Moshe Chaim, Czar of Pinsk: #19 Well it winds from Chicago to L.A.

 More than two thousand miles all the way ...

Route66RoadTrip.com

If you ever plan to motor west

Just take my way, it's the highway that's the best

Get your kicks on Route 66

Well it goes from St Louis, down through Missouri

Oklahoma City looks oh-so pretty

See Amarillo and Gallup, New Mexico,

Flagstaff, Arizona, don't forget Winona,

Kingman, Barstow, San Bernadino ...

Little did I think, 60 years ago, as I sang along to the opening track of the Rolling Stones' first LP,  trying to remember the names of all these mythical places in the right order so they fitted the music, that this was the route my Zaturensky ancestors had followed for real, 40 years earlier. Indeed, 60 years ago I had no idea I had ancestors called Zaturensky, or that it was even a name. 

But it is, and they did.

The one who didn't

The earliest emigrant, Schmuil (Simon Morris), and his wife/cousin Rochel Leah (Elizabeth), were the only ones not to make the California Trip. They lived out the whole of their American lives in Peoria, until their deaths in 1923 (Rochel Leah) and 1926 (Schmuil). In the 1920 Census, all 6 of their children were still at home with them in Peoria. By 1930, all the children were in Chicago. 

Peoria to Chicago: 150 miles

And there most of them stayed, or nearby. The only exception seems to have been Abe, the youngest, who eventually made his way to Los Angeles to join up with his cousin Sam Trent.

Blazing the trail

Schmuil's sister Dora was the trailblazer. Her husband Joseph Kawin had died in 1897, leaving her with 2 sons aged around 10 years old, Abraham and Samuel. She married Ephraim Goldberg, the roving rabbi, in 1900, and their daughter Sarah was born the following year in Oskaloosa, Iowa. No, I hadn't heard of it either. The relationship with Ephraim appears to have broken down by 1910, as in that Census Dora and her 3 children are in Chicago, whilst Ephraim is in Whiting, Indiana, with a 17 year-old daughter, presumably by a previous marriage.

By 1913, Abe and Sam Kawin are in Los Angeles:

They look well-established - Abe is a salesman in a department store, and Sam is an auditor. A year later, Dora has joined them. She's now goes by Kawin rather than Goldberg, and is listed as "widow of Joseph". Daughter Sarah is probably there too. They're in the Directory for San Pedro.

Then came the War. Abraham was called up to serve in the Army in 1917, and in July 1918 he was sent over to fight in France. He was killed in action on 19 October, just 3 weeks before the end of the War, and his body, along with thousands of others, was sent back 3 years later on a funeral ship.

A stream of Zaturenskys

The Kawins must have told their cousins that life was OK in California, because after the War they started coming over in a steady stream.

Dora's brother Joseph 'Teranski' spent the years after 1898 on a never-ending tour of the small towns of Illinois. We find him in Galesburg, Jacksonville, Monmouth, and occasionally back in Peoria, usually as a shoemaker, sometimes pawnbroking or dealing in second-hand clothing. His wife Sarah ran a grocery store. From 1911 they are settled in Springfield, Illinois.

The wanderings of Joseph, 1898-1927

Then, in 1922, their sons Sam and Meyer, both in their early 20s, appear in Los Angeles, and Sam gets married in San Francisco. Their father Joseph gets listed in both Springfield and LA for a couple of years - remember that's "more than two thousand miles all the way" -   before settling definitively in LA around 1927, along with Sarah. By this time Joseph and Meyer (now 'Myron') had renamed themselves 'Trent'. Sam later followed suit, and appeared as 'Cousin Sam Trent' on Abe Morris's Draft Card in 1940.

And it wasn't only the sons. Joseph's daughter Sadie followed them down in 1934, with her husband Henry Morgan; so too daughter Annie, with husband David Fishman, a couple of years later. Following the precedent set by Dora's family, none of Joseph's family remained in Illinois.

A different route

There is one family member who did not follow the trail along Route 66. Benjamin Gitelman managed to cut out the middle-man, and avoid Peoria - and Illinois - altogether. He came in 1922 with his wife and 4 young children, from a brother in Pinsk to a half-brother in Los Angeles. The 'half-brother' is Sam Kawin, Dora's son, and I have struggled mightily with this relationship. So much so that I have had to invent a sister for Dora to explain it. I've called this sister '*Beila', and decided she must be Benjamin's mother, because it fits the story and I can't make anything else fit. Whatever the detail, the relationship was close enough to Dora to have her build a home for Benjamin and his family in her own back-yard in LA. And for Benjamin to assume the surname of Dora's first husband Joseph Kawin, who by the time Benjamin arrived in LA had been dead 25 years.

The other Benjamin

It will not have escaped your notice that we now have two Benjamins to contend with. As well as two Josephs. Oy vey.

The other Benjamin is the one we have just met, the son of Movsha's brother Meir. He arrived as Berl Zateranski in 1904, and went first to Chicago, where he stayed until 1918. But the lure of Peoria proved irresistible, and he spent to next 10 years there, despite the fact that his siblings and cousins were busy heading off down "the highway that's the best" to LA.

But eventually he too succumbed, and we find him in Los Angeles from 1928 onwards. He appears to have been divorced from his wife Fanny by then; she had re-married in 1927, and stayed in Peoria. Their seven children spread out - 2 to Houston (Texas), 2 to Tucson (Arizona), the others around Illinois. With the exception of Abraham, who spent a few years with Benjamin in Los Angeles, none of them followed him there.

Benjamin in LA and his children: Abraham & Mary in Tucson AZ, Charles & Nathan in Houston TX; Lillian & Sarah stayed in Peoria

Benjamin re-married, twice, and eventually followed his children Abraham and Mary to Tucson, where he died in 1955. Most of his children adopted 'Terence', but Benjamin retained 'Terensky' to the end.

The other Joseph

As we have seen, the second Joseph, another son of Meir, immigrated in 1904, and like his brother Benjamin, headed for Chicago, and stayed there. Like Benjamin, he used 'Terensky'. He was naturalised there in 1914. But the lure of Peoria proved irresistible for him too, and he moved there in 1918, round about the same time as Benjamin.

However, Joseph didn't last long there. By 1920 he had "got hip" to the "kindly tip" of his cousin Dora and her sons, and followed them down to Los Angeles. He died there in 1926. From the mid-1930s on, his wife Esther and their children were known as 'Terrence'.

Sister Sarah

Sarah followed her two brothers to Chicago, arriving a few years later, probably around 1908. She married Adolf Hartenstein there in 1909, and their first two children were born there. However, the lure of Peoria worked its magic on them too, and they joined her brothers and cousins there in 1912. And by 1922, you've guessed it, they had "motored west" and joined the burgeoning Zaturensky colony in Los Angeles.

If you ever plan to motor west

Just take my way, it's the highway that's the best

Get your kicks on Route 66

Next question: so they came from Pinsk, did they?

Moshe Chaim, Czar of Pinsk: #18 The Cousins Arrive

The Zaturensky family
The current state of my knowledge is that my Zaturensky family derives from two brothers who lived in Pinsk in Tsarist Russia in the late 19C, sons of Chaim. They were Movsha and Meir, and several of their children emigrated to the United States. My own great-grandmother Shprintsa is the only one of their children known to me who did not leave Russia. There may be more brothers or sisters, there may be more children who stayed, and more who emigrated.

Most of the story so far has concerned the children of Movsha, my great-great-grandfather: Schmuil (who became Simon Morris), Dora, and latterly Joseph. We were introduced to Meir when we realised early on that Schmuil had married his cousin Rochel Leah, daughter of Meir. However, Rochel Leah is not alone. She has three siblings who we can trace back to the same father, Meir: Benjamin, Joseph, and Sarah.

All of the emigrants followed the same over-arching route, from Pinsk to Peoria in Illinois; some dallied for a while in Chicago, and they all - or their children - eventually found their way over to Los Angeles. I'll trace their journey across the USA in a later post, and I'll also be having a closer look at where they came from in Russia - you'll see some hints of this below, in some of their passenger manifests.

Let's look first at their emigration stories, more or less in chronological order. The first to appear is Movsha's son Schmuil.

Movsha: Schmuil
In 1881 Schmuil Zotoranski, aged 20, and his wife Pesia (18), arrived in New York aboard the ss Suevia from Hamburg. This Schmuil may have been the Schmuil who was a brother of my great-grandmother Shprintsa Zaturensky, the man who appears at the beginning of our story as 'Simon Moses'. I can't be sure, as I have not found any further documents showing this couple. On the other hand, I have not found an immigration record for any other Schmuil who could fit the bill.

We know that 'Simon Moses' applied for US naturalisation in 1886 in Peoria, Illinois, where much of our Zaturensky story unfolds, but the actual application document is not available online, so we don't know what further information it may hold, such as place of birth, or date and means of arrival in the USA. So, as of now, this Schmuil Zotoranski is our best bet.

I have found no further mention of his wife Pesia, under any likely surname, but I presume she died sometime during the following few years, as by 1893 Schmuil/Simon is married to 'Elizabeth', and they are having their first child, Bessie. 

Meir: Rochel Leia
Elizabeth turns out to be Rochel Leah Teransky, born c1872, and like Simon she is from Pinsk in Russia (now Belarus). She appears to have arrived around 1891, though I haven't yet found a manifest for her. If you think 'Teransky' sounds suspiciously like 'Zaturensky', you're spot on. Rochel Leah's father is Meir Zaturensky, and I am as certain as I can be that Meir is a brother of Schmuil's father Movsha (my own great-great-grandfather, if you're following). In other words, Schmuil and his new wife are First Cousins. I discussed the implications of this at some length in earlier chapters of this saga.

Movsha: Dora
Schmuil was followed over by his younger sister Dora, who must have come around 1888, though I have not been able to find a manifest for her. By the end of that year she had married Joseph Kawin, and was having her first child Abraham in Peoria.

Movsha: Joseph
Then a brother Joseph arrived around 1891. I was hoping to find him coming over together with his cousin Rochel Leah, who came around the same time, and was to marry Schmuil. Or maybe with his sister Dora, who came over a couple of years earlier. No such luck, however - Joseph seems to have come on his own. I have several candidate manifests, with names and dates approximating to his, but I'm not convinced by any of them. Joseph applied for US naturalisation in 1895, under the name 'Torensky', but of course this doesn't have to be the name that appeared on the passenger list 4 or 5 years earlier.

Joseph and Dora were probably half- rather than full-siblings to Schmuil and my g-g'm Shprintsa, ie, same father, different mothers. Shprintsa was the only one of Movsha's children to stay in Pinsk (she died there in 1932). Her son - my grandfather - Moshe Schreibman, did not follow his cousins to Peoria. He came to England in 1905.

Throughout the 1890s these three couples - Schmuil and Rochel Leah, Dora and her husband Joseph Kawin, and Joseph and his wife Sarah - raised their young families, and tried to make their living, in Peoria. And I still don't know why they headed straight (more or less) for Peoria in the first place. 

Meir: Joseph

And then Rochel Leah's siblings started arriving. These are the children of Meir, brother of Movsha. First off the boat was Joseph - not to be confused with the other Joseph, his cousin, who we have just been looking at - on 6 August 1904:

He's 26, married, and a shoemaker. And his name's spelt right!

Meir: Berl
Then his older brother Berl arrived on 7 December:

He's 28, married, and also a shoemaker. And his name's also spelt right - well, nearly. Berl's manifest shows him as coming from a place called "Selip", which may or may not be Vselub, a small town in the north-west of Belarus, halfway between Novogrudok and Lida. This is quite a way from Pinsk; it may be where his wife Fanny Daletisky comes from. We'll take a look at the places mentioned by the Zaturenskys in a later post.

Both of them are going to relatives in New York, Joseph to a cousin Eze Kolodny and Berl to a brother-in-law D Bleicher. I have not been able to trace either of these two relatives; so far as I can see, their surnames do not correspond any known Zaturensky-linked families, or to the families of the wives of the two brothers. The brother-in-law bit is intriguing - this would have to be either the husband of Berl's own sister (no - unless there's another sister we don't know about yet), or his wife's brother (wrong surname), or possibly his wife's sister's husband. Whichever way round, I've drawn a blank - there doesn't seem to be a D Bleicher around anywhere at that time.

In any event, neither of them spent much time in New York - they both seem to have headed straight on to Chicago.

Berl's wife Fanny

And then, in 1906, a 23 year-old married woman, surname Zaturenski, from Radun in Russia, with a 3 year-old male child, stepped off the boat in Montreal, Canada. They are at the bottom of the page, and as luck would have it, the corner of the page is torn off, and their given names have been obliterated. However, we learn that she is going to her husband Berl Zaturensky in Chicago; this must be Fanny, Berl's wife, and their first child, who became 'Charles Henry' in America.

Radun, by the way, is even further to the north than Vselub - it's north of Lida, right near the Lithuanian border. Is this where Fanny's family was from?

By 1908, when their son Nathan is born, Berl is calling himself 'Ben', and he's Benjamin Terensky thereafter, except on his death certificate in 1955, where he has anglicised the surname to 'Terence'.

Joseph's wife Esther
Joseph's wife Esther arrived in February 1907, with their daughter Leia.

Leia is shown as 10 months old, but this can't be right. As my father would have said, just do the vulgar fractions: 10 months back from Feb 1907 gives a birth date of April 1906, and yet Joseph had left Russia in July 1904. The 1910 Census shows her as 5 years old, ie a birth date of late 1904 or early 1905, which makes much more sense.

Their last place of residence is shown as Lubischow, which is to the south of Pinsk, across the border in present-day Ukraine. I wondered whether this was where Esther's own family - Portnoi - came from, except that the right-hand column (not shown here) says both Esther and Leia were born in Nesvizh, which is some way to the north of Pinsk, half-way to Minsk. Nesvizh happens to be the place whose records show the largest concentration of the name Zaturensky. There are not many Zaturensky births in Pinsk in the records we have, but several of those that do exist have the note, "father from Nesvizh". None of these records are identifiable as ours, but I do suspect that eventually we'll be able to trace our people back to Nesvizh.

Oy vey! What a plethora of places. I'm beginning to feel the need to have a proper look at the geography of this family. It's not all Pinsk, you know. Watch this space.

Meir: Sarah
The last to arrive seems to have been Sarah, the younger sister of Berl and Joseph. I haven't found a manifest for her yet, but she must have arrived by 1908, because she married Adolf Hartenstein in Chicago in 1909. Adolf had arrived in 1907 from Austria, so they would not have known each other before Sarah came to Chicago.

Next up: our families up sticks again, across the United States from Peoria and Chicago to Los Angeles.