Wordless Wednesday

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: An Ancestor Who Took a RIsk

Tonight's topic from Randy Seaver for this week's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun applies to several of my ancestors.

Here is your assignment, if you choose to play along (cue the Mission: Impossible! music, please!):

1.  The life of every person has events and decisions that have risk factors that can significantly affect that life.

2.  Describe a risk that one of your ancestors made that affected that person's life.  How did it all turn out?

Share your information about an ancestor's risk in your own blog post, write a comment on this blog post, or put it in a Substack post, Facebook Note, or some other social media system.  Please leave a comment on this post so others can find it.

Every ancestor (and collateral relative) on my mother's side of the family (my Jewish side) who made the momentous decision to immigrate to the United States took a risk when doing so, because none of them knew how it would turn out.  I'm sure they all heard stories about the wonderful opportunities available in the Goldene Medina, the "golden country", but they probably also heard stories about how the move didn't work out as well as expected for some.  Probably the ones who took the biggest risks were the first ones in each family to do so.

My great-grandfather Joyne Gorodetsky, who chose the name Joe Gordon after he immigrated, was the first member of my Gorodetsky family to cross the pond.  The chain migration of the family from the Russian Empire began after the death of my great-great-grandmother Esther Leah (Schneiderman) Gorodetsky on December 10, 1908; eventually all eight children and my great-great-grandfather came to North America.  Joyne arrived July 5, 1909 (right after Independence Day!) at Ellis Island, traveling to meet his uncle Shmuel Schneiderman (Sam Schneiderman here), his mother's brother.

Joe found work in the garment industry in New York City.  A few years after arriving, he was a boarder at the home of Mendel Hertz (Morris) and Ruchel Dvojre (Rose Dorothy) Brainin in Manhattan, which is where he met my great-grandmother, Sore Leibe (Sarah Libby) Brainin.  Soon they married and had three children:  my granduncles, Alexander and Sidney, and my grandmother, Esther Lillian (who later changed her name to Lillyan E.).

From everything I have been told, Joe was successful in the garment industry.  In 1930 the family was in Baltimore, Maryland, possibly having moved there for better opportunities after the Depression had hit.  But soon they moved back to New York, where Joe bought a house in Brooklyn.  The extended family, including many aunts, uncles, and cousins, got together (almost?) every Saturday to socialize, with Joe and Sarah's house the center of the activities.  My grandmother told me how her father loved to host these events.  My mother remembered how he used to bounce her and her cousin Harriet on his lap and sing "Buttons and Bows" to them.

For many years Joe did not become a U.S. citizen.  He finally did so after World War II began, naturalizing on August 3, 1943 in New York.

Joe died May 2, 1955 (yahrzeit 10 Iyar) in Brooklyn.  He is buried in Wellwood Cemetery, Pinelawn, Suffolk County, New York.

Overall, I'd say his taking a risk turned out well.

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

 

A Photo of My Mother for Mother's Day

Myra (Meckler) Sellers, Janice Sellers?, Sam O'Connor

It's Mother's Day today, so I went scrolling through the great photo bonanza to find a new (to my blog) and interesting photo of my mother to post, and I came across this one.

As usual, with all the photos taken by my father (and I'm sure my father took it, particularly because it is black and white), it is unlabeled and unidentified.  But I recognize my mother on the left, and I'm now pretty sure it is Aunt Sam on the right.  I think the child looking goofy in the center is me.  My estimate for the year is about 1967.

This kitchen appears in several photographs from the bonanza.  I think it's in our house in La Puente.

The photo appears as though it could be torn on the left side.  As I do not yet have the originals (subtle hint to my sister), I can't verify that.  It's possible that the big white void could be a refrigerator or freezer.

There was probably no occasion or special event.  Sam happened to be visiting and my father simply liked taking photographs.

My mother has something in her hands, perhaps a small box.  Maybe it was some kind of pills, such as aspirin.  She's laughing, as though she thinks it's funny that my father is taking a photo of this scene.

Happy Mother's Day!

Alphabet Magnets, But Which Alphabet?

Modern alphabet of Gurmukhi script
Published under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license. 

There really are national days for just about anything, if you hunt around long enough.  Such as today, which is National Alphabet Magnet Day.  No, really, just check the page here.

See, I told you.  I wouldn't make this up.

But the reason I'm writing about National Alphabet Magnet Day isn't to get you to look at the page for it.  It's to get you thinking about alphabets.  Because I'll bet when you read "National Alphabet Magnet Day", you automatically thought of the alphabet for the English language.

I'm right, aren't I?

But when you think about it, there are other alphabets out there.  So that means there could be alphabet magnets for those alphabets, right?

And there are!

My favorite alphabet magnets that I own are for Gurmukhi, the alphabet used to write the Punjabi language.

What?  You've never heard of Gurmukhi?

Well, I hadn't either.  But when your ex is half-Indian, and his father was Sikh and came from Punjab, somehow you end up learning about it.

And one day I ran across something online for Gurmukhi alphabet magnets.

Of course I had to buy a set.  And then bought a second set for my grandchildren.  They haven't shown any interest in it yet, but one day they might.

Then I started wondering about other alphabet magnets.

My mother's family is Jewish.  My mother never learned Hebrew and learned only a few words and phrases in Yiddish.  But my grandmother was fluent in Yiddish (it was her first language) and knew some Hebrew.  And Hebrew and Yiddish use the same letters (mostly).

So off I went in search of Hebrew alphabet magnets and found some.  You can find all sorts of interesting things on Amazon.  I found Swedish alphabet magnets, Cyrillic alphabet magnets, and more.

I have not yet learned to speak or write in Hebrew, Yiddish, or Punjabi.  But I'm working on it, and when I do, I'll be able to post phrases and sentences on the refrigerator with my handy-dandy alphabet magnets.

One of the suggestions on the National Day Calendar page for how to celebrate the day is to use the letters to teach children the alphabet.  Wouldn't that be a wonderful way to help children learn about their ancestry?

Go do it.  Now.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: What Automobiles Did Your Ancestors Own?

It's either "everything old is new again" or a flash of déjà vu this week for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun, as another blogger contributes a topic that Randy Seaver has covered previously.

Here is your assignment, if you choose to play along (cue the Mission:  Impossible! music, please!):

1.  What automobile models did your ancestors have?  Pick an ancestor and share something about his cars.

2.  Share your information about your ancestor's car(s) in your own blog post, write a comment on this blog post, or put it in a Substack post, Facebook Note, or some other social media system.  Please leave a comment on this post so others can find it.

NOTE:  I can use ideas for different SNGF topics.  Please e-mail me (randy.seaver@gmail.com).

Thank you to Lisa Gorrell for this week's SNGF challenge topic.

Randy asked us about family cars on November 25, 2017, and I wrote a very detailed post about our cars then, with comments from my father about even more cars, including many of which I had no memory.  That post is here.

Since then I have not added any new vehicles, although I do keep thinking about finding another motorycle for myself.  Maybe this summer I'll do that.

I have followed up on one thing my father wrote:  He and my mother rode to Death Valley (who was taking care of my brother and me?) with the Norwalk Centaurs motorcycle club.  I discovered that they still exist and have a Facebook page!  I have contacted them and asked whether they have any photos of the 1963 or 1964 trip to Death Valley.

My father took photographs of cars everywhere he went.  My guess is that any car that looked interesting to him, he would take photos.  You can see some of those photos and read more about my father and cars by clicking here.

I really need to take a photo of my current car, the Toyota RAV4, for the family archive.  Since I haven't done that yet, I'll include a photo of my brother and sister sitting on the Indian that was in my 2017 car post.

Mark and Stacy Sellers, probably in La Puente, California, 1967

Who Are the Skilled Tradesmen in Your Family?

The first Wednesday in May was chosen to celebrate the skilled trades in this country.  A company in Youngstown, Ohio founded National Skilled Trades Day to bring attention to the importance of skilled trades and to the shortage of skilled tradesmen in this country.

So I'm going to write first about my father, who was indeed a skilled tradesman.  He was a mechanic, and by all accounts a very good one.  I knew this from growing up and hearing people talk about his work.  When my family moved to Australia, it was based on his skills as a mechanic.  At the time, Australia was looking for skilled tradesmen to come as potential immigrants, and we qualified because of my father's skills.

This was really brought home to me when I wrote a blog post about my father and included an advertisement from the Sydney Morning Herald (Sydney, New South Wales, Australia) in which he was shown working with a piece of equipment.  A friend of mine who reads my blog immediately recognized the machine as a Sun 1120 Engine Analyzer and said that you had to be a pretty smart mechanic to be able to use one.  My father confirmed that my friend had identified the machine correctly.  I figure if you have an independent assessment of your skills like that, you must actually be pretty good.