A 1945 party with Leonard BROIDA, his wife Anita MEYER BROIDA, and son Leonard BROIDA.
Since this is Memorial Day weekend and people will be remembering those who fought for our freedoms and even gave their lives so that democracy could prosper, we thought we would share some photos of celebrations with the Leonard Broida family.
The above picture is from 1945, and it would be interesting to know what they were celebrating. World War II may have still been going on- the Germans surrendered on 8 May 1845, the Japanese on 15 August, and the Japanese surrender documents were signed on 2 September 1945.
Perhaps this was not a celebration of good news during the war, however. Anita had a coat on in the above photo, so it likely was earlier- or after the surrender- when the photo was taken. This is also suggested by another group photo:
Leonard and Anita MEYER BROIDA group photo, about 1945.
Do you notice anything about this photo?
Look at the window and door- same place in the photo, so looks like the same room (For keen observers, you may also notice that the pin-up girl picture that is in the top photo is either covered up by a man standing in front of it, or else it has been removed.)
Check out the people- a lot of the same faces are in this photo.
These similarities suggest (to me) that the photo was taken in a place of business, such as an office, and these are co-workers. Anita worked with Leonard, so that adds more weight to this hypothesis.
Maybe the photos were to celebrate a lucrative contract, or completion of a big job? Maybe it was a holiday celebration- note the ceiling decorations? Leonard was a successful architect, so those are real possibilities.
As for the pin-up, well, my heart goes out to the women who had to work day after day in an office with that sort of “art” on the wall. There is a family story that Leonard’s office was actually in a building that had housed a, well, umm, “house of ill repute.” Maybe it was just left over and they wanted to maintain the historical legacy??
Notes, Sources, and References:
Photos from the family treasure chest. A special thanks to the kind cousin who scanned and shared them!
Please use the “Related Links” at the bottom of the post, click on Leonard’s name at the bottom, or use the search function on the left side of the page to see other posts on Leonard Broida and his family.
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Original content copyright 2013-2019 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.
Family history is meant to be shared, but the original content of this site may NOT be used for any commercial purposes unless explicit written permission is received from both the blog owner and author. Blogs or websites with ads and/or any income-generating components are included under “commercial purposes,” as are the large genealogy database websites. (Please add a link to this blog post on the genealogy websites to show the origin/source of your information.) Sites that republish original HeritageRamblings.net content as their own are in violation of copyright as well, and use of full content is not permitted. Descendants and researchers MAY download images and posts to share with their families, and use the information on their family trees or in family history books with a small number of reprints. Please make sure to credit and cite the information properly, i.e, reference this blog. Please contact us if you have any questions about copyright or use of our blog material.
We have some identifications of persons in the July 11, 1937 group photo. Please contact us if you can identify other family members.
Broida Family
Phillip BROIDA (1887-1952), his daughter Gertrude Belle BROIDA COOPER (1911-2011), and her husband Irving I. COOPER (1908-1982) holding their first daughter.
Leonard L. BROIDA (1901-1977) is the tallest man standing in the back to the right. His wife Anita MEYER (1904-2008) is standing in front of him.
John (Zelig) Karklinsky Broida, headstone, (ledger stone) in Mount of Olives Cemetery, Jerusalem, Israel. Image by a Find A Grave photo volunteer who kindly gave permission for use. (Thank you!)
Broida Family
For many years the family has searched for the final earthly resting place of our immigrant ancestor, John Jacob (Zelig) Karklinsky Broida. A letter written to an (adopted) son-in-law described the death of John, and stated that he was buried beside his second wife, Fannie Rubenstein, on Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. Families who have visited the cemetery in years past were unable to find his grave, and a query to the cemetery itself, after searching their database a number of years ago, resulted in a reply that there was no record of a John Broida or a Fannie Broida being buried in the cemetery. (John is not in the database today, either, however Fannie is actually listed, but challenging to find.)
We added a memorial to Find A Grave (FAG) for John in 2013, and for his second wife, Fannie Rubenstein/Robenstein [Cohen?] Broida in 2015, when we learned her maiden name. (John’s first wife, Sarah Gitel Frank Broida was buried in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, after her 1901 death in Denver, Colorado.) We requested photos when each of the memorials were created (although the request for John’s was somehow deleted over the years, possibly with website changes), and just recently, a kind volunteer submitted photos for both John and Fannie, and gave us permission to use the images. He has been very helpful in sharing what he learned, and actually had to wander a bit to search out John’s grave, which he confirmed was not in the cemetery database.
Note that John’s ledger stone has been damaged, possibly from vandalism, which sadly happens in cemeteries everywhere. Thankfully John’s stone has been put back together.
John had immigrated to America around 1875 from his native Lithuania. After marrying, raising a family, and watching his first wife die of tuberculosis, he married Fannie Rubenstein/Robenstein [Cohen?] about 1904, and they emigrated to Palestine/Israel in September, 1920. He did return to the US on at least one occasion for a visit, and possibly a second visit, but both he and Fannie died in Israel. (Well, we believe Fannie died in Israel but do not have any confirmation of her actual place of death, just her burial.)
The Mount of Olives has quite a lot of folk traditions and Bible references explaining why persons wish to be buried there, including that the prophet Elijah will blow his shofar (ram’s horn) on that spot, declaring the “Day of Resurrection of the Dead.” Another tradition is that those buried on the Mount will be the first to be resurrected. Currently over 70,000 persons possibly 150,000, have been buried in this holiest- and largest- of Jewish cemeteries.
Fannie Rubenstein Broida, headstone, in Mount of Olives Cemetery, Jerusalem, Israel. Image by a Find A Grave photo volunteer who kindly gave permission for use. (Thank you!)
Our kind FAG photo volunteer in Israel translated the stones from the Hebrew.
Fannie R. Broida–
Here lies Feige Dina Broida, eldest daughter of R. Yitzhak Ya’akov Rubinstein
John Broida–
Here lies Yehoshua Zelig (son of Yosef) Broida
Thanks to a translation from a friend of family, we know the last two lines of John’s ledger stone:
next to the last line: deceased 18th of Heshvan 5669 (Nov. 9, 1938 according to the Gregorian calendar)
last line: May his soul be bound up in the bond of eternal life
He also provided us GPS coordinates (in decimal degrees) for the headstones, so that visiting family can more easily find the stones.
John Broida: 31.77379, 35.24417
Fannie R. Broida: 31.7738, 35.24417
These coordinates show the graves as close to each other, as stated in the letter concerning the death of John: “He had a burial lot in the cemetery in Jerusalem near his wife–may she rest in Peace!– …” (1938 letter) It is way above my genealogical pay grade to be able to tell actually how far this is distance-wise using the GPS numbers. Thankfully, the grave images show the stones right next to Fannie’s, which do not match John’s stone, so we know he is not buried on either adjacent side. Another message to our very kind FAG volunteer produced a fast reply, stating he only had the request for Fannie’s grave, but since I had mentioned that we would like a photo of John’s marker as well and that he was buried nearby, our helpful volunteer searched the surrounding area for John’s plot. He found it one row over and a couple of graves down, so very close, and he took the photo and marked the GPS coordinates. Later he realized that John’s grave was not listed in the cemetery database, so we will contact Mount of Olives so that it is easier for future visitors.
Take the time, if you can, and use the GPS-Coordinates website (https://www.gps-coordinates.net) or Google Maps to put in the latitude and longitude of the grave location (on GoogleMaps, do not use a comma between the numbers, just a space), and then look at the area on a satellite map, zooming in and out – it is amazing. (Terms of Service do not allow posting any of their images on a blog, sorry. You can make screen shots for your personal use, however.) Gethsemane is at the foot of Mount of Olives, the Old City and Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem are just to the west, and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is a bit northwest of the Old City. The Dead Sea is on the other side of the mountain to the east, as is Jericho; Bethlehem is to the south. New Testament places would of course had less meaning to Orthodox Jews like John Broida, and there are Islamic holy places nearby as well. This place is still an amazing and holy area to so many even today. It is very special that John and Fannie are buried there.
Notes, Sources, and References:
A thousand thank yous to our kind FAG photo volunteer, Jared! It is hard to believe it has taken so very many years to find where John and Fannie are “quietly resting,” and his diligence is so appreciated.
Thank you also to the family members who helped out with translating and other information.
Use Fannie’s name to search on HeritageRamblings.net for the many stories of the search for her maiden name and for an understanding of who Ethel Broida Pincus, John’s “8th daughter” (actually only “daughter” to his 7-really 8-sons, since one died very young and was not commonly known by the family.) There are some great photos too of her with John.
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We would love to read your thoughts and comments about this post (see form below), and thank you for your time! All comments are moderated, however, due to the high intelligence and persistence of spammers/hackers who really should be putting their smarts to use for the public good instead of spamming our little blog.
Original content copyright 2013-2018 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.
Family history is meant to be shared, but the original content of this site may NOT be used for any commercial purposes unless explicit written permission is received from both the blog owner and author. Blogs or websites with ads and/or any income-generating components are included under “commercial purposes,” as are the large genealogy database websites. Sites that republish original HeritageRamblings.net content as their own are in violation of copyright as well, and use of full content is not permitted.Descendants and researchers MAY download images and posts to share with their families, and use the information on their family trees or in family history books with a small number of reprints. Please make sure to credit and cite the information properly, i.e, reference this blog.Please contact us if you have any questions about copyright or use of our blog material.
Model of the SS Cimbria, found at http://www.shipmodell.com/index_files/SHIPMODELL_SS_CIMBRIA.htm. Posted with the kind permission of the website owner.
It was not so long ago that genealogy mostly consisted of collecting names and dates and places, and plugging them into bland mimeographed copies of pedigree charts and boring Family Group Records. The stories, however, were always more interesting to me, and I am very happy that many of us are now “family historians” instead of just hard data collectors.
Searching for these stories plus the internet now help us find more than we could imagine even 15-20 years ago. The above picture is a case in point. Discovering Gitel Frank’s name on a passenger list on the internet was exciting enough, then finding a picture of the ship that carried Gitel almost 4,000 miles to New York was just wonderful. Stories of the ship’s history (including its sinking) added to our knowledge, as does this beautiful model of The SS Cimbria that was made by Szeibel László and posted on the “Shipmodell” website from Hungary.
Please do click on the link so that you can view the stepped-out images of the model shipbuilding process. The craftsmanship is amazing!
And do, please, ask permission to post or use pictures taken from the internet. It is only right from a legal/copyright standpoint, plus it is just the honest and polite thing to do. Most people are thrilled to be asked, and I got a very nice note from the owner of the shipmodell website. One person I asked about posting sent me additional pictures not on his website! The few minutes it took for requests really paid off.
Click to enlarge any image. Please contact us if you would like an image in higher resolution.
We would love to read your thoughts and comments about this post (see form below), and thank you for your time! All comments are moderated, however, due to the high intelligence and persistence of spammers/hackers who really should be putting their smarts to use for the public good instead of spamming our little blog.
Original content copyright 2013-2018 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.
Family history is meant to be shared, but the original content of this site may NOT be used for any commercial purposes unless explicit written permission is received from both the blog owner and author. Blogs or websites with ads and/or any income-generating components are included under “commercial purposes,” as are the large genealogy database websites. Sites that republish original HeritageRamblings.net content as their own are in violation of copyright as well, and use of full content is not permitted.Descendants and researchers MAY download images and posts to share with their families, and use the information on their family trees or in family history books with a small number of reprints. Please make sure to credit and cite the information properly, i.e, reference this blog.Please contact us if you have any questions about copyright or use of our blog material.
Very early in the morning of 19 January 1883, off the German Island of Borkum in the North Sea, the weather began to turn for the worse and very dense fog set in. The steamship SS Cimbria had left the day before in fairly clear weather from Hamburg, Germany, and had its usual crew of 120 (or 91 crew members, depending on source) plus 402 passengers, many of whom, like Sarah Gitel Frank (later Broida) just eighteen months before, were emmigrants to the United States. The emmigrants were from Russia, Prussia, Hungary, and Austria, plus there were French sailors headed to Le Havre, France (another common port of departure) and a group of Chippewa Indians who had performed exhibitions in Europe. There were 243 male passengers, 72 women, and 87 children on board the ship when it departed.
The SS Cimbria was built by Caird & Co. in Greenock, Scotland, in 1867 for the Hamburg America Line (now Hapag-Lloyd- you have probably seen their shipping containers on the back of an 18-wheeler). The ship was a 340 ft. steamer, about 40 ft. across the beam, built of iron and weighing 3,037 gross tons. With five boilers to create the steam to power her with a 600 horsepower engine, the two-cylinders drove one screw; gases were exhausted out the large funnel near the center of the ship. As did many of the steamers built in the 1860s, she also had two sailing masts to take advantage of the strong winds of the North Sea and Atlantic Ocean.
The SS Frisia, the SS Cimbria’s sister ship, which would have been similar. (Click to enlarge.)
The ship could accommodate 58 first-class passengers, 120 second-class, and 500 third-class or “steerage,” – the latter most likely where the poor emmigrants lived on board.
As the fog grew thicker past the small town of Cuxhaven on the north German shore near where the Elbe River meets the North Sea, the experienced captain of the Cimbria became concerned and about midnight ordered that the speed of the passenger ship be decreased. As the passengers and off-duty crew slept, two hours later the siren of an approaching steamship was heard, but it was challenging to determine where it was with the muffled sound caused by the fog. A lookout then noted a faint green light in the dense fog. This green light showed a ship’s position to others, and belonged to the smaller British ship Sultan, which was carrying coal.
Once seen, the two ships were only about 150 ft apart.
But it was too late- ships that size are not agile in water, and as the two ships loomed out of the fog, the captains panicked. To make it even worse, they did the absolutely wrong thing- they turned toward each other. Within moments the Sultan‘s bow struck the port side of the Cimbria, and a deep gash alongside the foremast that extended below the water line allowed many thousands of gallons of cold seawater to flood the Cimbria. The Sultan reversed itself using full power, but when it backed away, it also pulled off large iron side panels of the Cimbria, worsening the flood into the hold of the ship.
By this time the passengers would have been awakened and panic resulted. The Cimbria had begun to list, making it harder to escape from below decks, and as it was taking on water so quickly, the ship was sinking fast. The crew remained focused and were able to lower three (some sources state seven) lifeboats in the short time they had. Sadly, one of the boats was overcrowded and capsized, but others were able to escape the whirlpool and suction forming as the ship sank.
The SS Cimbria disaster, from “the Pictorial World,” an English magazine, 3 Feb 1883.
The Cimbria sank in just fifteen minutes. Fifteen.
The masts of the steamship thankfully remained upright and out of the water for many hours so passengers clung to the shrouds of the masts. One lifeboat had capsized soon after leaving the Cimbria, losing many passengers to the deep, but seventeen were able to get to a mast and hold on for over ten hours- they nearly froze to death (remember, it was winter in the North Sea!) before they were rescued by the German vessel Diamant. Before sinking the crew had cut off the spars of the mast and flung them into the water so that people could cling to them, although the cold water would not have allowed the survivors to live long. Lifeboats held thirty-nine who were rescued by the ship Theta two days later and nine persons landed their lifeboat safely at Borkum. Reports vary from a total of 65-133 persons saved.
None were rescued by the crew of the Sultan, however. The Sultan’s captain had steamed off, ignoring the screams for help from the Cimbria, the lifeboats, and the people in the icy cold, winter waters of the North Sea. He reported that he had feared he would lose his own lifeboats in the fog if they had been lowered. The captain later stated, in the Maritime Court inquiry, that he thought his ship had been damaged more than the ship he rammed in the side with his pointed bow. (There are varying accounts that state there may have been more than one collision between the ships.) The Sultan’s captain also stated that the Cimbria had not used their horn in the fog even though he had, and, at one point, stated he waited at the scene five hours but heard nothing so returned to Hamburg, furious that the Cimbria had not provided aid to his ship. When he returned to port, he learned the sorrowful fate of the Cimbria.
The Sultan’s captain was somewhat vindicated when it was determined that his ship did have a large hole forward. Had his ship taken on only one more foot of water, it too probably would have foundered in the cold North Sea.
More than 389-430 souls were lost that night from the SS Cimbria, making it the largest (known) maritime disaster until the loss of the Titanic in 1912. The Cimbria is still Germany’s largest loss of life from a ship disaster.
We can only imagine the reactions of Sarah Gittel (Frank) Broida and her family when they heard the news of the sinking of the SS Cimbria. She had wisely traveled not during the cold, stormy months of winter on the North Sea. Despite that, the fear of the ship sinking was always a reality preceding and during the trip. Knowing that she had immigrated just a year and a half before her ship went down must have been chilling.
Notes, Sources, and References:
Websites and news articles vary in the number lifeboats that got away and number of souls lost and rescued.
This website has 3 pages on The Cimbria, but you will likely need to use the search box at the bottom to get to each– http://www.gegoux.com. And yes, it is a page about an artist, mostly, but The Cimbria is included because he too traveled aboard the steamship around 1881.
One of the sources consulted by some of these websites was “Know Your Ships” Tenth Edition, 1968, Thomas Manse, Publisher.
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We would love to read your thoughts and comments about this post (see form below), and thank you for your time! All comments are moderated, however, due to the high intelligence and persistence of spammers/hackers who really should be putting their smarts to use for the public good instead of spamming our little blog.
Original content copyright 2013-2018 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.
Family history is meant to be shared, but the original content of this site may NOT be used for any commercial purposes unless explicit written permission is received from both the blog owner and author. Blogs or websites with ads and/or any income-generating components are included under “commercial purposes,” as are the large genealogy database websites. Sites that republish original HeritageRamblings.net content as their own are in violation of copyright as well, and use of full content is not permitted.Descendants and researchers MAY download images and posts to share with their families, and use the information on their family trees or in family history books with a small number of reprints. Please make sure to credit and cite the information properly.Please contact us if you have any questions about copyright or use of our blog material.
