HIGHLIGHTING THE NATHAN BLOOM BRANCH OF THE FAMILY

Adding to my excitement on the matter of Grandaunt Esther Schneider, née Bloom (See my blog post at sharonmarkcohen.com, Let’s Discuss Esther Schneider, dated March 5, 2024), was my discovery of additional yearbook photographs for a much-desired family photo history. After searching for the Schneider yearbook entries, I went on to find images of the family of Nathan Bloom.

While old census records from 1910 show that Esther’s brother Nathan, my husband’s granduncle, lived on East 103rd Street in New York City (NYC), by the time of the 1920 Census, Nathan and his family had moved to Plainfield, New Jersey. There, they resided for many decades throughout the schooling of their children.

As an aside, it was interesting to find that in NYC, my husband’s uncle and his family resided on the same street as my mother’s family was living when she was born in 1915, before moving to Roselle, New Jersey with her family when she was three. According to the 1915 New Jersey State Census, the Nathan Bloom family was already living in Plainfield by 1915.

The idea for seeking the Bloom family photos in yearbooks started when our cousin Judy Benderson (great-granddaughter of Nathan Bloom’s sister Jennie, not to be confused with Nathan’s granddaughter Judy), found her father’s 1917 yearbook picture, and I asked her for the link to the digitized Plainfield High School yearbooks. There, I discovered about 20 photographs of Bloom and Schneider cousins. Each picture made me smile; every image helped solve a mystery.

The Bloom cousins were descendants of my mother-in-law’s uncle, Nathan, Esther Schneider’s brother. As in the case of my mother and father-in-law and their siblings, here again, two brothers married two sisters.

Granduncle Nathan married Rebecca (Pelte) Dzencelsky, the sister of his brother Shepsal’s wife Pesche Yente (Bessie) Dzencelsky. His grandson Fred told me that at the time of their births, his grandfather Nathan named all his children after someone in that week’s Torah parsha (portion).

Cousin Fred wrote about his grandfather, “Nathan Bloom built a building in Plainfield and put his name in cement on the top front of the building, and in the 50's my father Ephraim Bloom added a large extension on the back of the building. I remember as a kid hanging around the construction site while the extension was being built. When I passed by the building today (April 10, 2013)…the brick front with Nathan's name on top was still there but it looked like the building either had a serious fire and was all boarded up or possibly it was abandoned. Needless to say, I was very upset when I saw the building.”

Years ago, photos of Nathan with his wife when they were married were added to my Bloom family tree records, along with those of three of their four sons, on the day of their nuptials. Their daughter Sarah’s single son Norman, with whom I corresponded but never met, sent me a photo of his grandparents with four of their six young children (the youngest two were not yet born). Norman sent the treasured picture not long before he passed away in 2017. (See my earlier blog post at sharonmarkcohen.com, It’s Like A Babe Ruth Baseball Card, dated May 7, 2024).

The current tree shows how it blossomed throughout the years, with the added high school graduation pictures of Ephraim, Abraham, Morris Bloom, and their sisters Helen and Sarah. Equally exciting are the high school photos of several of the members of the next generation, also graduates of Plainfield High School.

While Joseph, Nathan’s youngest child, was not found in those yearbook treasures, Joseph’s two sons were graduates of Plainfield High School, and their photos were in the yearbooks. Joseph's eldest son has the middle name Norman. The one time we met him on July 5, 2013, on Martha’s Vineyard, where he has a home, he mentioned that his middle name, Norman, was given to him in memory of his grandfather Nathan.

With so many descendants named for Nathan, suggested by all those with the letter N at the start of their name, it is easy to see why my mother-in-law spoke with adoration for her revered uncle. She morosely recalled his premature demise in 1937 at age 59, before the advent of antibiotics, caused by an infection after a root canal procedure.

Although I did not find the bios and photos of Nathan’s eldest son Ephraim’s children in the Plainfield yearbooks (a follow-up with his daughter Phyllis revealed that she and her brother Fred graduated from nearby North Plainfield High), I made a major find. I discovered entries for all three of Abraham’s offspring and Morris’s two daughters.

Sadly, Abraham’s daughter Naomi and Morris’s daughters Norma and Paula are no longer among the living. Luckily, we have clear photographs and excerpts about them to keep their memories alive in our family.

Sadly, Naomi, Granduncle Nathan’s granddaughter, died at the young age of 35. I’ve visited her grave with other cousins. It’s wonderful that she can be remembered.
January 7, 1940
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January 28, 1975

Upon reading Norma’s obituary at: https://higginsfuneralhome.com/tribute/details/170/Norma-Schneider/obituary.html, notably something quite interesting stuck out. It stated, “She enjoyed traveling the world and had visited all seven of the continents.” I wish that we had gotten together and discussed her adventures.

Judy Benderson wrote: “I had a cousin...Norma Bloom…she must be one of the Blooms you mentioned. I used to play with Norma occasionally. I recall her as very thin and fair-complected…. kind of my exact opposite.”

Judy further wrote: “Linda Carlson who sent me the link said my family had deep roots in Plainfield. I never thought of it that way but I guess so. I saw names in those yearbooks whose kids I knew….. just never thought of our families going back generations together. I remember reading my Uncle Irving’s memoir and finding out that I went to school with the granddaughter of his business partner. It really makes one feel like part of the fabric of a community.”