Wedding Wednesday: My Farkas Family

In 1932, my great-aunt Jeanne (Regina) Farkas (third from left in front row) married Harold Marks (third from right in front row).

The matriarch and patriarch, my maternal great-grandpa Moritz Farkas (second from left in front row) and great-grandma Lena Kunstler Farkas (fourth from left in front row), were in their early 70s.

My mother's parents, Hermina Farkas Schwartz and Theodore Schwartz, were married about 20 years at that point. Hermina (known as Minnie) is second from right in front row, an honored sister of the bride. Theodore (Teddy) is third from right in back row. In later years, Minnie came to look very much like her mother Lena, including the trademark natural waves of hair on the forehead. Minnie kept her white-gray hair very long, in a bun at the nape of her neck. It's difficult not to wonder where, in the Depression years, the family found the money for what looks like a formal wedding. 2022 update: The original of this beautiful wedding photo has been given to grandchildren of Jeanne and Harold Marks, as I curated my genealogy collection.

Motivation Monday: A Secret Gift (Book Review)

Over the weekend, I read A Secret Gift by Ted Gup, the story of the author's quest to learn more about his maternal grandfather. For any family genealogy nut (like me!), this is fascinating reading. It's wonderful motivation, as well, because of the satisfaction of following along as Gup puts the pieces of the puzzle together and reconstructs the past (very vividly).

What drew Gup into the quest was a dusty suitcase. By the end of his years of research, Gup had uncovered most of his father's secrets--and his father's secret kindness in his adopted hometown of Canton, Ohio.

It all started when Gup's mother, 80 years old, was clearing out her attic and gave him a suitcase of letters and other family memorabilia. Inside was a large envelope with the mysterious inscription: "Pertaning Xmas Gift Distribtion." (Yes, bad spelling and all.)

The letters were dated December 18, 1933, one week before Christmas, in the dark days of the Depression. Also with the letters was a sheaf of canceled checks, each for $5 and each signed by "B. Virdot." Gup puzzled over the envelope until he pulled out a folded piece of newspaper and read the story of a mysterious benefactor, B. Virdot, offering money to locals who were down on their luck. B. Virdot, it turned out, was Gup's grandfather, Sam Stone, acting anonymously to help families in his community.

Why would Sam hand out money to Canton residents? That's what Gup wanted to find out. He also wanted to know who got the money, why, and what it meant to them. So he not only applied his genealogical tracing skills to Sam and family, but to the people who had written the letters found in the suitcase. Once Gup tracked down descendants and read them the words of their parents or relatives, he got their side of the story and showed what the $5 gift meant to each family. (Gup reminds us that $5 then was like $100 today.)

Sam's story, as told by Gup, reveals his dreams and fears, his ups and downs. Highly recommended for the genealogy as well as the writing and the heart-wrenching, heart-warming picture of his family and the families he helped.

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.

Wedding Wednesday: "Father's Consent on File" for Elizabeth Rinehart

The probate court of Crawford County, OH is surely the most genealogy-friendly place in America. Less than a week ago, I sent for the marriage record of Edward George Steiner and Elizabeth Jane Rinehart, my hubby's maternal great-grandparents. Here's their application for a marriage license, received in my SASE just a couple of days later!

This application, dated 6 August 1851, was written out one day before the actual marriage on 7 August 1851.

Although it doesn't tell me who Edward and Elizabeth's parents are, it does say that Elizabeth was under the age of 18 (confirming birth info I found in later Census records). Her father had to consent to the marriage, which he did, as you can see from the notation at bottom left.

Best of all, this document puts to rest the question of how to spell Elizabeth's maiden name, sometimes shown as Reinhart.

The "marriage license" itself is a handwritten note in which P. Flack, M.G., (Minister of the Gospel) certifies that he "solemnized the marriage of Edward G. Steiner with Elizabeth Rinehart." 

2022 update: For more about these families, see my ancestor landing page here.

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)!

Wordless Wednesday: The Steiner Sisters' Tea Party

Elizabeth Rinehart Steiner and her husband, Edward G. Steiner, had an all-girl family except for their only son (Orville, my Sympathy Saturday subject).

Here, four of the six sisters pose for a "tea party" photo. My sis-in-law thinks that Carrie, Floyda, Blanche (Etta), and Minnie are in this photo. This photo was probably taken after Addy (Addline) Steiner died in 1879, so the fifth sister shown must be the oldest, Margaret (Mary) Steiner (later Margaret Post).

Tuesday's Tip: Floyda's Hidden Past Proves the Power of Please and Patience

Above is the marriage license application and cert for Floyda Mabel Steiner and Brice Larimer McClure, married 10 June 1903 in Wyandot County, Ohio (Upper Sandusky, to be exact). They're my hubby's maternal grandparents. There's been some question about the exact names of the great-grandparents, so I wanted their marriage info just to be sure. I found out where and when they were married via Ancestry's Ohio marriage database. The next step was to get a copy of the documentation.

First tip: Ask nicely. I called the probate court, explained that I was doing genealogical research, and asked (pretty please) whether the marriage documents for 1903 were available. The answer was yes. Next, I asked how to apply for a copy and what the cost would be. Answer: Write a detailed letter, include a SASE, and include a dime for each copy. However, I was told to be patient, because genealogical requests have to wait their turn while more pressing business is attended to. I thanked the clerk for her time, hung up, and immediately wrote out my request.

Second tip: Be generous. I put two bucks into a small envelope and wrote "payment for processing" on the outside, and included that with my letter and SASE. It's a bargain, IMHO, when you consider the convenience.

The bottom line: One month later, my SASE showed up in the mail, with a certified copy (well, photocopy) of the log book where Floyda and Brice's marriage info is kept. Not only did it show their parents' names (spelling is still a question mark), it revealed that Floyda had been married before, to Mr. Gottfried. That's an intriguing development I'm going to investigate.* Thank you, Wyandot County!

PS - Crawford County, Ohio, is just as friendly as Wyandot. I called to ask about Floyda's parents' marriage documents (from 1851) and they said to go ahead and send a SASE and 50 cents for a copy. Of course I sent more--what a bargain!

*2022 update: I learned more about Floyda's ill-fated first marriage from divorce documents obtained later. She filed suit against him, alleging her first husband was mentally and emotionally abusive, threatened and belittled her. Eventually she actually won her case and was awarded alimony. She took back her maiden name until remarrying two years later. 

52 Weeks: Pets--Mittens the Mongrol Terrier

This is a guest post from hubby, Wally, about Mittens, his family's dog, who lived to the ripe old age of 17.

"When I was 6, my sister was 4, and my brother was an infant, my family picked Mittens from a litter of mongrol terriers that a neighbor's dog had. He was named Mittens (Mitty for short) because he had four white paws.

"Mittens was fearless--except for thunder. During a thunderstorm, he would come tearing into the kitchen, slipping on the linoleum, to crawl under the old-fashioned electric stove and hide.

"In the summers, when I'd ride off on my bicycle, Mittens would run alongside. When the family rode in the car, Mittens would sit on the back shelf of the Plymouth, his nose out the rear window.

"One time, after we had been out in the car with him (getting ice cream?), we all got back in the car and my father started to drive away. Several blocks later, when we stopped at a red light, a car pulled up beside us. The driver called out, "You know there's a dog chasing you?!" We'd forgotten Mittens and driven off without him, but he wouldn't let us get away!

"One Sunday, my mother opened the vegetable bin under the old-fashioned refrigerator, screamed, and slammed it shut. She'd seen a rat in it. We looked for the rat but found no sign of him. That evening, Mittens came down to the basement where I was playing, and began sniffing around. He kept trying to get behind a door that was leaning up against the wall. When I pulled it away from the wall to take a look, there was the rat.

"I immediately pushed one end of the door tight against the wall to trap the rat and Mittens went crazy at the other end until my father rushed downstairs to kill it. Mittens was barking, I was shouting, even the rat was making a racket. Looking back, I think Mittens was disappointed that he hadn't been able to get at the rat. Mongrol terriers were used as "ratters" in the old days, and Mitty certainly had those genes!"

52 Weeks of Genealogy: The Automat and More

The quintessential New York City "casual dining" experience during the 1950s was at one of the Horn & Hardart Automats. The last one in Manhattan was near the Daily News building on Third Avenue and 42nd Street, and I remember going there to enjoy the Art Deco ambiance, not just the food.

As discussed in a Smithsonian article and in a book called The Automat, the Automat was cavernous and self-serve, with reasonably-priced hot and cold meals as well as prepared food ready for takeout by hungry commuters on their way home.

Eat-in customers would get a handful of nickels from the change lady and pump a few nickels into the slots to buy . . . well, my friend Rich's favorite was applesauce cake. My absolute favorite was sticky buns. My twin sis remembers great mac 'n cheese (the recipe, cut to family proportions by food maven Arthur Schwartz, can be found here).

My first restaurant experience on my own was a trip to the local Chinese restaurant at the corner of 225th Street and White Plains Road in the Bronx, at the foot of the steps leading to the elevated subway stop. I was 11 when I met my classmate Linda Kelly at the restaurant one weekend afternoon (we were in 6th grade at PS 103 together). We read the menu and ordered "one from column A and one from column B" plus wonton soup and spare ribs. When the bill came, we each had just enough money to pay our half.

I went home feeling very grown up because my friend and I had dined out all on our own. Only later did my parents think to mention that people usually leave a tip after a meal. Oooooops. I'm certain that my father stopped into the restaurant and slipped a couple of dollars to the owner or waiter, along with his thanks for treating two young girls with dignity during their first "grown up" restaurant meal.

Sympathy Saturday - Orville J. Steiner of Ohio

Hubby's granduncle Orville J. Steiner died in August, 1936. Thanks to the Ohio History Store, I have his death cert, as you can see. So why is this a Sympathy Saturday item?

There's almost no personal info on this death cert, even though the informant is one of Orville's younger sisters, Carrie Steiner Traxler. For some reason, "unknown" is the father and "unknown" is mother's maiden name. 

And the info that appears on the death cert makes no sense. Orville was apparently married, but the name of his wife is "unknown." Poor Orville died of uremic poisoning, on top of chronic myocarditis. He was 80 and living in Marion, Ohio, not far from Carrie and other sisters, who lived in Upper Sandusky, Ohio.

I'm remembering him on Sympathy Saturday. **

** Update: I've just discovered more about Orville by tracking him back through the Census. In 1930, he was an "inmate" at an almshouse. My assumption (not proven) is that he was in the almshouse when he died, and the officials listed his next of kin as the "informant" without actually consulting her about details such as Orville's parents' names. He really has my sympathy now. 

2022 update: I've been in touch with Orville's descendants, who say he had some kind of chronic illness that required long-term care.