My Dad, Harold D. Burk (1909-1978), was born just a few years later. His career goal, beginning in the 1930s, was to become a travel agent. He finally established his own travel agency after serving in WWII, working side by side with his younger brother. Initially, passenger train travel was in most demand. As air travel became more accessible, Dad's agency did a booming business selling plane (and later, jet) tickets.
On Father's Day, I'm remembering our 20th century Dads, with love.
Hosted by Christine McCloud, #GenChat has themed chats and free-wheeling "open mic" chats, plus special experts who share their knowledge and ideas. It's a friendly hour of genealogy/family history discussion via social media posts.
Want to participate?
On Twitter/X, #GenChat takes place on the second and fourth Friday of every month. On Mastodon, the chat takes place on the Saturday after the Friday #GenChat.
At top, the schedule from June through December, 2024. Tonight and tomorrow, the topic will be "genealogy institutes" with guest expert Cyndi Ingles, founder of Cyndi's List. (The pink date indicates Saturday on Mastodon.)
To see the schedule with US and international starting times, check here.
I'll be chatting on Saturday on Mastodon. Hope you'll drop by on Friday or Saturday and join the conversation!
The tree group was the brainstorm of Jennie Katz Farkas, married to the oldest of the eleven siblings who were the charter members. Despite economic woes, the tree association met at least 10 times a year, usually in the members' homes, which were all in the greater New York City area. (I know all of this history because these ancestors kept monthly meeting notes!)
Tree celebrations and sorrow
For the first anniversary of the tree's founding, in March of 1934, the members held a dinner-dance at the Cecile Restaurant in Manhattan and invited friends and family. An amazing 61 people attended, counting members plus in-laws and friends and neighbors. For the second anniversary, the dinner-dance was at the Hotel Hamilton on West 73d St. in Manhattan. An even more amazing 81 people attended, at a cost of $1.25 per person for dinner plus 50 cents "subscription," in 1935. This was the depth of the Depression, yet the tree turned out in numbers for these special celebrations. The total dinner cost the equivalent of $40 per person today.
For the third anniversary, the Hotel Hamilton was again to be the venue, at $1.25 per person for dinner, plus 25 cents for a "subscription" fee. However, one week before the dinner, Farkas patriarch Moritz died, so the event was postponed indefinitely until after a year's mourning period. No dinner-dance was held in 1937 and when a dinner-dance was planned for 1938, it too was postponed due to the death of the matriarch, Leni. No dinner-dance in 1939, either, as hard times hit the Farkas Family Tree.
Starting 1940 off with a party!
After the sadness of losing the matriarch and patriarch in the last years of the 1930s, plus money being so tight for all, a party was finally planned for on Sunday, January 7, 1940 at the True Sisters meeting rooms on West 85th St., Manhattan.
The United Order of True Sisters was a Jewish women's organization founded in 1846 in New York City, which slowly gained chapters across the country. In 1926, the True Sisters laid the cornerstone of its new building in Manhattan, as described in the headline at top of this post. My family tree held its 1939 Thanksgiving dinner at the True Sisters building in one of its meeting rooms, and then the January party in 1940.
The Family Tree minutes reported: "The 64th meeting of the Farkas Family Tree was held at the True Sisters Building on Jan 7, 1940. It was our coming out party after being 'in' for quite a number of years. Present besides our membership were our friends, in-laws, and youngsters."
Party begins with a pledge
After reciting the Pledge of Allegiance to the American flag that was marched in, the group sang America with piano accompaniment by one of the Farkas children. Then the tree president made a speech about the group's "ideals and achievements."
Next, the tree's historian (my aunt Dorothy, twin sister of my Mom), summarized the previous year's tree activities and family doings. The tree then installed new officers for 1940 and eventually the meeting was adjourned to enjoy refreshments and view home movies of the past year's get-togethers.
Of course no one had any idea that more hard times would be ahead when the US entered World War II. So many of these Farkas folks went into the service (including my aunt Dorothy, the WAC) and those at home did their part to help the Allies win the war. A story for another time.
"Hard times" is the theme for this week's #52Ancestors genealogy prompt from Amy Johnson Crow.
Lilly's friends threw her a fun bridal shower that was covered in the Canadian Jewish Chronicle newspaper on March 27, 1931. I found this out by researching her name (with spelling variations) using the OldNews.com feature of MyHeritage. The list of attendees included her sister and many friends who came to play bridge and shower Lilly with gifts of linens. This same group of friends played bridge together regularly, as I could see by mentions in the newspaper's social column. Little tidbits like this bring ancestors to life for me!
What also caught my eye about Lilly's wedding date was the fact that it took place after the June 1, 1931 Census Day in Canada. As shown above, Lilly and her new husband, Joseph, are enumerated as married and seemingly landlord/landlady with others living in the same household. He is 28, she is 22.
Um, it is possible but very unlikely that in that period, they would live together and call themselves married before the wedding, so I'm assuming the enumerator didn't reach their residence until June 8 at the earliest. Although the enumerator was supposed to indicate where he or she ended each day and put a date in right margin of the Census sheet, I haven't found any dates in this particular section. For now, my estimate is they were enumerated after June 8th ;)
Lilly died not too many months after celebrating her 25th wedding anniversary, mourned by her husband and two grown sons. Today I'm remembering this cousin on the 93d anniversary of her marriage.
In August of 1871, Nathan Joseph filed a patent for a new design for a flag badge, shown at top, and D'Alva Mosse was one of two witnesses to this patent. Whether Mosse ever purchased such badges from Joseph for sale in his store, I don't know, but it was interesting to see their names together on this patent page.
D'Alva's story has a sad ending. On June 5, 1874, he was home alone, having been quite ill for several weeks. His wife Nancy was tending to the store in his absence. Unfortunately, D'Alva somehow got hold of a pistol and fatally shot himself, leaving behind a grieving widow and two young daughters.
I'm remembering D'Alva Mosse, former Gold Rush miner, businessman, son, husband, and father, on the 150th anniversary of his death.
In the process, I'm documenting what folks died of, if cause of death is documented in the records. The very youngest in the Wood family tree tended to die from diseases that are treatable today, such as diphtheria and diarrhea. Ancestors who lived to adulthood usually died from a variety of other causes, including typhoid, tuberculosis, pneumonia, stroke, and heart disease, only very occasionally dying of cancer on this branch of the family tree.
Mary: Age and cardiac asthma
My husband's paternal great-grandma, Mary Amanda Demarest Wood (1831-1897) died of "age, cardiac asthma," which ultimately is caused by congestive heart failure. At top, an excerpt from the death records in a ledger in Lucas County, Ohio, showing her cause of death.
Now consider that Mary was only 65 when she died, not nearly as ancient as her husband. On the other hand, she had 17 children, the first born when Mary was 15 years old (you read that correctly) and the last born when she was 44. This must have taken a toll on her health. Also, she saw the death of 10 children during her life, a handful from childhood diseases like diphtheria but also one drowned, others had health problems as adults. RIP, great-grandma Mary.
Thomas: General debility from age
Thomas was born into a family where many of the men were whalers, either owning ships or captaining ships or working on ships out of New Bedford, Mass. He became a carpenter, supporting his family by working on the railroad most of his life. In later years, he built coaches for the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Railway out of Toledo, Ohio.
Lots of years of physical labor could have both strengthened Thomas's body and slowly worn it down over the decades. When Thomas died in early 1890, his oldest son went to work as a laborer at age 17 to help support the household. A few unmarried adult children remained at home with the widowed Mary, who sometimes worked part-time as a nurse when her health allowed. RIP, g-g Thomas.
"Health" is Amy Johnson Crow's #52Ancestors prompt for week 23 of her genealogy challenge.
I use the tiny hard drive in the picture for my Mac "Time Machine" hourly backups. This small external drive is faster and more convenient than the 2020-era drives I used to use. I like that it takes up less space and it completes backups in a shorter time.
For extra protection, I also back up every day in the cloud and regularly duplicate special/important files to a USB, ready to transfer if needed.
Download online trees and back up, too
On Ancestry for instance, go to "tree settings" when you're in your family tree, then select "Manage Your Tree...Export Tree" (see image at right) and be prepared to wait if the tree has thousands of individuals. But it's worthwhile as a backup!
On MyHeritage, the process is explained in this screen shot below...and you can query the site's Knowledge Base for more details.
Backups provide peace of mind that our family trees and genealogy data are safe, current, and available. I wrote about the value of backups in my genealogy book, Planning a Future for Your Family's Past.
Gloria's parents were Herman Wajman (Americanized to Weiman) and Julia Ida Weiss (she's the Roth cousin). Herman was a jeweler from Poland who came to America in 1921 with his Hungarian-born wife Julia and their baby daughter Magda, settling in Wilmington, Delaware. The baby, sadly, didn't survive but Herman and Julia had two more daughters, Gloria and June, who grew up taking piano, dance, singing lessons and more.
New starlet, creative new name
Gloria's mini-bio on IMDb notes that when she was a young teen, her mother took her to meet a local radio producer which, in turn, led to a meeting with a Hollywood talent scout. That was her big break: she was signed as an up-and-coming starlet for Warner Brothers, at age 15.
In mid-1941, the entire family filed petitions to change their surname from Weiman to Warren for purposes of Gloria's career. How do I know? The Wilmington, Delaware newspapers covered Gloria's rise to Hollywood and her creative name change too! The family relocated to California as her career began to blossom under the new name of Gloria Warren.
Newspapers documented Gloria's Hollywood life
The papers mentioned Gloria's successful 1945 South American singing tour (see document at top) where she was accompanied by her sister June. A newspaper even covered Gloria the starlet's trip from Hollywood to Wilmington to see her aunt, Mrs. Max Weiss (maiden name Ethel Weiss).
Despite her talent, her singing compared to Deanna Durbin, the movies in which Gloria appeared were not hits, even though her personal star shined. The movie Always in My Heart was written with a part specifically for Gloria, who sang the title song. Of course the Wilmington newspaper raved about Gloria's performance but most critics complained that the plot was hackneyed. Gifted and gorgeous, Gloria appeared in only a handful of movies after that.
Blind date changes Gloria's life
Gloria met Peter Gold (1924-2010) on a blind date in spring of 1946. They fell for each other and were engaged within 10 days, and married in early September. My speculation is that the blind date could have been arranged by Peter's brother, Lee B. Gold, a Hollywood screenwriter. Sis speculates that Peter saw Gloria in a movie and asked for an introduction.
Press accounts covering the marriage differ about Peter's occupation...he was an agent or a whisky salesman, depending on which newspaper covered the Hollywood gossip. Gloria was in one more movie released after their marriage, and then she retired forever from the Hollywood scene.
By 1950, Peter was a shower door salesman and he had a very bright business future ahead: He worked his way up to the top of the big Price-Pfister plumbing manufacturing firm and ultimately retired from the position of CEO and Chairman. Gloria and Peter had two children and were married for 60+ years.
One paper interviewed Gloria in the 1960s, when she looked back on her career, spoke lovingly of her children, said how she enjoyed being a mother. This was the last press coverage I can find of Gloria's movie career, as she chose to protect her privacy more and more in later years. Rest in peace, cousin.
"Creativity" is the week 22 prompt from Amy Johnson Crow's #52Ancestors genealogy challenge.
My maternal great aunt Freda Farkas (1898-1989) married Morris Pitler (1895-1976) on New Year's Eve of 1922, nearly four years after he had been honorably discharged from serving in World War I. As shown in the service record at top, Morris was inducted into the US Army at Ft. Monroe, Virginia. He served in the 40th Artillery from July of 1918 to January of 1919, rising to the rank of Radio Sergeant in November, 1918. After his military service, Morris built a successful career in the insurance business.
Morris's younger son, Richard K. Pitler (1928-2023) was an 18-year-old student at Massachusetts Institute of Technology when he filled out his draft registration card in March of 1946. He finished his college degree and then Dick became a lieutenant in the US Army, stationed at the Watertown Arsenal in Watertown, Massachusetts. He left the Army in 1950, married, went on for a master's degree at RPI, and became a high-ranking expert specializing in metallurgy with Allegheny Ludlum Steel.
Thank you to Morris, Dick, Harry, and all the vets who have served our country over the years.
Originally, I focused on his Civil War ancestors (both Union and Confederate). Then I expanded my research and documentation to include his ancestors who served in WWI and WWII, and a handful who served in the War of 1812. Plus there is one, just one, direct-line ancestor who served in the American Revolution, on the side of the Colonies.
Now I'm adding hubby's second cousins who served in the Korean War. As I do that, I'm also checking that their "veteran" status is indicated on their Find a Grave memorial pages.
In the case of cousin James "Jim" Simmons (1930-2009), there was no Find a Grave memorial. He had been cremated, no burial listed, according to the death record. So I created a page for him, and before it was finalized, Find a Grave asked me to check that it wasn't a dupe of a page for someone with a similar name who had been cremated. Not a dupe, so I went ahead.
On Jim's page, I indicated a "V" for veteran (top red arrow), and wrote the dates of his service in the bio section (lower red arrow). Then I linked his memorial to the pages of his younger brother (also a Korean War veteran) and to his parents.
On Memorial Day weekend, thank you to all the veterans who have served their country. For those in my family tree and my husband's family tree, I'm doing everything I can to keep their memories alive for future generations--so our valuable family history doesn't get lost to the mists of time. See my book, Planning a Future for Your Family's Past, for more ideas about preserving genealogy for the sake of those who come after us.
PS: I've submitted a suggestion to Ancestry.com to request that it provide a "V" designation we can use to designate someone as a military veteran in our family trees. The company is giving it consideration. After all, if Ancestry-owned Find a Grave can do this, it would be great to be consistent and have a "V" designation available on the family tree side as well, IMHO.
Randy included in his post a wonderful chart showing how people connect to him in his family tree, made using one of the apps offered to WikiTree users. Randy called it a "meatball" chart, WikiTree calls it a "six degree" chart. Here's a link to the app by Greg Clarke to create this type of chart starting from a particular person on your Wikitree, always free.
Since I'm currently putting the finishing touches on a photobook about my husband's paternal grandparents on the Wood and Steiner side, I created the meatball at top showing Edgar James Wood and his ancestors. Colorful and interesting! The royal blue circle is my husband, son of the man in the middle of the meatball.
Thank you to WikiTree for providing free, useful, and eye-catching tools like this to visualize the family tree.
Lemuel Wood, master mariner
Hubby's great-granduncle Lemuel C. Wood (1792-1870) was a master mariner with controlling or partnership interest in whaling ships out of New Bedford, Massachusetts. After his first two wives died, he married Julia A. L. Sampson, widow of a whaling man who died at sea. Julia was 52 and Lemuel was 68 when they were wed in 1860.
When the US Civil War broke out, Lemuel used his considerable knowledge and skill by serving in the Union Navy. He commanded the USS Daylight as part of the blockade against the Confederate states in late 1861 to early 1862. His military service ended about the time he turned 70 years old. Lemuel recorded his occupation as "mariner" on the 1865 Mass. Census and the 1870 US Census. He died on Sept. 16, 1870 at the age of 78. According to the Census, his real estate was then worth $8,000 and his personal estate was worth $12,000 (in all, the equivalent of $340,000 in today's dollars).
In writing bite-sized bios of my husband's ancestors who were in the military, I've researched their units or militias and also tried to put their service into historical and familial context. This is especially important when I know fairly little about individuals who lived and died more than 150 years in the past. In the process, I hope to show my readers the personal side of world history, and the connection with family history.
In the above page about Elihu Wood Jr., I named his parents and said he was one of eight children, for family context. Also I pointed out that he was born only 20 years after the American Revolution, during which his father served for the Colonies.
In the War of 1812, Elihu became a private in the Massachusetts Militia, and I included an image from one of the state adjutant general books, showing his name and unit.
Then I explained the historical background that prompted his two tours of two weeks each in the militia in 1814. Elihu's service, short though it might be, was an important element in the Colonial defense of the New England coastline.
The final paragraph of this bite-sized bio provided some personal details about Elihu's wife (Sarah Howland) and their family. I ended with the observation that Sarah died just days after the 100th anniversary of the American Revolution. So even though I know only a bit about these people as individuals, adding the connection with world history puts them into a larger context and highlights the tradition of military service, both father and son being US veterans.
Remembering my Mom and my two grandmothers on Mother's Day weekend:
Grandma Hermina "Minnie" Farkas (1886-1966) - Married Theodore Schwartz in 1911, mother of my Mom
Grandma Henrietta Mahler (1881-1954) - Married Isaac Burk in 1906, mother of my Dad
Mom Daisy Schwartz (1919-1981) - Married Harold Burk in 1946. Happy Mother's Day!
In January of 1920, the US Census taker listed you, Grandma, with your husband and one of four children in a big apartment building in New York City. I found you there when I was cranking microfilm to look at this Census maybe 20 years ago, before digitization and indexing made it faster and easier to locate ancestors. Neither you nor Grandpa Isaac had been naturalized at the time, as indicated by the "al" status in the column at right.
Look at surrounding Census pages
Creative spelling for these names, but recognizable as you and Grandpa and your older daughter at the bottom of a page. Wait, what? The other three children were not on the next page nor on the previous page!? Puzzling, but I was certain the rest of the family couldn't be very far away. Luckily, I had already learned to check a page or two back and a page or two forward, so I kept cranking the microfilm.
Whew, your two sons and younger daughter were two pages away, at the top of the sheet. Here they are, shown as son, daughter, son. Harold D Berk [sic] is my Dad, so I figured out very quickly who these people were and who they belonged to, even though they were NOT the children of the last person on the previous page.
What did the enumerator do?
Today, with 26 years of experience in genealogy research, I can understand why Grandma Henrietta was not enumerated with all of her children. Here's the story as I pieced it together.That enumerator stopped work early on Sunday, the 4th of January, 1920, before counting all the households at 1642/1644 Lexington Avenue in Manhattan. He finished the bottom of your page and left. You and your husband and older daughter were listed as "number of family in order of visitation #62." Remember that number 62, which is shown before the surname on the Census sheet.
On Monday, the 5th of January, the enumerator returned to the area but didn't start with your apartment or even your building, I can see by looking at the page after you. Then, two pages after you, I found your other three children finally enumerated on the 5th of January. It's a good thing I recognized the names.
But the enumerator did leave an important clue: #62, number of family in order of visitation. With that number, he was linking Harold, Miriam, and Sidney to #62 family in order of visitation, the household of Henrietta & Isaac, which he had enumerated two pages before at this address. I just didn't have enough experience and knowledge decades ago to decode his Census entry indicating these three names were actually the children of the parents at family #62.
Thinking of you, Grandma Henrietta, on this anniversary of your birth.
