THE LIFE AND TIMES OF MY GREAT-GRANDFATHER IN THE OLD COUNTRY

Think of it. My Aunt Fannie, named for her maternal grandmother, Feigl, meaning “little bird,” held on to family heirloom letters dating to before WWI. Some of those antique letters were from my great-grandfather, a widower with six children. He remarried, and his new wife had four children from a previous marriage.

After he married his second wife, one of his sons married one of her daughters. And one of his daughters married one of her sons. The stories of those offspring are the subjects of future blog posts. Check back on June 7, 2022, to read 100 Years - A Wrap. Then, again on June 21, 2022, to read Envisioning and Memorializing My Grandaunt, and on July 12, 2022, when My Grandmother’s Step-siblings In Photos is scheduled to post.

In the letters, each penned by one of my illiterate great-grandfather’s two sons, trials and tribulations are written as though my great-grandfather is unburdening himself while speaking with his beloved daughter, my grandmother, sitting in the same room. Instead, she was across the world with her husband and their expanding brood, struggling to get by and make ends meet.

Scrap paper found at my Aunt Fannie’s apartment with her handwritten “partial family tree”

A forgotten piece of scrap paper, found in Aunt Fannie’s dresser drawer, had a handwritten partial family tree scribbled on it, which reminded me of the game my mother played on long drives with her sister. They would attempt but never succeeded at naming all of Snow White’s seven “friends” in one try. The same is true here where Aunt Fannie has missing and misspelled names on the list of our real-life ancestors.

The treasured letters, which Aunt Fannie kept in a dented cookie tin, disclosed that my great-grandfather, a tool sharpener, had a cart on the street with an umbrella, where he sold his wares. We further learned that he owned property and had a tenant. For a discussion about the kitchen tools shown on the title page, see my future blog post, All in the Family - Etl’s In-laws, dated July 19, 2022.

In more than one letter to my grandmother, my great-grandfather balked about going to court to have his tenant evicted. After reading each correspondence from my great-grandfather, I closed my eyes and pictured the scenes.

The hand-penned pages present a surprising glimpse into our ancestors' day-to-day lives. While recognizing that the letters only present one side of the little known stories from the olden days, they contain page-turning intrigue.

The most insignificant seeming lines paint a picture of life 100 years ago in a small shtetl in Ukraine.

In the middle of the cold Russian winter of 1911, my grandmother showed concern for her cousin, who became her brother-in-law. See my blog post, Amen, dated March 15, 2022.

My grandmother insisted he finish writing the letter for her to send to his brother, my grandfather, who immigrated to America ahead of her to “test the waters” and determine if their move was plausible. That priceless letter from the old country reported, "It is very late in the night. Shmuel [‘Shmulik’] has to go home alone, and outside is a snowstorm going on, and a black darkness.” This reminds me of the Yiddish expression, schwartz v the nacht, meaning, black as the night.

In the case of my illiterate great-grandfather, in a letter dated February 14, 1913, after my grandmother emigrated, which his son penned for him, he added, “I Velvel writes the letter, even though father didn’t pay my teacher, because he had a hard winter. A professional letter writer asks to be paid for writing.”

Within the contents of the letter was a description of a court case. “The tenant was a bad neighbor. I sued him three times, for eviction, but could not get rid of him. I gave up, and did not want to bother with him anymore.

“I traveled to Chmelnik, to appeal, and he kept staying unlawfully. He did not appear in court, not the first time and not the second time, therefore, the trial had to be postponed. I traveled four or five times to the court hearing.

“On the sixth time only he was convicted and sentenced to be thrown out. The judge became angry at him, and he immediately gave the eviction notice for the clerk. Then the tenant appealed to the District Court which ordered to stop the eviction procedures. I hope that I will eventually evict him.”

In a follow-up to the above written on June 5, 1913, my great-grandfather sent word about the successful appeal on his tenant eviction case. He did say that still “the neighbors might appeal the verdict, and it will take another five to six months.” Next, we learned from the letter how hard it was to make a living, and that he displayed his wares on the second track.

Letter to my grandmother Sarah from her father. While I have no photographs of my great-grandfather, having a letter he dictated for his son to write is monumental translated by Harry Langsam, z”l

Aunt Fannie stored many other letters from relatives in the old country, which were penned in the years leading to WWII. The messages told of a critical shortage of supplies and swelled with requests for packages needed to help the relatives survive.

Mainly, though, in those heart-wrenching letters, the relatives begged not to be forgotten. And they always started their letters and signed off with greetings and salutations, thanking God and wishing their family members well.

From our daughter Rina’s 2003 Bat Mitzvah booklet

Here, in the states, Aunt Fannie, my father’s only sister, regularly attended sessions of the Chudnover Society, where she helped my grandmother wrap packages to send home to our relatives overseas. Plus, Aunt Fannie busied herself writing letters, which were unknowingly confiscated at the post office abroad before reaching our family members.

In my cousin Shimon’s 2011 memoir, the family lore about the mail being intercepted became a verified reality. While we grew up oceans apart and never met, we probably communicated by sharing matching stories the last 20 years of my dear cousin Shimon’s life.

As a matter-of-fact, when my daughter Rina met Shimon in Israel on her Birthright trip in 2011, she said with a chuckle, the one word she could understand, as he spoke only languages she didn’t know, was “Sharon, Sharon, Sharon.”

Shimon showered Rina with family pictures, instilling lasting memories. I am so sorry that no one in the family has a photograph of our Great-grandparents.

One of the golden oldie letters we have says that a photo, which my grandparents sent to my grandmother’s brother overseas, showed that my youngest uncle looked like his cousin. The letter claims that the two boys looked just like my Great-grandfather, Yehuda Hersh, the grandfather for whom they were named.

From that knowledge, I do my best to visualize our family patriarch. Look for my blog post dated June 7, 2022, 100 Years - A Wrap, with the partial letter, mentioning who the boys looked like, dated November 14, 1935.

Following my grandmother’s passing, before I was born, yet years after the war, which ended nearly a decade before my birth, I recall when more letters excitedly arrived in the mail at Aunt Fannie's. Some of them are in my tattered collection. A few I can remember my father helping Aunt Fannie translate from Yiddish.

Whenever I requested to see the older letters, Aunt Fannie would insist, “They’re too sad.” That’s the way it was when I was growing up. People didn’t want to talk about painful memories. It was unheard of for Holocaust survivors to accept speaking engagements.

When our friend told the story of her escape on the Kindertransport as a guest on The World of Work public radio program on WDVR-FM near the very end of the 20th Century, her adult daughter wrote the host, my husband, a note. She thanked him for having her mother tell her story, of which she knew little.

Page one of letter from Kindertransport survivor’s daughter after her radio appearance talking about her life

We all were aware that her mother kept papers from her painful past stored under her bed. The connection with the radio host gave a survivor the venue to reveal the darkest days of her past. To hear her riveting interview, go to WDVRFM and check for archived interviews with Shep Cohen on The World of Work. If not archived by the date of this posting, check back soon.

Writing this 18-part blog post series and related articles was not easy. Failing to use my platform to share the letters, sad as they are, which Aunt Fannie, fortunately, left stored in a cookie tin in her food pantry, would be irresponsible. My mission was to tell the troubling story, with pictures of our hard-working innocent relatives in past and future blog posts included.

These beautiful souls deserve to be remembered and memorialized. The naysayers need to be stopped. Families such as mine with firsthand knowledge of the travesties of history are obligated to set the record straight.

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Regarding my direct ancestry, charted out and described are the branches of my paternal ancestry dating back to 1765. This labor of love is intended for family, fellow genealogists, and anyone interested in following one family’s connections over the span of more than 150 years.

Chart 1 - Chart 1 shows my Great-great-grandparents Yevel Temnogorod married to Sura-Sheyndlya (Unknown maiden name). My Great-great grandfather, Yevel, was born about 1814, in Chudnov.

Yevel and Sura-Sheyndlya were the parents of my Great-grandmother Rachel Leah and her brother, my Great-grandfather Yehuda Hersh, plus Rose, also known as Risya. More on the family of Rose, will be in my blog post, The Legacy of the Six Weinerman Sisters, dated July 26, 2022.

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Chart 2 - My Great-grandmother Rachel Leah Temnogorod was born about 1843 and died about 1901?? Her brother, my Great-grandfather, Yehuda Hersh (“Alter”) Temnogorod, was born in 1858 and died in May 1916, in Chudnov.

My Great-grandmother Rachel Leah Temnogorod married my Great-grandfather, Moishe Muravin (before 1938, the family name was Murovany). They had seven children. One was my paternal grandfather Nachman Muravin/Nathan Mark. He had six siblings and I have written about each of them in this weekly Tuesday series of somber blog posts.

Chart 3 - My Great-grandfather Yehuda Hersh Temnogorod, brother of my paternal Great-grandmother Rachel Leah Temnogorod Muravina and Rose Temnogorod Weinerman, was married to Fannie (Unknown maiden name) and had six children. After she died, he married a woman who had four children. We do not know her name, however, her children carry the family name Shapiro from her first marriage.

Sarah Jennie (Sura Sheindl), daughter of Fannie and Yehuda Hersh Temnogorod was my grandmother. As noted, my grandparents were 1st cousins before marriage. As I am named for my grandmother Sarah, she in turn was obviously named for her grandmother Sura-Sheyndlya, thus I am carrying the name of my Great-great-grandmother.

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Chart 4 - My grandmother’s brother Yellik married their stepsister, Livsha. My grandmother’s sister, Rachel Leah, married their stepbrother, Abraham Shapiro. Be sure to check back to read 100 Years - A Wrap, dated June 7, 2022, Envisioning and Memorializing My Grandaunt, dated June 21, 2022, and My Grandmother’s Step-siblings In Photos, dated July 12, 2022.

Chart 5 - Rose (Risya), the sister of my Great-grandmother Rachel Leah Temnogorod Muravina and my Great-grandfather Yehuda Hersh Temnogorod, was born in 1848 and died about 1910. She had six daughters who were 1st cousins to both my grandmother and grandfather.

Three of the six Weinerman sisters immigrated to America but the other three never made it to the Goldene Medina. The stories of the six sisters fill pages of my manuscript, Kitchen Talk, and their descendants are part of our everyday lives.

For more information on the family of Rose Temnogorod Weinerman, be sure to check back for my Tuesday blog post, The Legacy of the Six Weinerman Sisters, dated July 26, 2022.

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I recently went back to our Temnogorod ancestry to the mid-1700s. See my blog post, Incredulous! dated September 7, 2021.

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Chart 6 - My Great-great-grandfather Yevel Temnogorod's parents were Moshe Leyb Berkovich Temnogorod and Leya (Unknown maiden name). They had three other children, Gudya Temnogorod 1810 Chudnov, Sheftio Temnogorod 1813 Chudnov, and Volf Ber Temnogorod 1817 born in Unknown.

My Great-great-great-grandfather, Moshe Leyb Berkovich Temnogorod was born and died in Chudnov (1786-1843).

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Chart 7 Berko is as far back as we can go in our Temnogorod family history with last names. The searches in the years prior will be extremely tedious.

Chart 7 - Moshe Leyb's father was my Great-great-great-great-grandfather, Berko Temnogorod born about 1765.

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We do not have the information going back as far on the Muravin/a-Murovany side of the family.

I do, however, know an entire other branch of the Muravin/a family.

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Chart 8 - My Great-grandfather Moishe Murovany had a brother Leib Murovany married to Basja (Unknown maiden name). We do not know the names of the parents of Moishe and Leib.

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Chart 9 - Leib and Basja Murovany had four children, Zelik, Gitl, Perl, and Male Name Unknown.

Zelik Murovany (Muravin), son of Leib, was married to his cousin Fruma Murovany (Muravina), daughter of Moishe. Fruma was my Grandfather Nachman's sister. See my blog post, “How Could You?” dated April 5, 2022.

I am also in touch with the family of Zelig’s sister Gitl (daughter of Leib Muravin, brother of my Great-grandfather Moishe Muravin, not to be confused with Moishe’s daughter by the same name) and have their family tree charted as well. See my future blog post scheduled for Tuesday, August 2, 2022, Who’s That Wearing A Hat?"

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Now that we’ve gone back in our family history to my Great-great-great-great-grandfather Berko Temnogorod, it makes keeping the connections going that much more urgent. Our grandchildren will know their family history dating back to their Great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather, over 250 years before they were born.

My next mission is to update all the family trees I’ve been working on for close to 35 years and make them available for all our cousins. The time is now to gather any missing details.

With heartfelt appreciation to Cousin Harry Langsam, z”l, for painstakingly devoting his time and skills to translating and accumulating voluminous information about our ancestral Chudnov.

Old Cemetery in Chudnov which surely has the Matzevah of my great-grandfather

Writing on back of picture of the Old Cemetery in Chudnov by Maryam Sandal, z”l from her June 2009 visit to Chudnov

A special recognition to Maryam Sandal, z”l, for remembering the martyrs of Chudnov, seeing that the Old Jewish Cemetery in Chudnov was well cared for, and for sending a photograph of the cemetery taken on her trip to Chudnov in 2009. On that visit, Maryam met with Cousin Mikhail Fishman, z”l, who so diligently cared for the sacred graveyard of our ancestors and fellow Chudnovers. Mikhail’s descendants are our cousins who remain living in Chudnov today.

For more on Maryam Sandal, see my Tuesday blog post What Was Their Story of Survival? dated April 12, 2022. To learn more about Mikhail Fishman, see my Tuesday blog post, Our Cousins, Our Heroes, dated March 22, 2022. Come along on the concluding piece in my 18-part blog post series regarding my ancestry from Chudnov, Ukraine, to learn about the lives of Mikhail’s descendants in Where’s Chudnov? dated August 16, 2022.