My great grandfather, Edward, playing his mandolin, circa 1921. The original photo (second slide) was taken in the front yard of the family home in New Orleans. Edward "Ed" Hartman was born Israel Handmann in July of 1896 in a small shtetl by the name of Igumen, Russia, (now called Chervyen, Belarus). He was a middle son of 10 children, born to Jewish parents living in a time of rising antisemitism in the Pale of Settlement. He and his family immigrated in 1906, a particularly poignant year in Ashkenazi immigration - this was a time when pogroms were reaching a pinnacle of hatred. The family originally arrived in New Jersey, but Ed, after serving in WWI as young fighter pilot, landed in New Orleans as a boarder in his future-wife’s family home. He and Rose married, had two kids, and opened a haberdashery in downtown New Orleans. After some familial issues arose regarding his storefront, Ed gave up the business to a cousin I believe, and moved his family to San Francisco where he opened another store. Fun facts: ~ Ed and his future daughter-in-law’s father each owned a haberdashery on Market Street, directly across the street from each other. ~ Ed was extremely gifted when it came to music. According to my uncle, who after hearing me play the family piano, as an untrained musician myself, said Ed also had a knack for just picking up an intstrument and figuring it out in a few minutes. He taught himself to play the piano and the mandolin. ~ According to family notes, Ed "ignored whatever he was not interested in." My mother confirms that Ed, although a very nice guy, was sort of in his own world about a lot of stuff. These little tid bits, as well as his keen ability to understand music, lead me to think that maybe he was on the Autism Spectrum. It’s hard to try to ascribe something like that to someone without really knowing them, but as a neurodivergent and self-identified autistic person myself, it’s nice to think about an ancestor who may have had similar ways of experiencing the world. [The image above is a black and white minimalist illustration of a seated white man with crossed legs holding and playing a mandolin. The man has glasses on, and has dark wavy hair parted in the middle. He is smiling wide. There are tufts of grass around the chair legs he’s sitting on, and a large simple circle drawn behind the man, off to the right side a bit. The image below is the original black and white photo the above drawing is based off of. It shows Ed, a white man with glasses and dark hair that is parted and greased in the style of the times, in his front yard. He is playing the mandolin, seated in a small framed wire-woven chair with crossed legs. He is smiling and leaning to the side a little. Behind him are a giant ceramic urn-shaped planter, and a small palm tree. In the background there is the railing from the house porch, and some more shrubbery.] Original photo of Ed
Here's a portrait of my great-grandmother Rose, dressed up as Queen Esther for Purim, circa 1918 in her New Orleans synagogue. I’m guessing the synagogue her family went to was the historic Touro Synagogue, since they lived just a few blocks away. I love how ridiculously long her hair is in the original picture (below, left) and her striking blue eyes. Also of note, when I first saw this picture of her I couldn’t help but associate it with the Jewish artist Ephraim Moses Lilien’s piece called “Queen of Shabbat” (below, right). Lilien was also a Galician (Austro-Hungarian) Jew, just like my great grandmother Rose, on her father’s side.
I’m just sort of amazed still that I have access to so many ancestral photos, at least on my mom’s side. Like hundreds of them that my grandma kept. I think retaining keepsakes was a bigger deal amongst my Jewish family, since often times family was lost too soon (via seeking refuge elsewhere, Pogroms, Holocaust). Or maybe the families were just particularly nostalgic, and privileged and lucky enough to be able to even sit for photos back then. [Above is a digital black and white sketch of a seated woman wearing a long draped tunic and head scarf styled as the biblical Queen Esther. She wears a tall headdress atop her scarf, with her long dark wavy hair flowing out from under it, and has a soft smile and dreamy eyes. In her arm she holds a scepter. Below (left) is the original black and white photo the sketch is based on. Also below (right) is Ephraim Moses Lilien's drawing of the "Queen of Shabbat," showing a woman seated in a similar position, on a throne with the Star of David etched into it. She is wearing a crown and a flowing gown with Hebrew letters patterned across it, and is cradling a Torah scroll in her arms. Behind the throne are twining vines with leaves, and a shadow-relief style pine forest in the background.] |