stock pot it went, along with potatoes, celery, carrots, and whatever was available. My sister remembers cans of mixed vegetables were usually part of the recipe because Mom knew we'd eat those (mostly--NOT lima beans for me). Hours later, with the addition of alphabet pasta to give her three girls a smile, junk soup was ready (and in such quantities that it made welcome encore appearances later in the week).

Another of Mom's specialties was cheese blintzes. Her filling recipe called for a mixture of pot cheese and farmers' cheese, two cheeses that weren't watery, plus an egg, a little sugar, and a pinch of cinnamon. The crepe "leaves" were made from eggs, milk, flour, sugar/salt. After making the leaves one by one, and covering the stack with a dish towel to keep them from drying out, she'd assemble the blintzes with a tablespoon or so of cheese mixture in the center, roll up each blintz, and lightly saute it in butter. Certainly Mom learned to make these from her mother, Hermina Farkas Schwartz, whose apple strudel and home-made chicken soup (with home-made egg noodles, made and cut and dried at home) were legendary in the family.

And then there's chopped liver, another of Mom's specialties. She hand-chopped the chicken livers to the right consistency, after they were sauted with onion and mixed with hard-boiled eggs, plus (I assume, in the early days) schmaltz. Add a little salt and pepper and you're on your way to cholesterol city, but a happy journey it is.

She wasn't a happy baker. In fact, she never baked until her daughters begged her to make us cookies (and let us help in the prep). Then she confessed that the oven didn't work right and getting the landlord to make repairs was a long process. Eventually she succeeded and surprised us when we came home from school one day with some kind of fruit bar she baked from a mix. We loved them! At least I did until I unfortunately glanced at the box and saw I was eating fig bars. Ugh! Never touched them again, but now we were on our way to brownies and other easy-to-bake goodies.

My father, Harold Burk, rarely cooked but in his 60s, he became interested in baking apple pies and every fall, he'd experiment with crust and filling to get the highest pie (sky-high pie, he would say) with the flakiest pastry. If his pie fell in after baking, he'd say something like "next year." I'd enjoy eating Dad's apple pie no matter what it looked like.

52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History by Amy Coffin is a series of weekly blogging prompts in 2011 to encourage us to record memories and insights.

52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy - Home is where the elevator is

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My parents Daisy Schwartz Burk and Harold Burk lived their entire lives in New York City apartments and I was brought up here, one of twin apartment buildings just a block from a huge park in the Bronx. Getting into an elevator every day (many times a day) was part of the experience. 


In the summer, when we were playing in front of the building and the Bungalow Bar ice cream truck came around, we'd yell up to my mother to ask for money. She'd tie two dimes in a handkerchief and float it out the living room window to the street below, where we picked up the bundle and bought choco-covered pops. (Mister Softee trucks came later.)


When my mother tried her hand at writing children's stories, she wrote about children going to visit their grandparents and vying to push the elevator button for the right floor . . . exactly how we visited our maternal grandparents (Teddy and Minnie Farkas Schwartz) every other Sunday for dinner. They lived in an apartment building near Tremont Avenue in the Bronx.


My paternal grandmother Henrietta Burk lived just a few apartments away on the same floor where we lived here on Carpenter Avenue in the Bronx. In fact, as I've noted elsewhere in this blog, most of my father's family lived in this apartment building: His older sister Millie Lang lived on the top floor with her husband and my cousin Elliot, his brother Sidney Burk lived with their mother Henrietta on our floor. (Grandfather Isaac Burk had died 7 years before my birth, so I never knew him, but my cousin Ira is named after him.) Only my father's younger sister lived elsewhere, in Queens.


When I was growing up, this part of the northeast Bronx was a "suburban" area, where one-family homes dotted the side streets and apartment buildings dominated many of the corners and avenues. Because the elevated subway line was just a few blocks away, it was an especially convenient location for commuters (like my father) going to work an hour away in Manhattan. 

Wordless Wednesday - Seeking Isaac Burk's Family

One of my research priorities this year is to find out more about the family of Harold Burk's father, my paternal grandfather, Isaac Burk (1882?-1943). Above is Harold (my father), when he was in his 20s, looking impossibly young!

2022 update: I've learned a lot about Isaac since then. See his brother's ancestor landing page.

Sunday's Obituary - Isaac Burk

When paternal grandfather Isaac Burk died suddenly while visiting his wife's sister and brother-in-law in Washington, DC, the obit in the New York Times was quite terse, with nothing more than the basics. It read:

BURK--Isaac, on Oct. 8, 1943, husband of Yetta, father of Millie, Miriam, Harold and Sidney. Funeral 3:15 pm Sunday, Oct. 10. 1943.

This obit appeared on the day of the funeral service, which took place in New York City where Isaac lived, with the burial in New Jersey. "Yetta" was actually Henrietta (2022 update: Yetta was also her nickname in the family), and "Millie" was Mildred, Isaac's oldest daughter. Since Isaac's sons Harold and Sidney were fighting in Europe at this point, having enlisted for WWII, it must have been a very small group that attended the funeral, unfortunately. 

Isaac's name was recorded as "Birk" when he arrived as an immigrant, but he changed it sometime during his early years in New York City and Montreal, moving between the two places as a carpenter looking for work.

When Isaac married Henrietta MAHLER (my grandmother) in June, 1906, he listed his father's name as Elias (L. or S.) Burk and his mother as Necke (or Neche) Burk, although the "Burk" last name was clearly corrected on the marriage cert so it may have actually been spelled "Birk" or "Berk" the first time through the clerk's hands. Isaac said he was 26 and Henrietta said she was 19 at the time of their marriage. 

Sentimental Sunday

 At left is my mom and below is her twin sister, a few minutes older. These are their high school graduation photos.

Remember those socks filled with chalk that children used to swing around on Halloween? Mom's Halloween memories weren't very positive because one Halloween she was socked in the mouth with a sock filled with rocks. Although she had a few sets of front teeth put in over the years, replaced as dental techniques became better, she always had to be careful what and how she ate. She even had to be careful how she kissed! 2022 update: letters written to her in 1940s mentioned her new teeth and the problem with kissing.