Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: What Was the Great Love Story in Your Family Tree?

It's Valentine's Day today, and Randy Seaver has created a challenge related to that for this week's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun.

Come on, everybody, join in and accept the mission and execute it with precision.

1.  It's Valentine's Day — a day for lovers!  We all have hundreds of love stories in our ancestry.

2.  What was the great love story of the ancestors in your family tree?  What wedding had a great story in it?  Choose one ancestral couple.  Share how they met (if known) and when and where they married.  Note how long they were married.  Highlight something that suggests affection or partnership.

3.  Share your great love story in your family tree in your own blog post or in a Facebook, SubStack, BlueSky, or other social media post.  Leave a link to your post on this blog post to help us find your post.

The one great love story that I know about in my family tree is that of my maternal grandparents, Abraham Meckler and Lillyan Gordon.  Bubbie (Yiddish for grandmother) told me they met on September 15, 1937 in Manhattan, but she never told me how they met.  I know they were both living in Brooklyn (half a mile from each other!), so I have no idea what they were doing that day in Manhattan.

They were married October 29, 1939 in The Bronx, even though they lived in Brooklyn.  It was a double wedding with the younger of Lily's two older brothers, Alexander Gordon, who married Roslyn Rubin.  Technically Al and Rose's wedding was recorded as October 28, 1939, so I don't know if they married before midnight and my grandparents married after midnight.  Supposedly there's a Jewish superstition about double weddings, so the dates were recorded as consecutive instead of the same.

I have been told the caterer for the wedding was Abe's older brother Harry's wife Ida Bogus, who worked in catering with her aunt and uncle, Louis Perelmuth and Anna Posner (sister of Ida's mother).  Louis and Anna had a son named Jacob who was a singer, although not famous at the time (he did become famous under the name Jan Peerce).  He sang two songs at the wedding, although Bubbie did not remember what those songs were.  She did remember that the cantor's son sang "Oh Promise Me" and "Because."

Bubbie and Zadie (Yiddish for grandfather) were married for just over fifty years, until Zadie died on December 10, 1989.  Zadie had been ill for several years but held on for the 50th wedding anniversary party, which was held in Las Vegas.  It was a big family reunion, with relatives coming from all over the country.

I always remember Bubbie and Zadie as being very in love with each other.  Among the many things Bubbie told me was that every year while they were married, Zadie gave her a big flowery card for Valentine's Day.  After Zadie passed away, I sent Bubbie cards for Valentine's Day.

The Much-sought-after Jan Peerce Connection to My Family!

Five years ago, I wrote about my maternal grandparents' wedding for a Wedding Wednesday post.  One piece of information I included in my story was my grandmother's comment many years later that the famous Metropolitan Opera tenor Jan Peerce had sung at her wedding (even though she couldn't remember what he sang, but remembered what the cantor's son sang).

Bubbie (Yiddish for grandmother, and what we always called her) said at the time that she thought the reason Peerce sang for the wedding was some connection to my grandfather's brother's wife, Ida Bogus.  Her family was involved in catering, and she was somehow connected to Peerce by family, and that's all Bubbie could remember.  She was married in 1939, so for 60 years later, that's actually remembering a lot.

After being told this, I did quite a bit of research on Peerce's family, including buying a copy of his autobiography and mining it for family history details, trying to find some connection to my family.  I have Perlmans in my family, whose original family name was Perlmutter, which is close to Perelmuth, Peerce's original family name, so that seemed the logical place for the link, even though Bubbie had said it was through Ida.  I didn't find a connection with my Perlmans/Perelmutters or with Ida, however, so I was stuck.

Then, a couple of years ago, I saw someone on one of my genealogy mailing lists with the last name Bogus.  I decided to write because I don't see the name come up often.  I explained my story, and lo and behold, she knew the answer!

The research I had done on Ida Bogus had shown that her parents were Abraham Bogus and Minnie Posner.  My new genealogy friend told me that Minnie's sister Anna married Louis Perelmuth, and they had a catering business.  And Louis and Anna were the parents of Jan Peerce!  So my granduncle's mother-in-law was the sister of Peerce's mother.  That's extended family, all right, but apparently close enough, because I believed my grandmother when she said that Jan Peerce sang at her wedding.  And after looking up more information about Peerce, he was not yet famous in 1939, so it wasn't out of the realm of possibility that he would sing at the wedding.

So thank you, Felice!  I was able to resolve one of my longstanding (about 25 years) genealogy questions!

But I still want to find out one day if the wedding was covered in a Yiddish newspaper that mentioned that Peerce sang.

Wedding Wednesday

This is a follow-up to my Wedding Wednesday post of October 30, 2019, when I wrote about my maternal grandparnets' wedding of October 29, 1939.  This Friday is the 82nd anniversary of their wedding day.

I mentioned in the earlier post that I had additional photos of the wedding but hadn't been able to find them.  Well, some success!

This is the photo I've shared before, of Abe Meckler and Lily Gordon:

This is of my beautiful grandmother by herself.

And the other photo I found seems to have been taken on a different day.  It is not the same photographer, and my grandmother's hair and make-up are different, but stylistically it's similar.  Maybe it was an engagement photo?  I know those used to be popular.

There is at least one more photo out there related to the wedding.  The other one I remember is of my grandmother and her sister-in-law, because it was a double wedding (even if they fudged it a little), both in their wedding dresses.  It should be here somewhere!

And maybe one day I will learn why the wedding was in the Bronx, even though everyone lived in Brooklyn.

Some Things Never Change

As I have been writing my "family events" posts for the blog, I sometimes pause to do some quick research to see if I can quickly find a full birth location, wedding date, or something similar for which I currently have incomplete information.  And sometimes the records I find yield the desired information plus a little extra.

If you're having trouble reading the handwriting, it says:

Do Not Publish
Pregnancy Quite Noticeable
only on gal of course

This marriage took place in October 1939 in Indiana.

The marriage license application did provide the information I was seeking, along with this tidbit.  I don't know if I have a record of the child, because no one fits the timeframe of the pregnancy, as the family is constructed so far.  It's possible the child didn't survive, or was given a future-dated birthdate for public consumption.

Wedding Wednesday

My maternal grandparents, Abe (Jewish name Avram) Meckler and Esther Leah Gordon (known as Lily), were married October 29, 1939, in The Bronx, Bronx County, New York.  Yesterday was the 80th anniversary of their marriage.

The marriage lasted 50 years, ending with the death of my grandfather.  He had been ill for some time but held on long enough for the big 50th anniversary party that was held in Las Vegas in 1989.  So many of my relatives came!  Zadie (Yiddish for grandfather) died in December.

Fifty years is a good long marriage.  Just out of curiosity, I looked up "longest marriage" and found that a Sikh couple in India had been married 90 years.  That's nothing short of amazing.

My grandparents had a double wedding with my grandmother's older brother, Al.  Alexander Gordon married Roslyn (Rose) Rubin on October 28.  I have been told that Jews aren't supposed to do double weddings (don't know if it's actually true), so Al and Rose were married just before the end of the 28th and my grandparents right after the beginning of the 29th.  I was told the changing point was midnight, but that would have made for a very long night.  On top of that, by the Jewish calendar, the day changes at sunset, so maybe it was actually earlier in the day.  I don't think I have a copy of Al and Rose's marriage certificate, so I probably need to get that to check on the story, don't I?

In 1999, when Bubbie (Yiddish for grandmother) and I were visiting my grandfather's cousin Mort, Mort showed us a basic family tree that he had put together.  He told us that the family name of Perlman had originally been Perlmutter.  I made a somewhat cynical observation that there must be a family story that they were related to the famous operatic tenor Jan Peerce, whose original name was Perelmuth (a spelling variation), and Mort said yes, indeed, that they were.  Suddenly Bubbie popped up and said, "He sang at my wedding."  We both stared at her and said, "What??"  See, Jan Peerce was already very famous by 1939, and my grandparents, although I loved them dearly, weren't anything special in New York City society.  So why would the great Jan Peerce be singing at their wedding?

And my grandmother explained that Zadie's brother Harry was married to Jan Peerce's cousin and that the two families were in a catering business together.   So we had a connection.  Maybe Harry asked his wife if she could get her famous cousin to sing at his brother's wedding?  Bubbie couldn't remember the two songs the famous opera singer sang, but she did remember what the cantor's son sang:  "Oh Promise Me" and "Because" (perhaps this one).  (But here's a recording of Peerce singing "Oh Promise Me.")

I have put a little effort into trying to verify the story but haven't gotten anywhere.  I believe I checked the New York Times and didn't find anything.  I suspect that if Jan Peerce was there the wedding would have been written up in one of the many Yiddish neighborhood newspapers that existed in New York City at that time.  Alas, I don't read Yiddish, and none of those newspapers is indexed, much less in English.  But some day I will figure it out.

I have two more photographs from the wedding, which I can't currently find due to too many boxes still unpacked after my move two years ago.  One is of my grandmother alone, and the other is of her and Rose together.  Surprsingly, I don't think I have any photo of Al from the wedding.  I should get in touch with Al and Rose's daughter and rectify that.  And maybe she also has heard the story about Jan Peerce singing at the wedding.  At least that would be more support for it being true.

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday