Sitting on the passenger side of the coach, Reiza Flier swept her beady gray eyes over the family’s small home. At approximately 40 years old, this mother showed expressions of defiance and anticipation, even if she also felt sadness for leavin­g her ancestors and home behind, fear and anxiety about the journey ahead, and deep longing to reunite with her husband and oldest son. The coach driver flecked the horses, jostling Reiza, her two youngest sons, and himself as the wheels creaked to a brisk roll.

[This article is dedicated to my Grandpa Harold, who I wish could have lived long enough for me to share this with, and to my husband and children, who encouraged my family writing in the first place. Special thanks to the four Flayer female descendants who helped me to reunite all of Max and Rose’s children.]

Even in late September 1910, it was already cold as they departed Shklov, a town in Russia’s Pale of Settlement (also called White Russia, but today within the borders of Belarus). Reiza likely wore a covering over her black hair, many skirts, and several tops capped by a shawl to keep warm and save space in the family’s bags. At less than 5 feet tall, she probably looked like a short, stocky barrel under the thick layers of clothes.

Her sons Galisohey and Mane sat in the back of the coach, similarly bundled up and holding onto the family’s bags. Aged 15 and 13 years, respectively, they were probably excited for the trip, a transatlantic adventure that they hoped would change their lives and the family’s future generations. Galisohey was already taller than his mother, at 5 feet 3 inches, but matched her light complexion, black hair, and dark eyes. Eventually, light brown-haired Mane would grow to be tallest of all his siblings. These three were the last of the family to undertake the arduous trip to America, di goldene medine or “Land of Gold” in Yiddish.[1]

In the past few weeks, these Fliers had sold most of their belongings and said their goodbyes to the family and friends who remained. Elje Flier, Reiza’s father-in-law, was her closest living relation, and he would stay behind. It must have been very difficult for Reiza to watch the buildings and dwellings of Shklov shrink in the distance as each minute passed. With approximately 5,000 Jews still living in town, Shklov had a marketplace and at least one synagogue and school for children.[2] Reiza’s heart must have ached as she realized that this would probably be the last time that she would lay eyes on her hometown — the only place she had ever known — and hoped the future would be brighter in a new place.

Reiza was born between 1870 and 1873 in Shklov, just a few years after her older sister Eska Mira.[3] The girls might have grown up hearing stories about the town’s glorious history from their parents Noach Razin and Lillian.^[4]

The Poland-Lithuanian Commonwealth was created by a union between the two kingdoms in 1569.[5] Jews began settling in this Eastern European area (the Pale of Settlement) after they were expelled from Western Europe and Russia and faced economic competition with Christian guilds in western Poland. Polish aristocrats invited Jews to become part of the feudal economy on their estates. Jews managed industries that they leased from these aristocrats and established shtetl towns, while their Polish landlords promised protection and restricted markets on Jewish religious days. This leasing system, upon which the Polish nobles and Jewish agents depended, sustained all participants. Jews exported grain west and played a large role in the production of alcohol. The Jewish communities were largely autonomous and self-governed by an elite group called the kahal, which collected taxes, provided judgment according to Jewish law, and monitored Jewish activities. When revolutions sprung up worldwide toward the end of the 1700s, the Polish-Lithuanian kingdom weakened as absolutist rule strengthened its neighbors. Austria, Prussia, and Russia began swallowing up Polish-Lithuanian lands in 1772 in a partitioning process that lasted 23 years. This change in rule did not immediately alter the Jewish communities but would eventually have a profound and lasting effect on Jewish life in the shtetls.

Situated on the Dnieper River, Shklov was founded in 1668 on the northeastern corner of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. [6] The town was owned by Polish magnate families Sieniawski, and later, Czartoryski. The Jewish population in town grew, and many of the most prosperous businesses and families were Jewish.

When Russia annexed Shklov in 1772, the town entered its brief golden era. Empress Catherine the Great gave Shklov’s estates to her romantic “favorite” Major-General Count Semen Gavriilovich Zorich in September 1777. He went on to establish a luxurious court that richly influenced the culture and education of local Jews. On the western border of the first partition, Shklov was situated in an ideal location for the exchange of ideas and products between western kingdoms and Russia’s eastern cities. The urban, aristocratic lifestyles and Western ideas of the court and trade spread first to the Jewish merchants, then to the religious intellectuals. Shklov served as one setting for Jewish cultural debates between Hasidism, Mitnagdic rabbinism, and Haskalah (Enlightenment) and became the first and largest center for Hebrew printing in Eastern Europe.

But this golden era began to decline with Poland’s second and third partitions in 1793 and 1795 and Count Zorich’s death in 1799. Shklov was no longer a border town ripe for exchanging ideas — rather, it became just another interior town among many that Russia overtook. Without any heirs and strapped with high debt, Count Zorich’s court was liquidated by the Imperial treasury and his assets dispersed to government agencies in St. Petersburg. Many of the rabbinic elite immigrated to Israel, influenced by Zionism. Jews from White Russia moved to southwestern parts of partitioned Poland where modern industry was beginning to develop. Most Hebrew printing moved to Vilna and Grodna after 1799. Napoleon invaded and pillaged the town in 1812 as Shklov’s prominence in Yiddish culture and Jewish thought dwindled.

By the generations of Reiza’s grandparents, the traditional Jewish way life for the masses living in shtetls was crumbling. Most Jews were restricted to living in the Pale of Settlement in 1835.[7] Several government statutes — such as implementing military conscription in 1827 (25-year service that was harshest for Jewish males, who could be enlisted at 12 years of age, but even kidnapped and sent to military schools as young as 6 years old), eliminating the kahal’s Jewish autonomous rule, and establishing state schools for Jewish children in 1844 — failed at assimilating Jews into mainstream Russian society or strengthening the economy. The Russian government’s abolishment of serfdom and anti-Semitic attitude (vacillating between policies of assimilation and segregation) made life difficult, and ultimately unsustainable, for the Jews inherited by Russia from the partitions.

Under Czar Alexander II’s reign beginning in 1855, Russia’s economy shifted from a primarily agricultural feudal system to a capitalistic, industrial one.[8] Uprooted from the estate economy, many Jews and peasants were forced into new sources of income and moved from the country into more populated towns and cities, hoping for greater opportunities. Non-Jewish Polish townspeople and peasants, who had long competed with Jews economically and disliked their past loyalty to the Polish nobility, maintained their prejudices against Jews. Economic competition bred poverty and anti-Semitism. When a Jewish revolutionary woman was found to be involved with Czar Alexander II’s assassination in March 1881, many anti-Jewish pogroms broke out in southern Russia. The “May Laws” issued in 1882 forced Jews to live in towns (and even sometimes restricted their moving between shtetls or houses in the same town), limited mortgages and rental contracts to Jews, and prohibited Jews from doing business on Sundays and major Christian holidays.[9]

As this social and political turmoil was unfolding, the Razin girls were growing up, likely in a lower-class household. The sisters would have learned the practical skills of cooking, cleaning, shopping, and child-rearing to prepare them for their future lives as traditional Jewish wives and mothers. Most formal schooling was reserved for boys, but the Razin girls might have attended a heder or similar type of informal education in a local home, with other male or female children for probably four years at most. They communicated in Yiddish, but their ability to read, write, and solve mathematical problems was likely basic. They might have read tekines (women’s prayers) or the Tsena Urena (Yiddish text that retells aggadic material) at home, and they could have learned basic Russian. The girls probably did not understand, read, or write Hebrew, the language of more scholarly, religious Jewish boys who studied Hebrew, Talmud, and other religious texts at the heder, bet midrash, or more intense yeshiva schools.[10] The girls likely learned ways to support their future families through sewing, washing, or gardening as an economic imperative; in the elite Jewish classes, wives were often expected to support their scholar-husbands through small businesses.

Fateful Decision

As Reiza and her two young sons made their way on the road through dense forests, their surroundings were probably mostly unfamiliar to them. Traveling outside of Shklov was most certainly not a habit of theirs and something they would not have undertaken without a lot of planning and trepidation. With the crisp fall weather, the trees’ leaves would have transformed to red, yellow, orange, and brown and started falling, and the small transport might have wondered about roving, hungry wolves in the surrounding forests.[11] Occasional glimpses of the familiar Dnieper River and the memory of their other family members having observed the same surroundings as they began their journeys to America, could have relieved some of their concerns.

They had secured a train-ship-train package, just as their departing family had done before them. The closest train station to Shklov was in Orsha, a city 27 miles northeast that took approximately 9 hours to reach by carriage.

Once in Orsha, they disembarked at the train station, stretched their legs, walked around, and anxiously waited to board the train that would take them to their departure port. Just five years earlier, a violent pogrom had broken out in this same town, killing 32 Jews, injuring hundreds of others, and destroying businesses and houses. It was in this same train station that eight Shklov residents (seven of whom were Jewish) had disembarked for business and were chased and attacked by an angry mob of peasants and railway workers; five of the Jewish travelers were killed.[12] Thus, Reiza probably wanted to stay inconspicuous and hurry her boys onto the train so they could leave as quickly as possible.

Ironically, the railroad tracks that had bypassed Shklov — contributing to its economic demise — were that same ones built at an opportune time for enabling the family’s escape from the tragic fate that awaited them there. Constructed by 1880, the railroad ran from Romny (near Poltava, Ukraine) to Libau (modern-day Liepāja, Latvia), a city then part of Russia. One wonders if Shklov’s residents, who would have heard about the train station in nearby Orsha, realized that this innovation would eventually be the emigration path of thousands of Russian Jews, their lifeline out of the Pale.

Both Razin girls probably married by age 20, following the Jewish tradition of young age at marriage. Eska wedded Leibe Minkin, who practiced Orthodox Judaism.[13] Reiza married Max Flier, who was probably not as religiously inclined. These might have been shiddikhet (arranged marriages), but such a practice was more common among upper-class households whose daughters’ dowries or parents could help support the young couple, especially if the groom was a Torah scholar.

Max Flier was born in Shklov in approximately 1867 or 1868 to Elje Flier.^[14] Other Fliers lived in Shklov, but it is unknown if and how they were related. The origin of the surname Flier is vague, but in the Mogilev region where Shklov is situated, it appears to derive from flies, the Yiddish word for “to flee” or “to fly.” It could have also been related to the last name Shinder, which means “a flayer or skinner of animal meat.”^[15]

When Max was young, the Russian Ministry of the Interior issued new statutes that made most Russian males liable for military service and further restricted Jewish men.[16] Draftees outside Siberia would serve six years in the army followed by nine years in the reserves, but the draft age for Jews was extended by three years from (age range of 18 to 25 years to 18 to 28 years). Because authorities suspected Jews of draft-dodging more than non-Jews, they enacted more complex measures to keep track of Jewish men, including a special census of all Jewish males and Jewish draftees serving military duty in the same place as where they were registered (instead of closest to their residences). “The [Commission on Jewish Draft Evasion] revoked the Jews’ right to replace conscripts with their brothers, removed the exemption for guardianship of disabled parents, and effectively eliminated the physical requirements for Jewish recruits,” according to author Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern.[17] There are many stories of parents paying bribes, mutilating male children, or kidnapping other boys to fulfill Russia’s military quota.[18]

Max also probably came from a lower-class household, and whether he served in the Russian military or not is unknown. Instead of the luxury of becoming a Torah scholar, he learned a trade to support his family and possibly evade the draft, which exempted artisan and guild merchants at certain times. [19] He grew up learning bookbinding, a fitting but probably unprosperous profession given that Shklov’s prominence in Hebrew printing had ended 50 years prior.[20] Max’s trade of bookbinding (and smelling of book glue, according to his grandson Harold Flayer) would last for the rest of his life.^[21]

After marriage, young Reiza soon gave birth to three boys — Itzik on May 6, 1891, Galisohey on February 7, 1895, and Mane on April 9, 1898.[22] Similarly, Eska had at least four children of her own during this period, two boys and two girls.[23]

Their families grew in the crowded shtetl, where life worsened as poverty rose and anti-Jewish policies and pogroms continued. Especially in this northwestern area of Russia, the migration of rural Jews into towns and cities increased competition for jobs. Jewish men, many of whom were limited to craftsmen occupations, had difficulty providing for their families when so many other Jewish men in the same town were doing the same jobs.[24] Between 1900 and 1908, the average Jewish family’s income was approximately 500-600 rubles annually ($250 to $300 per year; $5,898-$7,077 in 2015 dollars).[25] Lack of economic opportunities, military conscription, the geographical magnitude of pogroms, plus the government’s indifference disillusioned many Jews and pushed them toward emigration.

The Flier and Minkin families discussed the possibility of moving to America and ultimately decided to support each other in this huge endeavor. Although Max’s bookbinding profession would probably not be a lucrative one anywhere, the Flier family chose to take the chance of immigrating to America, where they could have a greater opportunity for a comfortable life.

Max left first, between 1899 and 1902,[26] a trip that cost about 165 rubles or $1,946 in 2015 dollars (nearly a third of the family’s annual income).[27] Little is known about Max’s actual travel. Apparently many of Shklov’s Jews made a similar decision to emigrate to other places during this same period, because the town’s Jewish population dropped by nearly 50 percent from 9,677 in 1847, to 5,122 in 1897.[28]

Both Itzik and Galisohey, at ages 11 and 7, respectively, had learned enough of their father’s bookbinding trade to carry it on in his absence, possibly with Reiza’s assistance, and bring financial support into the household. However, Mane probably had little memory of his father, having been only approximately 3 to 5 years old when Max left.

With her husband gone and three boys to raise, Reiza likely grew very close emotionally, financially, and physically — and possibly even lived with — the Minkin family. Leibe, Reiza’s brother-in-law, would have carried on with his work, and the boys in both families probably worked to bring in money and possibly attended heder. All three Flier boys likely spent a lot of time with their Minkin cousins. Meanwhile, Eska gave birth to another daughter around 1902.

Leibe emigrated in 1903, the same year as the rest of the Minkin family (two oldest daughters Etta and Lillian and youngest son Jacob) and decided to settle in New Bedford, Massachusetts.[29] Later in 1903, Eska, along with their oldest son Schlomo and baby daughter Rosa, departed from Antwerp aboard S.S. Vaderland, arriving in New York on January 8, 1904.[30] Leibe was working as a peddler and resided at 306 S. Second Street.

Eska and her husband must have had a joyous reunion, because just 10 months later, she gave birth to a baby boy. However, perhaps due to Eska’s advancing age, the baby was stillborn and buried in New Bedford’s Hebrew cemetery on October 23, 1904.[31] The Minkin family continued living in New Bedford, where Leibe began going by the name Luess or Lewis, and Eska changed her name to Mary.[32] In 1910, they resided at 528 S. Water, living close to several other Russian Jewish families, possibly some of the couple’s relatives.[33] The Minkin children and grandchildren went on to become prominent lawyers and professors on the East Coast. Mane Flier always spoke of his Minkin cousins, although he probably didn’t see them much after they left for America. Mary died in 1936 in New Bedford, followed by Luess in 1942.[34]

The Journey Begins

After the Minkin family’s departure from Shklov, Reiza worked and cared for her three Flier sons alone for the next seven years. She stood by, waited, and watched, as her husband and brother-in-law, then her sister and family each departed for America, leaving her and her youngest boys to leave last. Reiza was likely very lonely and became fiercely independent, having to raise her boys essentially on her own.

She probably relied heavily on her father-in-law, Elje, and also her older sons for financial support, along with any money Max could send from America. Her sons’ greater educational opportunities might have meant that Reiza depended on them to read and write letters that passed between her and Max — their only contact for the decade that they spent apart — and for any official documentation that the family would have needed to legally leave the country.

After violent and destructive pogroms broke out in Kishinev, Russia (modern-day Moldova) in 1903 and 1905, the Jewish Colonization Association greatly expanded its work and set up local information bureaus all over Russia to aid Jewish emigrants.[35] The Flier family probably obtained a lot of assistance with procuring tickets and official documentation, as well as information about the journey, safety, America, and the English language, from a nearby JCA office. Emigration was highest in the western part of the Pale, with most information bureaus in the Minsk province. Since many bureaus were located near railways and rivers, there was likely some JCA organization in Shklov or at least Orsha.

Perhaps the Orsha and Kishinev pogroms or Itzik’s maturation — and eligibility for the draft — prompted the family to send Itzik out of Russia as soon as possible. To legally leave Russia, each emigrant needed a passport, a ship ticket, and reasonably good health.

Procuring a passport required a prospective emigrant “to present an identity card; a ‘certificate of probity’ from the police stating that there was no hindrance to the person’s going abroad; and, if the applicant was male and between the ages of 18 and 21, a document certifying that he had reported to the recruitment office.”[36] An identity card had to be obtained from where a person was registered or resided; without one, birth certificates and witnesses had to prove identity. Police would issue a certificate of probity after viewing the identity card and ensuring no complaints had been filed against the person. A passport could then be issued for all the family members whose identities had been proven.

However, if a father left without leaving a passport for his wife or a notarized document of their marriage, she had more obstacles to overcome. To obtain a passport, the wife had three choices. Her husband could declare before a notary in the new country that he wanted his wife and children to join him, then the affidavit had to be signed at the Russian consulate in his place of residence and sent to his wife. The wife claim could declare at a police station that her husband had abandoned her and obtain confirmation statement after an investigation. Or the wife could emigrate illegally.

Obviously, obtaining passports and other documentation was a difficult and long process, prompting approximately 90 percent of Jewish emigrants to leave illegally, usually through bribery or smuggling. “The separate communal registration of the Jewish population, internal migration that took people far from where they were originally registered, wives without power of attorney from their husbands, and the difficulty of coping with the Russian bureaucracy of the early twentieth century led many emigrants to look for an illegal way to get out of the country,” according to author Gur Aloey.[37] Additionally, the near-equal cost for emigration, at 12 to 15 rubles for a passport or smuggler, made the legal status irrelevant.[38]

With assistance from Max, the JCA, or the Hebrew Aid Society in Chicago, the Fliers purchased prepaid packages through shipping companies or their agents for Itzik and later the remaining family’s trips. Usually paid in installments, advance payments were sent to the shipping company, which registered the passengers, and the final payment was made at the port.[39] The company then had to send the emigrants on the first ship sailing for the chosen destination.

Itzik’s total emigration probably cost approximately $1,946 in 2015 dollars, which included $177 for train fare; $825 for ship passage; $141 for a passport or border smuggler; and $118 for lodging in Libau, food, and medical exam; plus $25 to show U.S. authorities. Three years later, the price of emigration would have been closer to $2,536 each for Reiza, Galisohey, and Mane. After 1908, each immigrant was required to show $50 at Ellis Island, but married women traveling to reunite with their husbands could be excluded from this.

The family chose Libau as their departure port. This was not surprising — when the port opened in 1905, it was called “The Libauian Danger” because it diverted emigrants away from Western Europe, especially German ports.[40] Railways directly linked this Baltic Sea port to populated cities in the Pale as well as more rural agrarian regions such as Orsha. It also had the advantage of being in the same country (Russia), using the same language, and boasting the second largest Jewish community in a Baltic port, according to the 1897 census. Medical inspections were also easier to pass there than in Germany. Although passports were more necessary for those departing from Libau,[41] port guards or gendarmes were always open to bribery. In fact, a plurality of Jewish emigrants between 1905 and 1914 departed from Libau (29%).

Alone at 16 years old, Itzik left his mother and brothers behind at the Orsha train station and arrived in Libau. Described as 5 feet 2 inches tall, with dark skin and brown hair and eyes, Itzik departed from Libau on October 21, 1907 aboard the S.S. United States.[42] The ship stopped in Copenhagen, Denmark before arriving on November 12, 1907 in New York. Itzik’s final destination was to Uncle L. Minkin in New Bedford. Since Luess had paid for Itzik’s ship passage, he might have been obligated to work near him to pay off the debt. With his bookbinding skills, a few belongings, and $2 in his pocket ($51 in 2015 dollars), Itzik set off reunite with his Minkin family and set up shop in Massachusetts.

Itzik quickly changed his name to Jack. In 1909 and 1910, he was already working as a bookbinder at 69 Purchase Street while living with the Minkins at 528 S. Water Street.[43] Soon, Jack joined Max’s business as a bookbinder in Chicago, and they lived as boarders at 1219 S. Jefferson Street in May 1910.[44] They were living in home shared with Max Atkin, his wife and 3 children, between the railroad tracks and infamous Maxwell Street. Most of their neighbors were Jews from Russia as well. Both Flier men spoke Yiddish, not English. By this point, Max had evidently decided that his Hebrew bookbinding business would flourish in a city that had such a large Jewish population, and so he began setting down roots.

Completing the Journey

Now, the train brought Reiza, Galisohey and Mane through Minsk, Vilna, Kovno, all bustling metropolises where the little family marveled at the huge buildings and crowds of people they had never witnessed before.[45] Around September 23, they disembarked from the train in Libau, where Jews had become emigration agents, money exchangers, and hotel/boardinghouse managers as the emigration business became more financially lucrative in the 1890s.[46]

By this time, U.S. laws mandated detailed manifest lists and departure port inspections of passengers or the shipping companies would face fines. Companies usually placed this burden on their shipping agents, who could lose their right to represent the shipping line if too many immigrants were sent back to their home countries at the companies’ expense.[47] In 1906, the Russian American Line began direct steamship service between Libau and New York. Steerage emigrants were supposed to undergo medical inspections at the Libau port, and an American doctor “carefully examined” the Fliers.[48] The family stayed in a boardinghouse, hotel room, or room provided by the shipping company for five days until their departure date. Their bodies, clothes, and belongings might have also been cleaned and deloused at this time, and they could have been vaccinated.

However, the U.S. Immigration Commission complained about the inadequacy of procedures. Indeed, a Commission report created just a year after the Flier’s journey explained that a dock clerk for the American consular agent could not speak English and “mechanically placed the consular seal on every inspection card presented to him without even looking at the person to whom the card had been issued.”[49] The inspecting committee also learned that the consular agent could not speak English and never attended embarkation, simply signing the ship’s bill of health when it was sent to him.

Once at the dock, the Fliers showed their passports (or done some bribing if they did not have any), received a stamp on their inspection cards certifying their health, and did not worry about entanglements with authorities because the boys were not draft age. They answered many questions for the ship manifest, declaring that their final destination was to Max Flier in Chicago, Illinois.[50] They carried tickets, paid for by Max and Reiza, as well as $25 ($625 in 2015 dollars). Reiza was described as 4 feet 10 inches tall and unable to read or write. Galisohey was taller, able to read and write, and already working as a tailor. Mane could read and write, but no other details were given for him, probably because of his young age. Many of their fellow passengers were also Russian, Polish, and Jewish.

On September 28, 1910, they boarded S.S. Estonia and made their way into the bowels of the ship along with approximately 780 other steerage passengers, setting sail soon after.[51] Built in 1889, it was an older ship acquired by the Russian American Line just three years earlier.[52] “Steerage was the least desirable space on the ship: an extremely crowded area with inadequate sanitation, no ventilation, noxious smells, noise from the engine and people, and increased sensation of the rocking of the ship, plus little to do to occupy time,” explained one author.[53] The Fliers probably stayed together in the family compartment, sleeping on two-layer bunk beds beside other families.[54] Mattresses were likely burlap-covered bags of straw or seaweed. Each steerage passenger probably received a pillowcase, a life jacket (which also served as a pillow), blanket, and mess kit. There were just one to two washrooms for third class passengers, with a few wash basins each. The Fliers probably felt seasickness, given that they had spent little to no time on the water during their entire lives in Shklov. If they felt well enough to eat, passengers would wait in long lines for stewards to serve food into their mess kits from 25 gallon tanks or kettles on deck or in steerage.

The Fliers spent more than two weeks sleeping in the stuffy, stinky, and filthy lower decks of the ship, where seasickness and cramped quarters likely made the air putrid and disease rampant. Despite these squalid conditions, passengers could enjoy music played by others or if the weather was nice, breathe in fresh air on deck. The Fliers might have enjoyed watching the waves of the Baltic and North Seas and city sights during the ship’s stop in Rotterdam, Netherlands.[55] On the last long leg of their voyage, they would have stared at the vastness of the North Atlantic Ocean.

Once they finally reached the New York coast, the ship passed through the waterway between Brooklyn and Staten Island. When passengers on deck spotted their first glimpse of the Statue of Liberty, their excited shouts would have elicited a rush of passengers up to the decks, cheering and crying in relief. The Statue symbolized the end of their ship passage but more importantly, their arrival in America, the place where they hoped to find freedom, prosperity, and happiness.

Upon arrival, an American doctor boarded the ship to check for obvious signs of illness or any contagious diseases.[56] Recent cases of cholera among newly arrived immigrants had frightened Ellis Island officials and prompted them to begin a letter-writing campaign to immigrants at their final destinations.[57] A health officer found no traces of cholera aboard S.S. Estonia, but he still delayed the ship’s arrival until a sick child could be removed from a cabin and observed for signs of cholera. The ship docked at a wharf on October 13 or 14, where first- and second-class passengers disembarked, but third-class passengers had to wait several hours or even days to board ferry barges that would take them to Ellis Island.^[58]

While waiting on deck, the Fliers likely had a lot of time to marvel at New York City, the largest, most crowded city they had ever seen. Reiza probably especially worried about whether the three of them would pass their final examinations and if they did, how they would find their way to the train station in such a bustling, confusing city. Eventually, Reiza, Galisohey, and Mane Flier picked up their bags and stepped off the ferry onto Ellis Island. They likely felt a mixture of relief, worry, and excitement as they felt solid ground beneath their feet for the first time in weeks. They were guided into a large brick building to begin their final inspection process, a nerve-racking experience that would last probably five hours.

Once inside, tags with each immigrant’s page and line number from the ship manifest were pinned or hung around them, and their baggage was inspected and stored. The Fliers would have been led up a stairway, unaware that they were undergoing the “6-second exam” during which inspectors looked for obvious physical problems and used chalk to mark the front of each person’s coat with an initial letter, indicating their defect. Once in the huge Registry Hall, a surgeon reviewed their health inspection cards from aboard the ship, and more formal medical inspections and intelligence exams occurred. Inspectors and physicians were probably especially diligent about signs of cholera, given the recent news. At another station, the dreaded “eye man” used button hooks, hairpin, or fingers to lift each Flier member’s eyelids, checking for trachoma, a highly contagious and feared eye disease that causes blindness.

Finally, immigrants who passed these inspections sat or stood in divided pens awaiting their legal inspection. Registry clerks, along with immigration inspectors (who were often fluent in foreign languages or assisted by interpreters), called out the immigrants and re-questioned them, using the manifests to confirm their answers. The interrogation lasted just a few minutes, and most passed it just fine.

There is no indication that any of the Flier family were detained or deported. So once they successfully passed all tests at Ellis Island, they were brought to the money exchange office and then escorted to the ferries that would bring them across the waters of New York Harbor to lower Manhattan in New York City. On the mainland, they would have taken a horse-drawn cab or a trolley (the East Side Line from Lower Manhattan near City Hall to a few blocks east and then walked) to Penn Station. Once there, they likely had tickets for one of the Erie Railroad’s Main Lines that brought passengers from New York to Chicago.[59]

As the three Fliers settled into their train seats for a 2:40 p.m., 6:30 p.m., or 12 a.m. departure, they must have felt both exhilarated and exhausted. After years of waiting and such a lengthy journey, they had arrived and been admitted into America. Their train ride would take them through Buffalo, Cleveland, and Cincinnati, giving them cursory views of New York and Ohio’s cities and countrysides. Nearly 30 hours later, they were finally reunited with husband and father, Max, and son and brother, Itzik, in Chicago’s Grand Central Station.

Settling in Chicago

After nearly a decade apart, Reiza and Max’s long-awaited reunion must have been joyous. The happy family became reaccustomed to living together again at a house at 646 W. 12th Street (renamed Roosevelt Road in 1919). They likely rented part of the building, sharing it with other families. This location was just around the corner from Max and Itzik’s residence in May,^[60] and was right in the heart of Chicago’s Russian Jewish neighborhood.

Between 1880 and 1920, approximately 55,000 East European immigrants settled around the intersection of Halsted and Maxwell streets, and 90 percent of this population was Jewish.[61] This poorest part of the city had the advantages of being close to the railroad tracks where immigrants disembarked and offering plenty of cheap (but shoddy) housing. Crowded with stalls, shops, and homes, the area became the bustling shtetl marketplaces that newcomers, like Reiza’s family, knew so well back home. Although she might have been accustomed to minimal indoor plumbing, the density of people and buildings packed into a few blocks still might have stunned and frightened her. She likely missed the space, natural light, and outside beauty afforded by their own private home back in Shklov. This “ghetto” area’s buildings often had several apartments that many families rented, and stables and outhouses cluttered the alleys behind homes, where trash and waste piled in smelly, vermin-infested heaps. Not surprisingly, these crowded and unsanitary conditions led to frequent infections.

Sweatshops, with their harsh and sometimes fatal working conditions, sprang up, and children often quit school early to work and help support their families. Reiza and her sons were probably impressed to hear about the huge garment workers’ strike that had begun earlier in October 1910 at the nearby Hart, Schaffner, and Marx factory. [62] After hundreds of arrests and a few deaths, the four-month-long strike was deemed largely successful, as the owners were forced to recognize needle-trade unions, improve sanitary conditions, increase uniform and overtime wages, and reduce the workweek. Earning a living was still exhausting for immigrants, and many traditional Jews found it challenging to adjust to the city’s rushed nature and German Jews’ secularism. Anti-Semitic attacks against Jews, sometimes fatal ones, still occurred, but there was no obligatory military service and no more pogroms for the Fliers to worry about.

Overall, life within the Maxwell Street community was generally safe and familiar. “The security of the temporary, transitional culture within the Maxwell Street community, with its myriad familiar Jewish institutions and traditions, served to ease the pain of accommodation into the New World, even though the ghettolike settlement was itself a small and limited world,” wrote Irving Cutler, a Jewish Chicago author.[63] Max and Rose never learned English or became naturalized, speaking only Yiddish in their home.[64] This is not surprising, because they never had to leave their Yiddish-speaking neighborhood and could still reap America’s benefits without becoming citizens. A few blocks southwest, they would have done their shopping, bargaining, socializing, and possible selling among the crowded stalls and shops of the Twelfth-Halsted-Jefferson-Maxwell Street commercial districts. There were numerous synagogues, Hebrew schools, bathhouses, and Yiddish newspapers and theaters. Within a few blocks northwest of their home, the Fliers could have visited Jane Addams’ Hull House, the Jewish Training School, or the Chicago Hebrew Institute for English, Jewish, or technical classes and for social events. Even though they never learned English, all of the family members Anglicized their names: Max was most certainly not his original name, Reiza changed her name to Rose, Galisohey altered his to Edward, Mane began going by Emanuel or “Manny,” and the family’s last name became Flayer.

Less than one year after arriving, Rose gave birth to Elsie on September 13, 1911.[65] Rose was approximately 42 years old at this time and probably not expecting to be a mother again. Elsie endured an isolated, sad childhood, since she was much younger than her brothers (13 years younger than Manny) and the only female offspring.[66] She remembered her mother being sickly and likely tired while growing up.

By approximately 1917, Rose and all her children posed for photographs in Chicago. Dark and stern Rose sat beside young Elsie (aged 5 to 7 years), whose shy white face was framed by long ringlets. Both females were probably wearing their best clothes, and standing beside them were an unknown woman and girl, possibly Rose’s sister Mary Minkin and one of her daughters, but more likely local friends or their landlord’s wife and daughter. All three Flayer sons also posed for photographs before the brothers went their separate ways. Somehow, all of the family members were able to avoid working in the harsh sweatshops that prevailed in the area. The rest of their lives were marked by many moves, new relationships, and job changes, as Max and Rose’s children established their own lives in America.

The first major event in the young men’s lives would have been America’s entry into World War I. Just after they had escaped Russia’s military conscription, they were eligible for military service in the United States. All three became registered, but there is no evidence that any of them were drafted.

By June 1917, Jack was working as a driver for a wet washing business in New York City. Some unknown injury had caused him to lose at least three fingers from his right hand, but this might have saved him from serving both in Russia and America.[67] The same day, Edward was living on his own on Wood Street in Chicago, around the corner from his family. He was working as a printer for druggist/pharmacist E.C. Dewitt closer to downtown Chicago.[68]

When Manny registered for the draft a year later, he was living with his family at 1823 Taylor Street and working at Loirette Corset Company.[69] By this time, the Flayer family had moved further west, away from the crowded Maxwell Street area like many other Jewish families were doing.[70] They shared the building with another small Jewish family.

Max, Rose, and Elsie Flayer continued residing on Taylor Street for the January 1920 census, but where Manny was living at the time is unknown.^[71] Elsie was already attending primary school, where she first began learning English.[72] This same year, American women won the right to vote, and Prohibition outlawed alcohol, but these events probably did not largely affect the Flayers.

By the time of the 1923 directory, the family had moved to 1458 Washburne Avenue, right beside the Addams/Medill Park.^[73] Manny was living with his family and working as a milliner. This home was more east than their previous one, closer to Maxwell Street, so the family might have moved there to enable Elsie to be closer to Joseph Medill High School. Probably around this time, Max, Rose, and Elsie posed in pictures outside their home. Max appeared sturdy, happy, and proud, while Rose showed a defiant yet exhausted expression as she wore ill-fitting, faded dresses. Bright Elsie smiled broadly and sported a brown, stylish bob.

Elsie completed the business curriculum in two years, taking bookkeeping courses because she felt the need to work as soon as possible.[74] The school building (still in existence as the Urban Prep Academy at 1326 W. 14^th Place) was located just a few blocks from her home, near the intersection of 14^th Place and Throop. The Medillite yearbook from June 1927 printed the slogan “Wisdom, dignity and modesty — may these, thy assets, prove of rare power to thee” under Elsie’s name. [75] Her motto was listed as “Right living brings happiness,” and her favorite saying was, “I’ll forgive you this time, but don’t let it happen again.” She enjoyed using a bookkeeping machine and must have been well-liked at school, because she was the central character in the “Prophecy for the June Class” poem published in the yearbook:

…I beheld near by a lady coming on with footsteps slow

And thought I would inquire of her that which I wished to know.

As she came a little nearer, I thought I knew her face

Yet I couldn’t put it in exactly its right place.

But at last she stood before me and all wonder vanished quite —

‘Twas our old chum, Elsie Flayer, and I hugged her with delight.

It was strange that I should know her for the change in her was great;

She was very tall and slender and she moved with queenly gait.

She, quite surprised to see me, said I had been long away

And gave me an invitation to remain with her that day.

Her kind offer I accepted, and she hailed an aero car …

Within a few months of Elsie’s graduation, Manny moved out of the house upon his marriage. By 1928-1929, Max, Rose, and Elsie had moved west again and were renting at 1218 Millard Avenue, in the predominantly Jewish area called Lawndale. Many Jews in Chicago can trace their families to Lawndale, “for during much of the first half of the twentieth century, as many as 40 percent of the Jews of Chicago lived there.”[76] This area was quiet and had relatively new residences, spacious streets, and parks surrounded by railroads. “Most of the brick and stone houses lining the streets had light and airy rooms, baths front and back porches, and backyards bordered by alleys,” Cutler described. Although there were many single-family homes on this street, their building was likely divided into apartments. At least three families lived in their building, and the Flayers paid $25 per month in rent ($358 in 2015 dollars).^[77] Even in his 60s, Max worked as a bookbinder; Elsie had started work as a mail order clerk.

1929 was a rough year for Americans, but it was an especially tragic time for the Flayers. This year served as the beginning of the end of Rose’s triumphant life. She had survived through so much — living in poverty and danger under discriminatory Russian rule, largely raising three sons on her own, traversing the Atlantic Ocean as a wife with two sons, seeing three sons avoid military duty in two countries, raising a daughter later in life, and acclimating to a new life in America. It was her strong body, rather than an external factor, that eventually turned against her. Rose had likely experienced abdominal pain and bowel difficulty for some time and underwent surgery after being diagnosed with rectal cancer, a form of colon cancer.[78] When the stock market crashed in October, the family was probably rejoicing over the birth of Manny’s first daughter. But then they plunged into mourning, as the infant died unexpectedly in early November.[79]

With these medical and emotional struggles, the Depression’s start probably strained the family’s financial situation. Rose must have continued to be sickly and sad over the next two years, despite her surgery. The cancer spread to her pelvic organs, lungs, and lymph nodes by the time she was hospitalized at Michael Reese Hospital. She succumbed to the cancer on July 14, 1931 at the age of 58 years.[80] Her funeral was held the next day, and she was buried in the Mazir gate section of Waldheim Cemetery in Forest Park.[81] Rose’s death hit Elsie hard — she was not even 20 years old yet, she was the only child still living at home, and she was Rose’s sole daughter. As a young woman, Elsie was likely devastated at the loss of her best friend.

After Rose’s death, Max married an older woman named Lena, who Elsie disliked as a stepmother.[82] Elsie went to live with friends and then stayed with Jack’s family in New York City or Fall River, Massachusetts for about a year. She became close with his oldest daughter, Sylvia, and returned to Chicago around 1933, when her niece was about 12 years old.

Max finally retired from bookbinding in July 1934, and he and Lena moved to a house at 1441 S. Spaulding.[83] After working and experiencing hypertension for so many years, Max had a short retirement period. He passed away on January 31, 1936 from heart failure, aged 68, at Mount Sinai Hospital. His funeral was held on February 3 at Weinstein Brothers’ Chapel, and he was buried alongside Rose at Waldheim Cemetery.^[84] He had worked hard to support his family, lived alone for years, and led his family halfway across the world to enrich their livelihoods. Lena did not last much longer, moving to Sawyer Avenue and then passing away in May of the same year.

Like many other immigrants, Max and Rose showed foresight, struggled and sacrificed, and established a new life for their family, ensuring that their descendants would ultimately thrive in America. It is their triumphs that will keep Flayer family memories alive for future generations.

 Notes 

[1] Henry Abramson, “Two Jews, Three Opinions: Politics in the Shtetl at the Turn of the Twentieth Century,” The Shtetl: New Evaluations, Steven T. Katz, editor. (New York: New York University Press, 2009), 85-101, particularly 87.

[2] For more information about Shklov’s history, see David E. Fishman, “Shklov,” The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe (http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Shklov: accessed July 5, 2015). Also, see David E. Fishman, Russia’s First Modern Jews: The Jews of Shklov (New York: New York University Press, 1995).

[3] No birth records for the Razin sisters are available to this author. These estimates are based on other documents available for the women, such as census, immigration, and death records.

^[4] Waldheim Cemetery (Forest Park, Cook County, Illinois), Rose Flayer marker, Gate 121, Section Mazir, Lot 39, Section B, Row 19, Grave 4; personally read and photographed, 2005; translated by Soloman Lachman, 2014. Illinois Department of Public Health, Division of Vital Records, death certificate 6020923 (July 14, 1931; amended September 11, 1931), Rose Flayer; Cook County Clerk, Chicago.

[5] Israel Bartal, The Jews of Eastern Europe, 1772-1881 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005).

[6] Fishman, “Shklov,” The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe. Fishman, Russia’s First Modern Jews: The Jews of Shklov.

[7] Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern, Jews in the Russian Army, 1827-1917: Drafted into Modernity (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008). Bartal, Jews of Eastern Europe.

[8] Bartal, The Jews of Eastern Europe.

[9] Herman Rosenthal, “May Laws,” Jewish Encyclopedia, (1906), (http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/10508-may-laws: accessed 28 December 2015).

[10] Shaul Stamfer, “Gender Differentiation and Education of the Jewish Woman in Nineteenth-Century Eastern Europe,” Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry 7, Antony Polonsky, editor (Oxford: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2008), 187-211.

[11] See Zalman Shneour, Song of the Dnieper, Joseph Leftwich, translator (New York: Roy Publishers, 1945), a fictional Shklov novel that describes scenes of wolves attacking coaches.

[12] Arkady Podlipsky, “Pogrom in Orsha,” Project <<Voices of the Jewish Settlements. Viteeshkbsk region.>>, (http://shtetle.co.il/Shtetls/orsha/orsha_eng.html: accessed July 5, 2015).

[13] Marsha Jackson, to Shayna Muckerheide, email, 7 July 2013, “Re: Family History Email from Shayna Muckerheide,” Muckerheide Research Files; privately held by Shayna Muckerheide, Sandusky, Ohio.

^[14] Illinois Department of Public Health, Division of Vital Records, death certificate 6003290 (2 February 1936), Max Flayer; Cook County Clerk, Chicago.

[15] Alexander Beider, A Dictionary of Jewish Surnames from the Russian Empire (Teaneck, NJ: Avotaynu, 1993), Avotaynu.com (http://www.avotaynu.com: 28 December 2015). Benzion C. Kaganoff, A Dictionary of Jewish Names and their History (New York: Schocken Books, 1977), 151.

[16] Petrovsky-Shtern, Jews in the Russian Army, 132-138.

[17] Petrovsky-Shtern, Jews in the Russian Army, 138.

[18] Bartal, The Jews of Eastern Europe. Petrovsky-Shtern, Jews in the Russian Army.

[19] Petrovsky-Shtern, Jews in the Russian Army, 133.

[20] Fishman, “Shklov,” The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe.

^[21] Illinois death certificate no. 6003290 (2 February 1936), Max Flayer.

[22] No birth records for the Flyer sons are available to this author. These estimates are based on other documents available for the men, such as census, immigration, naturalization, and death records.

[23] 1910 U.S. census, Bristol County, Massachusetts, population schedule, New Bedford, p. 16B, ED 203, dwelling 528 Water Street, family 721, Louis Minkin; digital image, Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.com: accessed June 19, 2013); citing NARA microfilm publication T624, roll 579.

[24] Gur Alroey, Bread to Eat and Clothes to Wear: Letters From Jewish Migrants in the Early Twentieth Century (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2011), 158-159.

[25] Gur Alroey, “Out of the Shtetl. In the footsteps of Eastern European Jewish emigrants to America, 1900-1914,” Leidschrift vol. 22, no. 11 (April 2007): 91-122, particularly 99.

[26] 1910 U.S. census, Cook County., Illinois, population schedule, Chicago, p. 15A, ED 512, dwelling 1219 Jefferson Street, family 219, Max Flier; digital image, Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.com: accessed March 19, 2013); citing NARA microfilm publication T624, roll 250. 1920 U.S. census, Cook County, Illinois, population schedule, Chicago, p. 16B, ED 639, dwelling 1823 Taylor St., family 339, Max Flayer; digital image, Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.com: accessed March 19, 2013); citing NARA microfilm publication T625, roll 319.

[27] Alroey, “Out of the Shtetl,” 99.

[28] Fishman, “Shklov,” The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe.

[29] 1910 U.S. census, Bristol Co., Massachusetts, pop. sch., p. 16B, dwell. 528 Water Street, fam. 721, Louis Minkin.

[30] Manifest, S.S. Vaderland, December 19/29, 1903, list A, p. 67, line 15, for Mirel Minkin (age 36); digital images, Ellis Island (http://www.ellisisland.org: accessed June 19, 2013); citing NARA microfilm publication T715, roll 425.

[31] New Bedford, Massachusetts, death certificate no. 1236 (October 24, 1904), infant Minkin; digital image, FamilySearch.org (https://familysearch.org: accessed 30 December 2015); citing Massachusetts Archives, “Massachusetts Deaths, 1841-1915,” v 71, cn 227, FHL microfilm 2057436.

[32] New Bedford Directory (Boston, Massachusetts: W.A. Greenough & Co., 1906), 307, for Louis Minkin; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com: accessed June 19, 2013); citing U.S. City Directories, 1822-1995 database.

[33] 1910 U.S. census, Bristol Co., Massachusetts, pop. sch., p. 16B, dwell. 528 Water Street, fam. 721, Louis Minkin.

[34] Plainville Jewish Cemetery (New Bedford, Bristol County, Massachusetts), Eshka Mira and Luess Minkin markers; read and photographed by Marsha Jackson, 2013.

[35] Alroey, Bread to Eat and Clothes to Wear, 14-17 and 24-31.

[36] Alroey, “Out of the Shtetl,” 93-96.

[37] —, 95.

[38] —, 98.

[39] —, 96-99.

[40] Nicholas Evans, “The Port Jews of Libau, 1880-1914,” Jews and Port Cities, 1590-1990: Commerce, Community, and Cosmopolitanism, David Cesarnin and Gemma Romain, editors (London: Valentine Mitchell, 2006): 197-214, particularly 201-209. Alroey, “Out of the Shtetl,” 113.

[41] Harry Boonin, “Coming to America from Hamburg — Through Hamburg and Liverpool,” Avotaynu: The International Review of Jewish Genealogy XXII, No. 4 (Winter 2006): 15-22. Irving Howe, World of Our Fathers (San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976), 28.

[42] Manifest, S.S. United States, November 12, 1907, list 10, p. 166, line 3, Itzik Flier (age 16); digital images, The Statue of Liberty — Ellis Island Foundation Inc. (http://www.ellisisland.org: accessed July 5, 2015); citing NARA microfilm publication T715.

[43] New Bedford Directory (Boston, Massachusetts: W.A. Greenough & Co., 1909), 232, for Jacob Flayer; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com: accessed June 19, 2013); citing U.S. City Directories, 1822-1995 database.

[44] 1910 U.S. census, Cook Co., Illinois, pop. sch., p. 15A, dwell. 1219 Jefferson Street, fam. 219, Max Flier.

[45] George F. Cram, “Russia,” Cram’s Standard American Atlas of the World, 3^rd ed. (Chicago: 1889), 329; digital image, David Rumsey Historical Map Collection (http://www.davidrumsey.com: accessed 29 December 2015).

[46] Evans, “The Port Jews of Libau, 1880-1914,” 205.

[47] Ronald H. Bayor, Encountering Ellis Island: How European Immigrants Entered America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014), 17-18.

[48] Evans, “The Port Jews of Libau, 1880-1914,” 205-209. “Won’t Let Cholera Spread,” The Sun (New York: October 14, 1910), page 1, column 4; digital image, Chronicling America (http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov: accessed 29 December 2015).

[49] Evans, “The Port Jews of Libau, 1880-1914,” 208.

[50] Manifest, S.S. Estonia, October 13-14, 1910, list 5, p. 18, line 16, Reiza Flier (age 41); digital images, The Statue of Liberty — Ellis Island Foundation Inc. (http://www.ellisisland.org: accessed 5 September 2014); citing NARA microfilm publication T715, roll 1577.

[51] “Won’t Let Cholera Spread,” The Sun. p. 1, col. 4.

[52] “Estonia,” Magellan: The Ships Encyclopedia (http://www.cimorelli.com/magellan: accessed 31 December 2015).

[53] Bayor, Encountering Ellis Island, 20.

[54] For more information about experiences on immigrant ships, see also Ronald H. Bayor, Encountering Ellis Island: How European Immigrants Entered America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014); Ivan Chermayeff, Fred Wasserman, and Mary J. Shapiro, Ellis Island: An Illustrated History of the Immigrant Experience (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1991); Mandy Patinkin, Ellis Island, DVD (The History Channel, 2001); Pamela Reeves, Ellis Island: Gateway to the American Dream (Avenel, New Jersey: Random House, 1993); Virginia Yans-McCalughlin and Marjorie Lightman, with The Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation, Ellis Island and the Peopling of America: The Official Guide (New York: The New York Press, 1997).

[55] “Estonia,” Magellan: The Ships Encyclopedia.

[56] Bayor, Encountering Ellis Island, 20.

[57] “Won’t Let Cholera Spread,” The Sun. p. 1, col. 4.

^[58] Manifest, S.S. Estonia, October 13-14, 1910, for Reisa Flier, The Statue of Liberty — Ellis Island Foundation Inc. (http://www.ellisisland.org).

[59] Matthew J. Boylan, New York City, to Shayna Muckerheide, email, 22 September 2014, “Library Question — Answer [Question #9841163],” Muckerheide Research Files; privately held by Shayna Muckerheide, Sandusky, Ohio.

^[60] Manifest, S.S. Estonia, October 13-14, 1910, for Reisa Flier, The Statue of Liberty — Ellis Island Foundation Inc. (http://www.ellisisland.org). Donnelly, Reuben H. Donnelly, The Lakeside Annual Directory of the City of Chicago (Chicago: The Chicago Directory Company, 1911), 460, Max Flayer; microfilm number 88 image, Newberry Library, Chicago, Illinois.

[61] For more information about the Jewish Chicago experience in the early 20^th century, see Irving Cutler, The Jews of Chicago: From Shtetl to Suburb (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1996); Ira Berkow, Maxwell Street: Survival in a Bazaar (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co. Inc., 1977); Irving Cutler, Jewish Chicago: A Pictorial History (Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2000).

[62] Berkow, Maxwell Street, 8-9.

[63] Irving Cutler, The Jews of Chicago: From Shtetl to Suburb (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1996), 58-59.

[64] Rhona Greenstein, Los Angeles, to Shayna Muckerheide, email, 27 September 2014, “Re:,” Muckerheide Research Files; privately held by Shayna Muckerheide, Sandusky, Ohio. 1930 U.S. census, Cook County, Illinois, population schedule, Chicago, p. 6A, ED 16-867, dwelling 1218 Millard Ave., family 108, Max Flayer; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com: accessed 29 December 2015); citing NARA microfilm publication T626, roll 454.

[65] “Illinois, Cook County Birth Registers, 1871—1915,” Elsie Flayer, index, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com: accessed 30 December 2015); citing Illinois Department of Public Health, Division of Vital Records, Springfield.

[66] Anita Juswick and Rhona Greenstein, phone interview by Shayna Muckerheide, December 2013; personal notes privately held by interviewer, Sandusky, Ohio, 2013.

[67] World War I draft registration card, New York County, New York, serial number 334, draft board 96, roll 1765678; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com: accessed 30 December 2015); citing NARA microfilm publication M1509.

[68] World War I draft registration card, Cook County, Illinois, serial number 32, draft board 23, roll 1493572; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com: accessed 30 December 2015); citing NARA microfilm publication M1509.

[69] World War I draft registration card, Cook County, Illinois, serial number 171, draft board 25, roll 1493574; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com: accessed 30 December 2015); citing NARA microfilm publication M1509.

[70] Cutler, Jews of Chicago, 99.

^[71] 1920 U.S. census, Cook Co., Illinois, pop. sch., p. 16B, dwell. 1823 Taylor St., fam. 339, Max Flayer.

[72] Greenstein to Muckerheide, email, 22 September 2014.

^[73] R.L. Polk, Polk’s City Directory (Chicago: R.L. Polk & Co., 1923), 1336, Max Flayer; digital image, Newberry Library (http://www.chicagoancestors.org: accessed 29 December 2015).

[74] Rhona Greenstein, Los Angeles, to Shayna Muckerheide, email, 28 December 2015, “Re: Belated Reply,” Muckerheide Research Files; privately held by Shayna Muckerheide, Sandusky, Ohio.

[75] The Students of Joseph Medill High School, The Medillite 25 (Chicago, Illinois: June 1927), 81 and 88; digital images, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com: 30 December 2015), citing U.S., School Yearbooks, 1880-2012 database.

[76] Cutler, Jews of Chicago, 209-211

^[77] Chicago Alphabetical Telephone Directory (Chicago: Illinois Bell Telephone Company, Summer 1930), 429, Max Flayer; microfilm image, Newberry Library, Chicago, Illinois. 1930 U.S. census, Cook Co., Illinois, pop. sch., p. 6A, dwell. 1218 Millard Ave., fam. 108, Max Flayer.

[78] “Colon cancer,” Mayo Clinic Diseases and Conditions (http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/colon-cancer/basics/definition/con-20031877: accessed 30 December 2015). Illinois death certificate no. 6020923 (July 14, 1931; amended September 11, 1931), Rose Flayer.

[79] “Illinois Deaths and Stillbirths, 1916-1947,” infant Flayer, database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org: accessed 30 December 2015); citing Illinois Public Board of Health, Archives, Springfield; FHL microfilm 1892450.

[80] Illinois death certificate no. 6020923 (July 14, 1931; amended September 11, 1931), Rose Flayer.

[81] “Obituary: Rose Flayer,” The Sentinel (Chicago, Illinois), 24 July 1931, page 26, column 2; digital image, Illinois Digital Archives (http://www.idaillinois.org/cdm/landingpage/collection/p16614coll14: accessed July 5, 2015).

[82] Anita Juswick and Rhona Greenstein, interview, December 2013.

[83] Illinois death certificate no. 6003290 (2 February 1936), Max Flayer.

^[84] “Obituary: Max Flayer,” The Sentinel (Chicago, Illinois), 6 February 1936, page 28, column 2; digital image, Illinois Digital Archives (http://www.idaillinois.org/cdm/landingpage/collection/p16614coll14: accessed July 5, 2015).

 

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