More at Montefiore Cemetery

Posted on by
16

I’ve written in the past about Max Goodstein and his wife Anna Leibowitz Goodstein. Max was the uncle of the gardener’s grandmother Celia. When she immigrated to the United States from Russia, she was sponsored and taken in by Max and Anna and their children, Celia’s cousins.

The couple is buried at the same cemetery as Celia and Isidore Scheshko, Montefiore Cemetery in Springfield Gardens, Queens County, New York. Actually, the aunt and uncle were buried there in the 1930s (1934 for Max, 1939 for Anna). Isidore died in 1953, and Celia not until 1982.

Here are Max and Anna’s headstones.

These images were taken by the cemetery and given to me as pdf files. I had to create jpg files, and the ages are not clear. It’s possible that Max’s stone says he was 62 years old, but if he was born in 1874, as his naturalization papers would indicate, he would have been 60 when he passed.

Thanks to Tracing the Tribe on Facebook, here is the translation from Hebrew: Here is buried Mordechai, son of Mr. Aharon, died 8th of Elul 5694. May his soul be bound in eternal life.

This confirms once again that Celia’s grandfather was Aaron Goodstein.

Anna’s headstone says this: Neche, daughter of Mr. Shlomo, died 11th of Adar 5699. May her soul be bound in eternal life.

If Anna was born in 1876, as I believe, she would have been about 63 years old when she passed. Her headstone seems to say 55 or 65, but it’s very unclear.

These are very beautiful headstones. I believe the picture of Max on the headstone is from the family photo that includes Celia which I have shared before or taken around the same time.

I did learn one new thing from the headstones. Anna’s father is listed as Shlomo, but I thought her father’s name was Aaron. Maybe that was an error because of Max’s father, but I am not sure. This will take some more investigation!

I’ve taken over the memorials on Find-a-grave for both Max and Anna. If one of their descendants is on Find-a-grave and would like me to transfer them, I would be happy to do so. In the meantime, the gardener and I will watch over their memorials as their closest Find-a-grave relatives.

Sura’s Marriage

Posted on by
15

I finally have news to share on the Scheshko family front. Inna Vayner has been able to track down the marriage record of Isidore Scheshko’s sister, Sura. Sura, born in 1891, was married in 1920 in Odessa. She was 29 years old, and she and the groom, Elya Brener, had never been married before.

To remind you: we believe that Sura is the young lady seated on our right. The young man on our far left is her twin brother, Mendel. We believe that the gardener’s sister was named for Sura.

Here is the record book and pertinent pages. I wasn’t sure why there are so many pages, and this is what Inna told me: “these images include the title page and the page with requisition information. The other three images were taken to ensure the record could be easily read., so I included these as well since I have them.” Of course, I can’t read them so I am not sure what is what ;).

This is a translation of the record:

Governorate register’s office of Odessa

Marriage registration book

Registry entry number and recording registration book number 5510/5

Year, month and date of marriage March 4, 1920

Given names, patronymic names, surnames and occupation of bride and groom

Elya son of Khuna Brener, shoemaker

Sura, daughter of Shemel Sheshko, a factory worker

Groom’s address: Privoznaya [str]

Bride’s address: Rybnaya 93

Year, month and date of birth of groom November 1886

Bride’s date of birth September 5, 1891 [Her birth was recorded that date, but the actual birth date was September 3, 1891–Inna explained that the date of record often became the official birth date]

Marital status of the bride and groom (single, married) Groom single, Bride maiden

Special marks: groom – Tir. (?)

You can see that Sura was a factory worker and married a shoemaker.

I wish I could imagine more about Sura’s big day. Forget images of Fiddler on the Roof. Sura and Elya were married in the big city in 1920. But was it a big wedding or very small or somewhere in the middle? What did they wear? How traditional was the event?

Since I wanted to see an image of their wedding, I google-searched for “1920 Odessa Jewish wedding.” I found an amazing article with a first-hand account of a pogrom in Odessa in 1905 that also has a photograph of a Jewish bride and groom, Harry and Lisa Fogel, and their parents from their wedding in Odessa in 1920. You will want to read the account of the pogrom as well as take a look at the photograph. CLICK HERE

The article makes me think that all the violence might have had something to do with whether the Scheshkos were really from Tiraspol or from Odessa.

What Happened to Scheshko?

Posted on by
23

Amy at Brotmanblog: A Family Journey asked how the surname Scheshko became Castle. I thought that I had explained that in a previous post, but I cannot find that I mentioned it.

After Murray and Diana moved from NYC to Michigan with their two children, Murray decided to change their last name. You can see what the petition states as to the reason. It fits exactly with what the gardener always told me about the name change.

“The name Scheshko has caused embarassment to myself and my family. People have a hard time remembering the name and a hard time pronouncing it.”

What the petition doesn’t state is how Murray arrived at the name Castle.

He picked it out of a phone book, or so the story goes.

I did “redact” the names and birth dates of the gardener and his sister from the document.

Here are the two pieces of text I removed!

at Palmer Lake, Michigan

first home after NYC, before the name change in Kalamazoo

Diana’s Grandmother in NYC

Posted on by
31

Some time ago I wrote about the process by which my mother-in-law Diana Shulman (Scheshko Castle) gradually moved from Toronto to New York City.

At one point, Diana seemed to be indicating at the border that she would live with her grandmother, Mrs. Isidore Shulman, who appeared to live with the Brands (one of Diana’s grandmother’s daughters) during the mid-forties. 

I’m not sure if Diana actually did live with her maternal* grandmother or if she was just using that address for the purposes of entering the United States.

But I do know that she saw her grandmother in New York. Because here they are! I don’t know what year this photo was taken, but Anna passed away on 17 June 1960 at the age of 97.

We believe that her name at birth was Chana Fleischman, and she was called Anna in Canada (where she first immigrated) and then in the United States. She took on her husband’s surname Schulman.

The family believes she may have been born in Kamanets-Podolskyi or Zinkov. Both are in Ukraine–what was then Russia. I will go into this a bit more in the future, but my information is very limited as so far we have not had any “hits” on documents in that area for the Schulmans or Shulmans. Next up our genealogist will try to search the Fleischmans.

Most of my so-called facts about Anna are “floating” right now–they may or may not be right. For instance, she may have immigrated to Canada from Russia in or around 1906 with her husband and all her children. Then her husband might have died in or around 1912. She then might have immigrated to the United States in 1945 to live with one of her children who had left Canada for the U.S. Interestingly that is around the same time that Diana went to NYC.

What I do know about Anna that is exciting is that in 1955 she was in the Daily News.

Hand raised, Anna Schulman, 92, listens attentively during the ceremonies. She was the oldest person of 7,000 at Ebbets Field to become a citizen.

 

Way to go, Anna! You’re never to old to make changes in your life!

* Diana’s surname at birth was Shulman, her father’s name. But Diana’s mother’s surname at birth was Schulman, from her father and Anna’s husband’s surname. A bit confusing, yes.

All Dressed Up in 1968

Posted on by
13

Here is a photograph taken at the bar mitzvah of Eileen and Lou’s son, the gardener’s cousin. From left to right are Danny Vendola, Charlotte Riskin Vendola, matriarch Celia Goodstein Scheshko, Eileen Scheshko Horowitz, Louis D. Horowitz, Diana Shulman Scheshko Castle, Murray Scheshko Castle, and Charlotte and Danny’s best friends on the far right.

Since I have posted on this blog so irregularly I will remind you who they are. Diana and Murray, as you probably do know, are the gardener’s parents–hence, my in-laws. I’ve written quite a bit about Murray and Diana and plan to move on to Diana’s family soon.

I’ve also written many posts about the gardener’s grandmother, Celia. Yes, she’s teeny. I know you were thinking or saying that to yourself because everyone always does. At this point, in 1968, her husband Isidore has been gone for at least fifteen years.

Eileen is Murray’s only sibling. She was married to Lou, and last week I wrote about Lou’s famous paint store. Charlotte was the only known/American/living first cousin of Murray and Eileen. She lived in Stamford with her husband, Danny Vendola. They did everything with their best friends, which is, I imagine, why the couple is in this family portrait. One day they no longer were friends, and Charlotte never spoke of them again.

What kids were part of this family, though not in the photo?

Well, Eileen and Lou had two children, their son whose big day this was, and their first-born, daughter Michelle. (I don’t like to use names of living family members, in most cases, but Michelle has passed away. I wrote briefly about Michelle in More About Eileen.

Murray and Diana also had one boy and one girl, the gardener and his sister. Charlotte and Danny did not have children.

So the Scheshkos were a small family. What members of the family were left behind when Isidore and Celia came to this country (separately) from what was then known as Russia is unknown at this point.

The Artists’ Favorite Place

Posted on by
22

As I posted awhile back, Diana and Murray were married at the home of Murray’s sister Eileen and her husband, Louis Horowitz.

Louis D. Horowitz was born 18 February 1916 in New York City to Max and Sarah (Fink) Horowitz. He was the youngest of three sons.

We know that Lou went to P.S. 20 because the gardener’s cousin still has his father Lou’s autograph book from 28 January 1931.

Max owned a paint store, M. Horowitz & Sons, which eventually Lou and his brother Aaron took over. The store was a NYC institution and known internationally for paint, paint supplies, and gold leaf. Lou sold gold leaf all over the world, for all purposes, including cathedrals and museums. He sold to artists such as Ben Shahn and Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning.

Lou’s older brother and business partner, Aaron, passed away in 1963. Max had died around 1946 or 1947.

The store was first located at 11 Cooper Square on the Bowery. In the early 70s the city took over the building by eminent domain in order to build a low to middle income housing development. At that point the store was moved to the location that I remember, which was 166 Second Avenue.

Here is Lou inside the 166 Second Avenue store in this very special photo.

I found the following in a copy of Old House Journal from 1979.

Unfortunately, the wrong address in a print journal is not easily corrected. The address of the store was 166 Second Ave., not 166 Seventh Ave.!!!

I have also found the store listed in the back of books as a source for materials, but I was not able to find any actual ads purchased by the family. I suspect that they did not need to advertise.

A few years after the gardener and I were married, the movie Ragtime was being filmed. They wanted Lou’s store, which was situated in the Bowery, to be in the filming. The film makers made some changes to the front of the store to make it look as if it fit the time period of the movie.

The store opened in 1940 and only closed its doors in 1985. However, Lou removed all the remaining merchandise and brought it to his home, where he continued business for another ten years. He passed away on 17 April 1995.

You can imagine that Diana, an artist, loved her brother-in-law’s store. He used to give her beautiful brushes and oil paints for her painting.

 

The Early Years

Posted on by
15

A year after Diana and Murray Scheshko’s marriage took place, they had a son, who happens to be my gardener (for those who don’t know, my gardener is also my husband hahaha). He was born in Jackson Heights, but I’m not sure where they lived at that time.

By 1959, they had another baby, the gardener’s sister.

So there you have the gardener playing Parcheesi at his mom’s feet. Diana is holding the gardener’s beautiful new baby sister.

What else happened to the family in 1959? You can see in this newspaper article.

“Borough president Clancy yesterday picked the winning ticket for the Fiat 500 Bianchina sports sedan awarded by the Steinway Merchants Association at the climax to its successful Steinway Jubilee Sales event  which broke all records last week.

Clancy chose the ticket belonging to Mrs. D. Scheshko of 34-15 12th Street, Astoria. The Astoria woman received her new car.”

That is our Diana who won the Fiat. I love how their address is included in the article, although it’s a little scary by today’s standards! The address is probably their first apartment in Ravenswood, a project of brown brick apartment buildings. There are 30 or 40 buildings in total. They still exist. A few years ago we visited Astoria to see the gardener’s old stomping grounds, and at Ravenswood, a woman leaned out a window and asked our daughter if she was with the city. Apparently she had some complaints about her apartment. When the Scheshkos lived in Ravenswood, the people were not as poor as they are today. And there was more diversity in those days: residents were all races and nationalities. The neighbors that the gardener was the closest to were his Italian teen babysitters (who bought him candy) and the Chinese couple who lived next door.

Back to the Fiat. This was a sports minicar, not a vehicle for a young mother with a preschooler and a baby. So the family traded it in for a used Pontiac and some lovely Italian provincial furniture that Diana and Murray kept for the rest of their lives.


A huge thank you to all the offers to help, including Amy of Brotmanblog who did a preliminary search for me. You all are wonderful and still might hear from me LOL!

The Great Depression Hits Hard

Posted on by
23

In a post about the gardener’s Aunt Eileen being born, I posted a photo of the house that Isidore and Celia Scheshko had purchased in 1925. The address was 739 Essex Street in Brooklyn and is the yellow house in the Google Maps photo. They also had Celia’s cousin Rose Goodstein Cohen, her husband Isidore Cohen, and daughter Grace boarding with them.

Now I have discovered some distressing news. I subscribed to Newspapers.com because that was the only way I could get access to the New York newspapers. I actually was looking for other information and decided to do a quick “Scheshko” search since it is such an unusual surname. Sure enough, I discovered that the house must have been in Celia’s name–and was foreclosed on in 1931. (At least that is my reading of this article–lawyers, what say you?!)

This clipping was from the Brooklyn Times Union, but sadly it was in many newspapers.

There are other articles I might want to read, but they are locked. I would need to upgrade to the Publisher Extra subscription. Does anybody know if I can access it through another membership I have, such as Ancestry?

I was sorry to see that Celia and Isidore lost the house they must have loved and been so proud of. The American Dream gone a little sour on them.

UPDATE on The Gardener’s Parents Get Married

Posted on by
26

FOR THE UPDATE, PLEASE GO TO THE END OF THE POST. I NOW KNOW EXACTLY WHERE DIANA AND MURRAY WERE MARRIED. I found an index record of Diana Shulman and Murray Scheshko’s 1954 marriage, recorded in Manhattan. Diana’s name is spelled Diane in the index.

Then I got my hands on their marriage certificate (where her name is Diana, as it should be). Let’s see if this document yields any good info.

Murray’s address was 326 E. 58th St. He was a radio and television technician. First I’ve heard of that. I’ve always heard the more colorful stories ;).

Diana lived at 483 West End Avenue. She was a portrait artist. Yes, that is true.

Here are Google Map images of the apartment buildings where they probably lived (I think these buildings have been there that long) and the distance between the two apartments.

Murray’s Residence

Diana’s Residence

 

Here is page 2:

This second page is very interesting. It is a page completed by the rabbi who performed the ceremony. According to this document, the wedding took place on 17 January 1954 at 66-15 Wetherole St. in Queens. I asked the Facebook group Tracing the Tribe about the location and was told: “66-15 Wetherole Street is a Building located in the Rego Park neighborhood in Queens, NY. 66-15 Wetherole Street was built in 1950 and has 6 stories and 113 units.” SEE UPDATE AT THE END OF THE POST.

Marriage ceremony location

So do the two pages go together and mean a wedding date of 17 January 1954? Because the date according to family lore was 20 January 1954. But documents from the City Clerk of the City of New York cannot lie. Right? And the rabbi would certainly know the date. Or was there a civil ceremony after the religious ceremony?

Because I have never seen a photograph that looked like a wedding portrait and the gardener has never heard about his parents’ wedding, I had assumed that they had a civil ceremony, but this looks like they had a religious ceremony. I just wish there was a photograph of the day!

There are two witnesses on this document who I have never heard of. Were they friends or relatives or perhaps random people provided by the rabbi? Charles Joseph Charnow and Hyman WHAT? Cigine? C. Kine? What do you think it says?

Well, it didn’t take long to find Charles Joseph Charnow. He married Grace Cohen in 1940. You probably don’t remember Grace, but I knew she sounded familiar. She was Murray’s second cousin–and the kids lived in the same household when they were very small because their parents, being first cousins, lived together for a bit. So in 1954, Murray was still close with his extended family in NYC. It leads me to believe there were family and maybe friends at the wedding!

So who lived at 66-15 Wetherole? Who did Diana live with prior to marriage and who did Murray live with prior to marriage? I would like to search these addresses in the 1954 city directory. Does anyone know if it’s available online or how? I can’t find it. It seems as though it hasn’t been put online yet??? (The 1950 census would be helpful here, but as we know it is not yet available). SEE UPDATE AT THE END OF THE POST.

Any insights would be greatly appreciated!

In lieu of a wedding portrait I will post the only early photo I can find that isn’t with children. It is possible that the gardener had just been born. The small child in this photo is Murray’s niece Michelle who was three years older than the gardener and Michelle’s younger brother (the boys were only 8 days apart). Maybe Murray’s brother-in-law Lou’s mother was taking care of the babies while the young couples went to the beach with Michelle, her parents, Lou and Eileen, and YES, that is Celia Goodstein Scheshko in the middle! OR is Michelle only two here and Diana and Eileen not yet “showing” or didn’t yet know they were pregnant? I actually favor the idea that this photo was taken in the summer of 1954, about 9 months before the boys were born.

I admit I did crop the photo a bit as it is a beach photo, and I don’t think they expected to have it put online decades down the road.

 

UPDATE!!!

66-15 Wetherole St. in Queens, where Murray and Diana were married, was the home of Murray’s sister Eileen (in photo above behind Diana) and her husband Lou Horowitz (who was probably taking this photo). This was a discovery by the gardener’s cousin, Eileen and Lou’s son who recognized it as the address on his own birth certificate! So we have quite a merry bunch already at that wedding because in addition to the witnesses (and their affiliated family, possibly), Celia (center of photo above) would have attended her son’s wedding, too. And perhaps other family and friends still unknown. Other information Eileen and Lou’s son provided is that the building was at one time called the “Oklahoma,” built by real estate tycoon Samuel J. LeFrak who owned a lot of property around Rego Park. The name LeFrak eventually became famous for LeFrak city, which featured over 4,600 apartments in one area.

Murray’s Military Career, Part 4

Posted on by
11

Diana’s husband Murray Scheshko, as I’ve discussed in previous posts, was in the Air Corps of the U.S. Army in WWII. There is a little question as to whether he was in the 353rd or 352nd Fighter Group or perhaps both.

We knew he had bronze stars and a purple heart, but wanted to order his full records from NARA (National Archives) in St. Louis, MO. Well, the gardener and I ordered them, but we received an unsettling response. Apparently, his records were lost in a fire.

According to NARA, the only hope we have for information is to send $25 for the “final pay voucher.” The idea is that there is information on that document that might be helpful. Why the original documents were not better taken care of, I do not know. Thank you VA for taking care of our vets in yet another way (sarcasm alert).

I’m going to order the final payment voucher. Wish me luck! Also, if you have had to do this, please let me know in what ways it helped your research.