UPDATE on The Gardener’s Parents Get Married

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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.

26 thoughts on “UPDATE on The Gardener’s Parents Get Married”

    • Yes, you are right. You and Sharon both called it, and I see him now on Ancestry records. In fact, found his naturalization record and learned his wife was born in Tiraspol like the gardener’s grandparents!

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  3. Hi Luanne ~ great marriage record = I looked and on the 1940c there is a Hyman Ciline 59 a fruit peddler listed at 1780 Prospect Pl. The first document is just the license and not a certificate. Is it date stamped or dated? I can’t see. It would appear to me that they were married on the 17th as the Marriage Certificate states. Perhaps they registered the marriage on the 20th? I don’t know 🙂 Hope this helps

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  4. Love the picture and the post!! You have more mysteries than the law allows in your family.
    Today I had an Ancestry hint about my great uncle – who I remember very well from family reunions in Houston. What I have NEVER HEARD before is that he and my grandmother were twins!! I was stunned. I am going to pretend I am you and will try to do the research to find out if this is possibly true??

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    • Oh WOW! That would be amazing news! I suppose it could be an error, but you definitely need to pursue it to see if it’s true. That would kind of give you a different idea of her childhood, wouldn’t it?!!!

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      • It was an ERROR – I tracked it down via family records. I couldn’t imagine that was a family secret – my grandmother and I were so close! But it shook me – I also found some other errors once I started digging a bit. I really do need to pay attention to my family tree info.

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      • That is both a relief and a disappointment! I thought there was the possibility because sometimes birthdates and stuff like that of one sibling will show up under another sibling. Lots of sloppy stuff being recorded that we have to guard against picking up and using. I’m sure I have plenty of errors on my tree because I wasn’t careful enough sigh.

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  5. I was going to say Ciline, but that maybe it was a mistake by the rabbi (it’s all the same handwriting, I think, except for Charles Charnow’s name) and it was really Cline. But I see there actually was a Hyman Ciline!

    Great documents, and a good example of why seeing the original document and not relying on the indexed version is valuable. But sometimes getting the original is either not possible and outside the budget, and we have to settle for the index.

    Could that address be the rabbi’s office? So strange that they married in Queens unless that’s where the rabbi worked. After all, they lived in Manhattan, and he lived in Manhattan. I think the NY Public LIbrary has all the old phonebooks, but I could only find the Manhattan one on Ancestry.

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  6. Like you, when I learn where someone lived in the early years, I try to find a picture of the house on the street – it’s important in a way I can’t put my finger on. There’s something about being able to witness where they lived, to get a sense of their circumstances and personality. I dunno. But I make good use of Google Street and Satellite views!

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