Our son found my paternal great-grandfather's immigration papers which informed me that the paternal side of my father's family immigrated from Pruzany, Poland by way of Libau, Latvia in February of 1907. According to family lore the boat sank and all the papers were destroyed, so this is information I never thought I would know.
I also learned that my great-grandfather Jossel Fein, which was Americanized to Joseph Fine, signed his name with an X ("his mark"), which means that though he was a carpenter by trade he could not sign his name.
I never knew anything about Annie, my paternal great-grandmother. From this document I learned that she had just given birth to my grandfather Nathan just before leaving Poland (his birthday was the fifteenth of January, 1907); they reached New York on the fifteenth of February. Nathan's older brother Max was ten months old when the family arrived.
That means that Annie had back-to-back pregnancies, and that she must have had one hell of a time on that trip with two babies. But there was clearly no choice but to leave Poland.
My great-grandfather didn't become an American citizen until 1938. I imagine that the rest of his family became citizens at the same time, but who knows. Who knows about Annie? Was the path to citizenship for Max and Nathan, who were not born in the United States, the same as the path for their two younger siblings who were born here?
And who was Annie? (She is the elegant woman in the upper left). Nathan and Burton were musical, and I know that Max had musical children as well (one was a pianist who studied at Curtis). Did the Fine family's musical nature come from Annie?
The photo to the right of Annie is Anna, my paternal grandmother. I know very little about her except that her mother was named Sima Kwitch, and that she came from a shtetl near Kiev. Sima's husband Philip died in 1931, a year after my father was born, and she married Joe Goren, a fishmonger who had a shop in West Philadelphia.
Anna Fine, My paternal grandmother, who died in 1963, spent a large part of her adulthood dealing with complications from multiple sclerosis. I heard that she was a great cook who never wrote down her recipes, but other than a story about her telling my father to keep his mouth shut so that he could ride for half fare on public transportation, and my Aunt Phyllis saying that she was like the character of Louey in Maureen Duffy's That's How it Was, I know nothing about her (but how I is wish I did).
The woman in the lower left is my mother's maternal grandmother, Fanny Feingold, who married George Bohrod. They immigrated together from Bessarabia (now Moldova), and had four children. The boys, Aaron and Milton, became important people (Aaron was a painter and Milton was a doctor), and the girls became wives. Lillian, my great aunt, was a happy party girl who liked to play cards. She spent her retirement (her husband's retirement) in Las Vegas, and Anne, my grandmother, who also liked to play cards, became a malignant narcissist. She isn't included in the photograph because I know too much about her.
The last woman is my mother's paternal grandmother known as "Machko," which is a Ukranian surname. She married Israel Blume who was known as the "merchant poet" of Chicago who ran the Cafe Royal (you can read about him here). Israel and Machko also ran a resort up in Michigan. It occurs to me, if only from looking at her face, that my great-grandmother was a person of consequence. I imagine that she handled the business end of the operation. Her son, my grandfather Henry grew up to become an accountant.
I never knew anything about Annie, my paternal great-grandmother. From this document I learned that she had just given birth to my grandfather Nathan just before leaving Poland (his birthday was the fifteenth of January, 1907); they reached New York on the fifteenth of February. Nathan's older brother Max was ten months old when the family arrived.
That means that Annie had back-to-back pregnancies, and that she must have had one hell of a time on that trip with two babies. But there was clearly no choice but to leave Poland.
My great-grandfather didn't become an American citizen until 1938. I imagine that the rest of his family became citizens at the same time, but who knows. Who knows about Annie? Was the path to citizenship for Max and Nathan, who were not born in the United States, the same as the path for their two younger siblings who were born here?
And who was Annie? (She is the elegant woman in the upper left). Nathan and Burton were musical, and I know that Max had musical children as well (one was a pianist who studied at Curtis). Did the Fine family's musical nature come from Annie?
The photo to the right of Annie is Anna, my paternal grandmother. I know very little about her except that her mother was named Sima Kwitch, and that she came from a shtetl near Kiev. Sima's husband Philip died in 1931, a year after my father was born, and she married Joe Goren, a fishmonger who had a shop in West Philadelphia.
Anna Fine, My paternal grandmother, who died in 1963, spent a large part of her adulthood dealing with complications from multiple sclerosis. I heard that she was a great cook who never wrote down her recipes, but other than a story about her telling my father to keep his mouth shut so that he could ride for half fare on public transportation, and my Aunt Phyllis saying that she was like the character of Louey in Maureen Duffy's That's How it Was, I know nothing about her (but how I is wish I did).
The woman in the lower left is my mother's maternal grandmother, Fanny Feingold, who married George Bohrod. They immigrated together from Bessarabia (now Moldova), and had four children. The boys, Aaron and Milton, became important people (Aaron was a painter and Milton was a doctor), and the girls became wives. Lillian, my great aunt, was a happy party girl who liked to play cards. She spent her retirement (her husband's retirement) in Las Vegas, and Anne, my grandmother, who also liked to play cards, became a malignant narcissist. She isn't included in the photograph because I know too much about her.
The last woman is my mother's paternal grandmother known as "Machko," which is a Ukranian surname. She married Israel Blume who was known as the "merchant poet" of Chicago who ran the Cafe Royal (you can read about him here). Israel and Machko also ran a resort up in Michigan. It occurs to me, if only from looking at her face, that my great-grandmother was a person of consequence. I imagine that she handled the business end of the operation. Her son, my grandfather Henry grew up to become an accountant.
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