BROIDA Family (Click for Family Tree)

Our beloved Max Broida, AKA Buster Brodie (1886-1948), should never surprise me- but somehow he always does. So it seems he is still entertaining people…

This was an exciting find- we had found no World War I or II draft cards for Max despite searching for years. The sudden appearance of this card was actually more than surprising– astoundingly, somehow we have had his name wrong all these years??? His real first name was… “Maurice”???

No, we have never seen that on a census, voter’s list, in a movie set of credits or database. No family records known to us show his name as anything other than ‘Max Broida’ or ‘Buster Brodie.’ No portrait has that name on the back, even the lovely portrait he shopped around to studios that had all his details written on the back, by Max/Buster himself.

We know this is “our” Max/Buster because the handwriting matches and he listed Joseph J. Broida in Pittsburgh as the person who would always know his address. Joseph was the oldest of the seven Broida brothers, and the address Max gave for him matches up with Joseph’s own WW II draft card for 1942 and the 1940 census. The home address Max gave, 5640 Santa Monica Blvd. in Hollywood, California, is a known residence for him. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania was listed as his birthplace- check- and his birthdate as Oct 11, 1885. Oops- 1886 is the year listed in most of his records, and there was no advantage re: the draft for him to make himself a year older. (If you are noticing the math doesn’t work, good math skills, but Max- er, Maurice, er, Buster- registered in April of 1942, so had not yet had his October birthday when he would turn 57.)

On the back of the draft card his height was listed as 4′ 9½” and weight 122 lbs.- “our” Max was a small person, with his height 4′ 10″ and weight 107 lbs on the back of his studio portrait, when he was much younger. The box for “Bald” was checked, and that fit our Max perfectly, since he often billed himself as, “The Hairless Man.”

The Registrar of the local draft board in Los Angeles, California would have been there as Max completed the card, and there were penalties for falsifying information, so it seems that Max- er, Maurice, er, Buster- would have filled the card out truthfully.

Even without all this cross-checking, it so obviously has to be “our” guy- at the very top of the card, Max- er, Maurice, er, Buster- added, “Known as Buster Brodie.”

He also listed his mailing address as being the same as his residence, but then added “Buster Brodie (for mail).”

We have one last section that confirms it all:

This confirmation of occupation, plus he also signed his name as “M Max Broida” in addition to Buster Brodie.

And then, not one to stop researching, a look at the Social Security record for Max- er, Maurice, er, Buster- noted his birth year as 1885. So it is more likely that year was correct as compared to census information, etc.

And then another surprise. Under the Social Security Applications and Claims Index on Ancestry.com, the transcribed notes (no original images) stated that in Jan 1937, his name was listed as Buster Brodie- and also, Maurice Max Broida.

Well, this skeptic is sold- nice to meet you, Maurice Max Broida, AKA Buster Brodie. I am off to review yet again those censuses and voter registrations that listed a “Max M. Brodie” [middle initial possibly for Maurice?] living in Los Angeles. We have not found other persons in the census in that area that could be Maurice-Max-Buster, so have wondered for years whether that salesman job was the pay-the-rent persona of Maurice/Max/Buster. Stay tuned!

Notes, Sources, and References: 

1. Various draft cards, censuses, city directories, etc., found at Ancestry.com, FamilySearch.org, etc. See previous posts on Max Broida for more details.

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Original content copyright 2013-2021 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.

BROIDA Family (Click for Family Tree)

Regular readers will note that this is yet another post about Max Broida, who used the stage name “Buster Brodie” for his work in vaudeville and the movies.

Max has been interesting to research- from a character that some family members were not even sure existed, we have learned that he ran away as a teen (or maybe younger) to join the circus. He likely learned the ropes and jokes as a clown there, and honed those skills and his comedy timing when he moved on to vaudeville. Next were silent movies and then the ‘talkies.’ Always a bit player and never truly the star, we have been surprised that Max has lived on in so many hearts. We have heard from movie historians and people who bought his picture at an antique store just because they liked it, and then they sent it on to the family via this blog. Max is included in books and images sold through ebay, etc.- he is an important part of the cult following of the 1932 film, “Island of the Lost Souls.” And we know he is one of the Flying Monkeys in “The Wizard of Oz” though it is hard to tell which, so his work remains as well.

At only 4’9-1/2″ and ~120 lbs. himself, Buster would not have been as intimidating to little kids- he was not too far from kid-sized! He probably had little trouble being the last squeezed into the clown car!

We don’t know if Max ever had a wife or children, so the above image is especially sweet.

To read more details about Max, click here.

Notes, Sources, and References: 

1. A current as-of-this-post listing of Max Broida/Buster Brodie articles. Please use the search box in the future to see any added. — https://heritageramblings.net/?s=buster+brodie. 

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Original content copyright 2013-2021 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.

Broida Family

John Zelig Jacob Broida was born in Eišiškės, Lithuania, around March, 1857. He was the first of the Karklinsky family to immigrate to the United States, sometime during 1874-1875. We are not sure if he arrived in New York or Pennsylvania, but he changed the family name to “Broida.” (It was not changed at Ellis Island by officials- Ellis Island had not yet been built, he is not listed at its predecessor Castle Garden, and the family story is that John chose ‘Broida’ himself.) John may have lived in New York for a while and worked as a ‘rag picker,’ collecting and possibly processing the rags before selling them to a company. He moved on and settled in the Pittsburgh PA area. We don’t know if he married his first wife, Sarah Gitel Frank, in New York or in Pittsburgh, as we have not found any marriage license, but they married sometime probably in 1881. She too was born in Lithuania (around Nov 1859), and we do not know if the two knew each other in Lithuania, if it was an arranged marriage, or if John and Gitel met in New York or Pittsburgh. We think we have found Gitel’s immigration and arrival to the US on 13 July 1881 in New York, so the marriage would have been after this time, since she traveled under her maiden name, but before the birth of their first surviving son, Joseph Jacob Broida, who was born 15 May 1882 in Pittsburgh.

John’s ‘rag’ business was stepped up in Pittsburgh, because he became a “jobber of notions” and then dry goods. He eventually sold “men’s furnishings”- including fine men’s clothing, a profession followed by a number of his sons. John and Gitel had 7 sons who survived into adulthood, plus one son and two other children who did not survive their infancy or young childhood. (If the 1890 US Federal Census had survived, we might know more about these children.)

Gitel succumbed to tuberculosis in 1901, and the children went to live with relatives, some in other cities such as St. Louis, around the time of her death. On 14 April 1904, John applied for a marriage license in Jefferson County, Ohio, (about 45 miles west of Pittsburgh) to Fannie Robinstein/Rubenstein; she had previously been married to Jacob Cohen and they had a daughter, Ethel (1892-1973). Upon the marriage the Broida household finally added a girl, this daughter Ethel, to the household, and some of the sons may have come back to live with John and Fannie, since the youngest was just seven at the marriage.

John’s granddaughter, Gertrude Broida Cooper, stated that he always spoke with a thick accent. John yearned to be a part of the new state of Palestine, to be with his own people. The last record we have of John as a resident in the US is a St. Louis, Missouri City Directory for 1917. John and Fannie emigrated to Palestine in September of 1920. John was 63 that year, and starting over- again. Fannie was 46.

We recently ‘found’ the above wonderful image of John and “Auntie”- most probably Fannie Rubenstein Cohen Broida- taken in 1927 in Tel Aviv. It suggests that she was called “Auntie” by John’s sons, although we do not know who labeled the photograph. This is a poor, older photocopy of the actual photo, so we would be very interested in getting a good scan of this photo if anyone out there reading has an actual photo, or a better photocopy. (Please contact us!)

John returned for a visit to the US on 10 June 1930, arriving from Jaffa, Palestine, on the ship Alesia. He appeared to be traveling alone, as we find no mention of Fannie on that passenger list. (Maybe they could not afford passage for two? Or was she ill so stayed in Palestine? She died on 14 Jan 1933.) The famous-within-the-family ‘seven brothers’ photo was taken on John’s U.S. visit.

John returned to Palestine and Fannie. She died in 1933, and he on 9 Nov 1938. Both are buried in Israel’s Mount of Olives Cemetery, not far from each other.

Notes, Sources, and References: 

1. Thank you to the dear aunt who shared this treasure of an image after her pandemic cleaning unearthed it!
2. “Tombstone Tuesday: Fannie & John Broida”
    https://heritageramblings.net/2019/02/12/tombstone-tuesday-fannie-john-broida/
3. Many other Heritage Ramblings posts tell the stories of John, Gitel, and Fannie Broida and their children. You can use the search box on the left side of the website to learn more. Also, please keep in mind that older posts have not always been updated, so use the more recent posts as the most current data if some is conflicting.

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Original content copyright 2013-2020 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.

BROIDA Family (Click for Family Tree)

A very kind photographer and tour guide in Israel has taken pictures of the final resting places of Samuel Abraham KARKLINSKY BROIDA (1887-1973) and his wife, Ida OSCHERWITZ BROIDA (1888-1975), which are side-by-side. It had been thought that they were buried in Mount of Olives, but this wonderful Find A Grave volunteer found their memorials in Sanhedria Cemetery in Jerusalem instead. He has even translated the stones for us, for which we are very grateful.

Sam’s stone reads:

Here lies Avraham Shmuel Broida, son of Ya’akov Ze’ev. One of the founders of HaMizrachi in the US, and a member of the Board of Chicago Yeshivot. Born in the year 5647 in Eišiškės (Lithuania), died in Chicago on 30 Shvat 5733, and interred in Jerusalem on 4 Adar Aleph 5733.

Ida’s stone reads:

Here lies our dear mother, devoted to her husband and her family, full of kindness and good-hearted. Alta Leah Devora Broida, daughter of Eliyahu Yitzhak Oscherwitz. Born in Cincinnati on 16 Shvat 5648, died in Chicago on 26 Sivan 5735, and interred on 30 Sivan 5735.

Sam Broida was a partner in Broida Brothers Dry Goods in St. Louis, Missouri. He and his wife moved to Chicago to run her family’s business, Best Kosher Meat Company. You can read more about Sam and Ida in the blog posts listed below.

Notes, Sources, and References: 

1. “Workday Wednesday- Samuel Broida and Broida Brothers Dry Goods”
   https://heritageramblings.net/2015/02/18/workday-wednesday-samuel-broida-and-broida-brothers-dry-goods/
2.  “Travel Tuesday: S. A. Broida, Buyer in NYC,” https://heritageramblings.net/2018/02/20/travel-tuesday-s-a-broida-buyer-in-nyc/
3. One tidbit of information shared by our kind photographer is that at least some of the cemeteries in Israel need to be searched using Hebrew names, not Americanized versions.

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Original content copyright 2013-2019 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.

Broida Family (Click for Family Tree)

John Jacob or Zelig, whose surname originally was Karklinsky, changed his name to Broida after arriving in the United States about 1874. John and his wife Sarah Gitel Frank (1859-1901) were originally born in Lithuania. At that time, Lithuania was a part of Russia, and the town he came from was called Eišiškės (AKA Polish: Ejszyszki, Russian: Эйши́шки/Eishishki, Belarusian: Эйшы́шкі/Eishyshki, Yiddish: אײשישאׇק‎/Eyshishok). The Jews were  the largest percentage of the population until World War II, when the Jews were massacred. Thankfully John and his family had escaped prior to that time.

Gertrude (Broida) Cooper, granddaughter of John Broida through his son Phillip Broida, told the story that John Broida always had a thick Yiddish accent- the family spoke Yiddish at home per a number of censuses- and that he wanted to go be with his own as Palestine became a “national home for the Jewish people.” This was part of the British Mandate for Palestine in the 1920s, after World War I, through the League of Nations. John emigrated around this time, possibly with his second wife, Fannie. (Gitel died in 1901.)

Notes, Sources, and References: 

1. Family oral history.
2. Wikipedia

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Original content copyright 2013-2019 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.