I recently attended the 90th birthday party of my first cousin Jay Weinstein, the oldest living relative on my father’s side of the family. I used the opportunity to quiz my cousin Jay about our Blum ancestors, since he was around for 20 years before I was born and knows more about our Blum heritage than anyone else alive today. Fortunately, Jay is as sharp as ever and provided a wealth of information. I am so grateful I can now document those stories for future generations. Moreover, Jay provided me with a family photo drive and video interview they did with his mother Sophia (my father’s sister) who died not long ago at 103, also sharp as a tack until the end.
In talking with Jay and watching his mother’s video, I learned some remarkable things about my family history. In this blog, I have stressed repeatedly the importance of preserving family stories. Research shows that the more future generations know about their ancestry, the higher their self esteem and the stronger their resilience when adversity strikes. The key is to document the stories before it’s too late. My dear friend Todd Healy made this point so impactfully by sending me the book Like a Library Burning: Sharing and Saving a Lifetime of Stories (by Scott Farnsworth and Peggy Hoyt). The book equates losing an ancestor (and all the stories in their heads) with the burning down of a library:
“Each of us is a library, a living depository of vast amounts of knowledge, information, wisdom, insight, and life-lessons. Within us we hold countless treasures: stories, memories, eye-witness accounts, compilations of decades of personal experiences. This human wealth is profoundly valuable and intensely fragile. It can be easily lost to death, disease, dementia, or any of a dozen other causes. Unless thoughtful steps are taken beforehand to preserve and pass it on, it will be destroyed and lost forever.”
I have previously shared in this blog some of my own ancestors’ “library,” particularly how my mother’s parents escaped Hitler, immigrating to America from Ukraine and Poland. I discovered that both of my father’s parents also barely escaped, leaving their home in Dvinsk, Latvia to make a new life in America. My grandfather Isadore Blum left behind his parents Yankel and Gital Bluss. Going through customs, Isadore attempted to write his last name in cursive English. The immigration officer thought the two “s” letters at the end were an “m,” and renamed him Blum.
In America, Isadore and his wife Nettie lost contact with the relatives they left behind in Latvia. When they later had a son, they followed Jewish tradition to name him after a (presumed) deceased relative. They gave him the same first and middle names as Isadore’s father Yankel Velvel (calling him William Jay in English). Years later, they discovered that Yankel was still miraculously alive. After Yankel actually died, my father’s sister Sophia had a son. They decided to use the name again, also naming her son Yankel Velvel (but reversing the order in English and calling him Jay William). That’s my cousin Jay who just turned 90.
I learned from my Aunt Sophia’s video that my father was named for Yankel’s wife Gital Yenta (my great grandmother). There was some confusion about her name, but the mystery was solved when we found a photo of Yankel at his wife’s tombstone. Fortunately, my Hebrew skills are good enough to decipher her name. What’s especially remarkable is that my granddaughter Juliet Georgie is named after my father Julius George. Lizzy and Ira gave her the Hebrew name Yehudit Gital, unaware that she shares the name Gital with her namesake’s namesake. We only know her name because of a Latvian gravesite photo going back six generations from Juliet. This proves how important it is to take pictures and pass them down with the family archives.
My grandparents Isadore and Nettie Blum somehow made their way from New York to Texas. Isadore was an iron worker in Dallas until his COPD was so bad they moved to Fort Worth, where he opened a downtown fruit stand. He lost that business during the Great Depression, but with the help of his four children (the youngest being my father), managed to open I. Blum Grocery on East Rosedale. The family lived behind the store. The grocery closed when eminent domain claimed the location. We say a prayer every time we drive down I-35 at Rosedale, as the freeway now passes over where the store once was.
I learned a lot more Blum family lore from my cousin Jay and may share more in future posts. Suffice to say, “we’ve come a long way, baby” from those destitute days at 700 East Rosedale. Knowing your family history is enlightening and empowering. I urge everyone to join me in saving your family library from going up in flames.
Marvin E. Blum
First cousins Marvin Blum (right) and Jay Weinstein, reminiscing Blum family stories at Jay’s 90th birthday.
