Broida Family (Click for Family Tree)
We only have one US Federal Census for Sarah Gittel Frank (later Broida), and it states that she was born in Russia. The passenger list we have recently found states in some of the ‘transcriptions’ that her birthplace was Austria, but if one actually looks at the heading on the page, it doesn’t say, “Birthplace”- the heading is “The country in which they severally belong.” (One ‘transcription’ even states her ethnicity is Austrian- yet more junk genealogy, so read things carefully from the original image if possible.) Of course, we have already discussed that this person may not be “our” Gittel, but the names of the persons on the list before and after do not sound like they were from Austria, although that is the country that is listed for them. The young boy accompanying – or possibly just listed with- is named “Jankel Cohen” so while he may have lived in Austria, that likely was not his deeper origins.
All this basically means that we do not know where this Gittel started her journey. Did she travel from Lithuania or Russia to Austria, then to Hamburg, Germany or Le Havre, France before taking the SS Cimbria? That isn’t really a logical pathway, but one does not know the particulars of the situation, and whether she was fleeing the over 200 anti-Semitic pogroms of Russia that took place in 1881. We can only hope that someone in the family has heard a story that has been passed down, so that we may learn more about Gittel’s years before coming to America.
Just like today, whether a passenger liner or cruise ship, there was probably a large building for passengers to gather and purchase tickets. The advertisement above states that the fare for steerage passengers was $28 for a one-way ticket from Europe, which is about $650 today (2018). That may have been her life savings, or that of her family, lovingly provided to give her a better life in America. It would be interesting to know Gittel’s thoughts as she counted out her money, and as she took a huge step into the unknown, and a new life.
Boarding the SS Cimbria, if Gittel was indeed traveling in steerage, she would have made her way below deck with the majority of the other passengers. The Cimbria carried passengers regularly to the US, about every two weeks. The steamer was also a mail carrier, and it is very possible that the very ship she was on had also brought letters to her from America, encouraging her to make the trip west- maybe even a letter from John Broida, her husband-to-be, or a matchmaker or family already in the States.
Finding a comfortable place to sleep for the next nine nights or so may have been challenging in the stuffy and cramped quarters of steerage. She would be taking her meals in that space, spending her waking hours as well as sleeping, and daily bodily functions would have taken place there as well. By the end of the trip, especially if seas were rough and many were seasick, or if the weather was very hot, it would have been a miserable place to be.
Passengers would have been allowed above decks depending on the weather and the patience of the ship’s crew. Even then, breathing the clean salt air would have been done in a crowd.
When Gittel came to America, there was no statue of Liberty in New York Harbor to greet her and the other immigrants. (The US poet Emma Lazarus had been assisting Jewish refugees from the pogroms, and hearing their stories inspired her poem at the base of the statue that includes the lines, “Give me your tired, your poor/Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” The statue was not completed until 1886.) Gittel would have slowly walked with the crowd off the ship and into her new country.
1878 engraving of immigrants arriving at Castle Garden, via NorwayHeritage.com.
She could not just go wherever she pleased, however- immigrants were “processed” as soon as they left the ship.
Gittel Frank would not have entered the great hall of Ellis Island, as it did not open until 1892. Instead, she would have gone through Castle Garden. Unfortunately, her name has not yet been found on the Castle Garden website- there are a number of persons named “Gittel” who were processed there in 1881, but no transcribed surnames and ages that would seem to fit. (Only the transcriptions are available, currently, and there may be errors in the transcriptions.)
Castle Garden was at the tip of Lower Manhattan, and designed for efficient processing of all the new immigrants to America. The passenger list at the time was handwritten, and was used for statistical documentation of immigration, but also used in a legal cross-examination and inspection of the new immigrant before they would be allowed to live in the United States. About 98% of the immigrants passed. Sometimes, however, inaccurate information was recorded, whether ‘misheard,’ given wrong purposefully, or just ‘misremembered.’
It must have been a very stressful time for the new immigrants, especially if they spoke no English. It would be wonderful to know if there was someone waiting to greet her and take Gitel to her new life in America, but we do not have any information about what happened next. We do not know if she knew John Broida in “the old country”, whether it was an arranged marriage, or if they just met in New York and decided to marry. We have not been able to find John Broida in the 1880 census, so he may have been living in New York City then, as his granddaughter, Gertrude Belle (Broida) Cooper stated that the family members were ‘rag-pickers’ in NYC when they first immigrated. John’s naturalization papers state that he entered the US in Pennsylvania, so that would imply a different scenario. We have no marriage record for John and Gitel either, and have searched in New York as well as Pennsylvania. (There were no requirements back then to record a marriage with either state government.) We do know that their son Joseph Jacob Broida was born in Pittsburgh, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania on 15 May 1882.
If anyone has more information on this early period of John Zelig or Gitel Frank Broida, please let us know!
Notes, Sources, and References:
- SS Cimbria in port image posted with kind permission of the website owners of “Theodore Gegoux” at gegoux.com, and https://www.maritimequest.com/daily_event_archive/2006/jan/19_ss_cimbria.htm
- Information concerning the NY Passenger lists–https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/New_York,_Passenger_Lists_(FamilySearch_Historical_Records)
- Castle Garden- search for “Gittel” in 1881–http://www.castlegarden.org/search_02.php?m_ship=&po_port=&p_first_name=gittel&p_last_name=&o_occ=&co_country=&province=&town=&m_arr_date_start=1880&m_arr_date_end=1881&submit=Search+Now
- Wikipedia article on the Statue of Liberty– https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statue_of_Liberty
- Heritage Ships/NorwayHeritage.com has graciously allowed use of their collected images as long as the watermark is retained and attribution provided. If you are interested in higher quality images, they can be purchased on their website, which benefits NorwayHeritage.
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