Leona Walasyk from Lodz Becomes Lee Wallace in Hackensack

Long, long before I came to know her as "Aunt Lee," Leona Z. Wallace (1903-1989) was working hard to get an education, help bring up her two younger brothers, and create a steady path to prosperity for the entire family. 

As shown in the last line of the above 1950 US Census excerpt, Lee was born in Poland. By the 1930s, possibly earlier, Lee had Americanized her name to Wallace, and until I saw the 1950 Census I wasn't sure what her surname used to be. In 1950, she was enumerated as a "head of household" despite living in the same very nice home in Hackensack, New Jersey with her two brothers, Charles Walasyk and Edward Walasyk, who never changed their names.* Correction: They changed their names later in life.

Charles, also enumerated as a head, was married with two children in the household, working as a salesman. In addition, their brother Edward, a water engineer, was staying with them in Hackensack. He was married and actually lived elsewhere with his family, but was enumerated with his siblings on this Census day in 1950. 

My research shows Edward was not born in Poland but actually in New Jersey, as was Charles, so I'm fairly sure none of the Walasyk/Wallace siblings actually spoke with the enumerator in 1950. Talk about prosperity: The spacious Hackensack home where they all lived in 1950 is now updated and worth a pretty penny. 

Back in 1950, Lee was doing quite well, which you wouldn't know from simply reading her enumerated occupation: "public relations, department store." 

I've written before that Lee headed up the famous, fabulous Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade for a number of years, including 1950. Around this time, my mother's twin sister Dorothy went to work for Macy's and met Lee. The two hit it off, personally and professionally.

Not only did they work on the parade together, they were hired to assist with the annual Barnum Festival in Bridgeport, Connecticut in 1953. In March of that year, the Bridgeport Telegram reported that Miss Lee Wallace had "built up the Macy parade to the biggest balloon parade in the country." The final sentence of the news item reads: "Accompanying Miss Wallace was Miss Dorothy H. Schwartz, her associate." 

My aunt Dorothy Schwartz (1919-2001) soon left the world of parades and publicity to become a high school teacher in the Bronx, driving from New Jersey every work day. I later learned that Lee and Dorothy were savvy with their household finances, being able to afford a brand new car every other year as well as annual summer and winter vacations. Aunt Lee had no trace of an accent, and she never spoke of her past to me, a little girl who appreciated her affection and attention.

This week's #52Ancestors prompt from Amy Johnson Crow is "prosperity."

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Where Were Ancestors in 1950 Census?

Randy Seaver and I are on the same wavelength this week, with the Saturday Night Genealogy Fun focusing on the 1950 US Census! I've been digging into the details of the 1950 Census, so I'll be ready to find ancestors by location when the records are released in April, 2022.

Randy's challenge: Who in your ancestral families will be in the 1950 census?  Where will they be residing,  What occupations will they have?  The official "date" was 1 April 1950.

Maternal Ancestors in 1950 Census

Grandma Hermina Farkas Schwartz and Grandpa Theodore Schwartz will be living on 180th Street in the Bronx, NY, having moved from their long-time apartment on Beck Street soon after World War II ended. He will still be a dairy grocer, but not for long--his retirement came early in the 1950s!

Their twins, Daisy and Dorothy Schwartz, had already left home by this time. Daisy (hi Mom!) married Harold Burk (hi Dad!) and they were living in an apartment building on Carpenter Avenue in the Bronx, NY. The apartment building full of paternal ancestors, as noted below. Daisy was a homemaker and Dad was a travel agent.

Dorothy Schwartz (hi Auntie!) was somewhere in the Bronx, soon to move to Hackensack, NJ, with her partner, Lee Wallace. Dorothy was working for Macy's, I believe, where she met Lee, head of publicity/special events and leader of the Thanksgiving Day Parade for many years.

Daisy and Dorothy's older brother lived in Brooklyn, a high school teacher in 1950. His wife later became head of guidance for all of New York City's public schools. Their two children will both be enumerated in the 1950 Census.

Grandpa's brother, Sam Schwartz, was living in Queens, NY, also a dairy grocer. This is where I'll learn whether he had already married his second wife, Margaret. My guess is yes, they were already married by this time (his first wife, Anna Gelbman, died in 1940).

Grandpa's sister, Mary Schwartz Wirtschafter, was most likely living with her furrier husband, Edward Wirtschafter, in their home in Mount Vernon, NY. There's a small possibility they were elsewhere, since their daughter remembered them taking an apartment in the Bronx at some point.

Many of Grandma's Farkas siblings lived in the New York area and I'll be able to find them easily, thanks to the Farkas Family Tree minutes and letters I've indexed for quick reference.

Paternal Ancestors in 1950 Census

Great-grandma Tillie Jacobs Mahler was living in the Bronx on Marmion Ave., where I believe she stayed until her death in 1952. This is the ancestor who was either 99 or 100 when she died. The Census might give me a solid clue about her age...

Tillie's daughter Dora lived with her at this time. Dora, tall and thin, had been in millinery sales but retired early due to a chronic health condition (heart?). She died just a few months after this Census was taken.

My paternal grandma was Tillie's daughter Henrietta Mahler Burk (hi Gran!). Henrietta's husband Isaac Burk had died years earlier, so I'm going to be interested to see whether Grandma Henrietta was still on Valentine Avenue in the Bronx, where they were living when Isaac died in the 1940s. More likely she will be found in the same apartment Bronx building as her son Harold (hi Dad) and daughter-in-law Daisy (hi Mom) AND her younger son Sidney Burk and older daughter Mildred Burk Lang. Lots of family in one apartment building, the building where I was brought up.

I'll be able to locate all of Tillie's other living children, I think, because I'm in touch with 2d cousins who are their descendants. One daughter married and went to California. A son worked as a handyman in Hollywood and lived in a small apartment in Los Angeles.

One goal is to trace all of Tillie's nieces and nephews, the children of her brother Joseph Jacobs and his wife, Eva Michalovsky Jacobs. Two of Joseph's and Eva's daughter died young. I know where one of the other daughters lived in 1950, and one of the sons. So I'll be looking for the two other children!

Thanksgivings of the Past

Happy Thanksgiving! I looked back in diaries, postcards, meeting minutes, and other bits and pieces of my genealogical collection to get a glimpse of what happened on Thanksgivings of the past in my family and my husband's family.*

• The strangely-colored postcard at right, from the 1910s, was received in East Cleveland by hubby's uncle, Wallis W. Wood. The sender was "Aunt Nellie" (Rachel Ellen Wood Kirby), who lived in Chicago and never missed an opportunity to send holiday or birthday greetings to her nephews and nieces in the Wood family.
• On Thanksgiving Day of 1959, my late father-in-law (Edgar J. Wood) received the exciting news that he would be a grandfather for the first time during 1960. How do I know? He wrote about it in his diary!
• On Thanksgiving Day of 1950, my grandma's Farkas family gathered at the C&L Restaurant in Manhattan for dinner and accordion entertainment, at $6 per person. My parents, Daisy Schwartz and Harry Burk, told the family they were buying a TV set to celebrate their wedding anniversary (they married on November 24, 1946). I read about it in the minutes of the Farkas Family Tree.
• The Farkas Family Tree and spouses and children pitched in to have a photo taken of everyone who attended the Thanksgiving Day dinner at a Manhattan hotel in 1956. It was a large group! Again, the story of planning this dinner and the photography is straight out of the tree's monthly minutes, which I scanned and indexed a few years ago.
• My aunt Dorothy Schwartz worked on the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade with her long-time friend and partner, Lee Wallace, from 1950-1952. Lee was then the head of public relations for Macy's, and Dorothy was her assistant. Then my aunt got her teaching license and left the world of retail to teach typing and shorthand at Christopher Columbus High School in the Bronx. Yes, this is the same aunt who was a WAC during WWII.

 *Not including hubby's Mayflower ancestors celebrating Thanksgiving, of course. That's the oldest "Thanksgiving of the Past" story I can tell to my family for the holiday.