Friday's Faces from the Past: Kindergarten Twins, circa 1924

This school photo was taken more than 90 years ago, when the Schwartz twins (my mother Daisy and her sister Dorothy) were in kindergarten. Since the twins were born in 1919, I estimate the date of the photo to be 1924. Mom (1919-1981) and Auntie (1919-2001) would have been 97 years old this month.

Although I don't know which twin was which, it's easy to spot them sitting side by side in the center, with the Buster Brown hairdo so obviously popular at the time.

How did the photographer get these youngsters to sit still long enough to capture the image so clearly? Maybe that's why the kids aren't smiling!*

As the photo indicates, the twins went to school at P.S. 62 on Fox Street in the Bronx. This elementary school was across the street from the apartment building at 651 Fox Street where the family lived (and where the twins were born, at home).

I'm posting a fragment of the 1920 Census, showing the twins (age 0/12) and their older brother "Fredie" (age 7) with their parents, Theodore Schwartz and Hermina Farkas Schwartz, at that address.

With a magnifying glass and a little imagination, this Census confirmed what I already knew--that my Grandpa Teddy was born in Ungvar, Hungary and my Grandma Minnie was born in Bereg (now Berehovo), Hungary.

The Census-taker wrote the town names in parentheses under "place of birth" for all immigrants on that page...later the town names were crossed out but still visible.

By checking the original rather than relying on a transcription, I could see the birthplaces for myself. Faces and places from the past!

*Actually, the kids aren't smiling because the convention of smiling in a photographic portrait was only coming into favor around this time, as Time explains.

Wordless Wednesday

My mother (Daisy Schwartz Burk, 1919-1981) and her twin sister (Dorothy Helen Schwartz, 1919-2001) - fraternal, not identical twins, according to my mother. 

Which is which? No clues on the front or back. At the suggestion of my "cousin" Art, I've started slipping old family photos into plastic sleeves and will label the outside of the sleeves with names, dates, any memories that come to mind. First step is nearly done--getting them into sleeves. Now the hard part is writing labels. That's next!

UPDATE in 2022: Labeled, and in archival sleeves, within archival boxes.

Daniel Gluck in the Bronx

My cousin remembers that my great-aunt Mary Schwartz boarded with her 2d cousin Daniel Gluck and family in a Bronx apartment after arriving in NYC from Ungvar, about 1911-1912. Daniel had two daughters: Beatrice (a buyer for a lingerie firm?) and Ruth. The family started a furniture store in or near Paramus NJ in one of America's first shopping centers, perhaps during the mid-1930s. So far no luck tracing them but it's some kind of lead. Updated in 2022: Still no luck but will be checking 1950 US Census when it releases.

Ungvar and Lojos Schwartz

Since September I've been hoping to find out that Violet was related to my Schwartz relatives from Ungvar. Violet's family wrote me yesterday to say that they don't know my Schwartz family. Their Schwartz family in Ungvar was Lojos Schwartz, whose sisters were Flora and Margaret. Although I'm disappointed, it's good to at least know for sure.

Updated in 2022: I found my mother's first cousin Violet via Yad Vashem testimony for her mother, killed during the Holocaust!