More than two thousand miles all the way ...
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
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?
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