The Wernick Family Record of Remembrance: From Shtetl to Tucson
This essay first appeared in the quarterly newsletter, The Galitzianer, volume 3, #2, Winter, 1996. It was originally titled: "Sometimes you get lucky." The Galitzianer is published by Gesher Galicia, the JewishGen SIG devoted to the discussion and study of Galician Jews.
We've all hit the outer limits, the Brick Wall. Months, sometimes years go by as we strive in vain to make that crucial breakthrough, What were the names of great-great grandfather Oiza's parents? How is Fetter Sruel related to me? Can't anyone recall the names of grandpa's "lost" brothers?
Most times, years of work later all we have to look forward to is more years and more dollars spent trying to unlock what has become an enigma wrapped in a sphinx. Or reconcile ourselves to the likelihood that we probably will never get the answers, solve the puzzle.
But then, once in a rare blue moon, a major "find" literally will fall into our laps without so much as having to contemplate mailing off yet another SASE. It happened to me and I want to share information about this genealogical "manna" in the hope it may help Gesher Galicia members.
"Here, Jimmy, I want you to have this," my Aunt Charlotte said, as she handed me a small, red velvet-covered book. With faint gold embossing barely visible, the book looked for all the world like one of those autograph albums we trundled around at the end of the junior high school year. In fact, that is exactly what it was, but more than I could ever have hoped for in a decade of writing to archives. As I gingerly turned the fragile pages, there in German, Polish, Hebrew and Yiddish were turn-of-the-century greetings by friends and landsman to Klara Schkolnik -- my Grandma Clara.
The same Grandma Clara who lived with my family in Douglaston, N.Y., until she passed away in 1964, right after my Bar Mitzvah. The same person who in a true sense spurred my interest in genealogy. Seated at the kitchen table, the air thick with the scents of percolator coffee and yeast pastries she forever was baking, grandma would regale me with stories about her childhood as the youngest child of a wealthy brewer in Yazlivitz (Pomortsy), Galicia. Born in 1892, the daughter of Chaim Shulum and Surah Henya Strober Schkolnik, she had private tutors, was fluent in seven languages and could debate Talmud-Torah, Balkan politics and the Emperor Franz Josef's policies.
Money hardly was a concern to Klara, her older brother Folic and younger brother Paul. Servants attended to the Schkolnik family's needs, especially doting on the schoen yingele. They cared for the childrens' health with folk remedies such as herbal teas and poltices, once saving Klara's leg after an accident by filling a nasty gash with a "foul smelling" brew. The infection abated.
Yet, much of this tranquility was a mirage, a bubble that could be burst at any moment by marauding Cossacks who periodically pillaged the shtetl. Grandma recalled one terrible pogrom when the entire family was spared from death only when one of the young Polish servants pleaded for their lives in exchange for money and Surah Henya's jewels. The Cossacks departed after ripping up old family bibles and Shulum's Talmud books as a friendly reminder of what they thought about Jews.
The Schkolnik's privileged life didn't last. Folic and Paul were conscripted into the Austro-Hungarian army where they received their own share of anti-Semitic-inspired brutality. Upon Shulum's 1910 death from "galloping consumption" -- most likely lung cancer -- following radium treatments in Vienna, the family's farm and assets were seized by the government. By 1913, the remnants of the family settled in Brooklyn, including Clara, her husband Jacob J. Rosenblum (or "Yankel," my namesake) and young daughter, Virginia.
Two more children followed, my mom Theodora and Aunt Charlotte, but my grandmother never again was to know the life she led before "the troubles." Jacob, a talented tailor, set up his own business making suits, but this failed in the early 1920s. He went to work in the "schmatah" trade, working killing hours until the Depression made work problematical. Jacob succumbed to heart failure in 1943 at age 55.
Perhaps for my grandmother, those hours in the kitchen talking with me, reminiscing, were a salve as great as any applied by the servants of her youth. Psychiatrists today might say it was escapism, that she was seeking refuge from the present in fading memories. I believe there was more to it than that, for I'll always recall her reply when I inquired why she insisted on relating those stories that were little more than fairytales to me. "Yankele, I want that someone should remember who we are. I want someone to know where we came from," she intoned in a thick, Germanic accent that rendered w's as v's.
Melodramatic? Yes. But years later, as I sought to research our family's history after most of the "old ones" were gone, I remembered my grandmother's words, her stories, and just wished I had written down what she told me; had asked her questions about relatives whose very existence I now must try to confirm via archival research. If only I'd have inquired about everyday life, landsman, her friends.
Without warning, three decades after my grandmother's death, a chronicle of much of this literally was handed to me. The album was more than an autograph collection. It contained references to cousins I never knew existed, witty sayings, paraphrases of a 19th century philosopher then in vogue, pledges of fealty, love and apparently, unrequited love. It was tangible proof of her circle of friends. Perhaps most importantly, the book was a log either of my grandmother's peripatetic travels, the hometowns of people who called upon her, or both, and evidence of the long-lost custom of leaving a written reminder of a visit. A great-aunt and cousin also maintained similar books. Perhaps your Galician ancestors had these, too.
What follows is a chronological listing of people who signed my grandmother's album, with their home towns, where indicated. Text of the entrees is omitted for space considerations. Where entries are not legible, this is indicated by question marks in parentheses.
1907: S. Strober (a first cousin), Jaslowiecz, March 25, twice; Adolf Sygal, July 15; Soloman Hasenfeld; S. Siegman, Tryb(?), Aug. 18; Lena, or Henya Geltner; Luise Kohn, Nov. 7; M.L. Hausner, or Hausmer, Dec. 11; (??)fin Josef Laug,.or Lang.
1908: Klara Kutz (signed, "Your cousin"), Zaleshchiki, March 17; Karyel(?) Reinsich, Jaslowiecz, June 8; Levi L. (B)udermann, July 5; Josef Zlaub(er), July 13; Isidor Morgenstern, July (?); S. Strober, Jaslowiecz, Oct. 12; Klara Kutz, Zaleshchiki, Sept. 11 and 17; Hermann Goliger, Zaleshchiki, Nov. 18, twice.
1909: Frieda Singer, Jaslowiecz, April 8 and May 25; T(?) Sperling(?), Medwedowce, April 13; Anna Finkelman; Chune Rosenblum (a future in-law), Buczacz, May 2, twice.
1910: M.S. Siegman; B. Siegman; Mina Sporn, Jaslowiecz, May 29: Jacob Rosenblum (her finance), Borszczow, Sept. 15.
1913: Zygm(ont) Reichman, March 10; Isydor Winogrod, Borszczow, March(?) 23, twice.
On March 25, 1913, Jacob, Clara and Virginia Rosenblum left their home in Borszczow forever. They sailed via the Norddeutscher Lloyd Bremen's George Washington to Williamsburgh, Brooklyn, where they lived for a few months with Clara's aunt and uncle, Mendel and Nellie Struber.
J. J. Ostroff
January 2, 1996
James J. "Jim" or "Jimmy" Ostroff is the son Herbert and Theodora Rosenblum Ostroff. "Thea" was the middle daughter of Jacob J. and Clara Skolnick Rosenblum. Their youngest daughter, Charlotte, married Phil Greenfield. They have two children: Lynn and Jeoffrey. Randy is the oldest son of Oscar (Rosenblum) and Gloria Ross, Irving's and Rosie's oldest son. Irving was my Godfather. Jacob J., Rosenblum, my namesake, was Irving's oldest brother. Jacob had two other younger brothers, Louis and Charlie "Red," and a sister, Katie.
Introduction Schmerko Wiernik St. Johns Place Private Alexander Wernick Ida & Alex
Irwin & Barbara From Brooklyn to Tucson Wernick Family Photos Rosenblum Family Photos Album 1 and Album 2
