Feinbergs in Nebraska

While viewing the movie "Nebraska," about petty, gossipy, small-town residents of the Cornhusker State, I was forced to reckon with the fact that I am (ugh) half Nebraskan due to the fact my father Ted was born in Grand Island.

In 1909, my grandfather Max Feinberg, then 17 and living in Des Moines, began working in shoe stores, mostly for Sol Panor's Family Shoe Store. In 1917, Sol assigned Max to open and manage a "novelty" boot store in Lincoln, the Nebraska State Capital and home to the University of Nebraska.

The following January, Grandma Mae gave birth to twin girls. Only Helena survived, and almost 96 years later she is still surviving.

Max still managed for Panor in 1918. There was no Lincoln city directory in 1919. In 1920, Panor had a different manager and Max had his own shoe business. It must be during this transition that the Feinbergs lived in a small town, either in Nebraska or Missouri. As Ted remembered the story, the Ku Klux Klan warned Helena's baby sitter to stop working for Jews, who they were about to drive out. The baby sitter reported the incident, and the Feinbergs moved on.

In 1920, Max was now operating the C & F Shoe Store with his father-in-law Nathan Chapman, who moved his family from Centerville, Iowa. At the same time, Max was President of the Lincoln Shoe Co. at 1337 O St., two blocks over from C & F at 1107 O St. In 1921, Lincoln Shoe Co. was gone, and Max managed C & F, where brothers-in-law David and Jake Chapman were now working.

O St. is the main east-west road across Lincoln.

Around 1922, Max left the partnership, and Nathan and Jake ran C & F another two years. The Feinbergs now moved further west to Grand Island, where Betty was born in June 1922, followed by Ted in 1926. They, too, are still alive.

The Feinbergs lived here at 401 W. Charles St. in 1926.
It was at least their second residence in Grand Island.

For most of the Grand Island years, Max operated the Feinberg Novelty Boot Shop. Helena recalls that the store had a home-like atmosphere, with comfortable armchairs and sofas. The history book of Grand Island and Hall County (2007) has a 1927 photo of the block the store was on. The boot shop was wedged between Martin’s Department Store on the right and the Piggly Wiggly Store on the left.

The family lived comfortably at home as well. I visited the town in the 1990s and photographed two of the residences. Max, though never particularly religious, hosted High Holiday services, according to a newspaper article written years later.

Last of at least four Feinberg residences in Grand Island.
This "show house" is at 2212 W. Division.
David and Lenore Chapman also lived with them here in 1930.

His other religion was baseball, and he was one of the directors of the town's Nebraska League team. It was while driving to or from a road game when Max, with Ted sitting on his lap, swerved to avoid a head-on collision. He flung the door open, threw Ted out, and jumped out himself, but Grandma was still inside when the car stopped upside down in a corn field. She suffered internal injuries and several broken bones, was laid up two years, and never fully recovered.

Around 1933, Feinberg Novelty Boot Store became Feinberg Economy Shop, selling ladies ready-to-wear clothing and shoes.  Dad says it grew into a chain of nine small-town stores in Nebraska.

Then came the dust bowl, which drove him and much of Nebraska to bankruptcy. In August 1934, with less than $40 and a dog named Fritz, the family moved back to Des Moines.

With 17 years of retail experience acquired in Nebraska, Max was hired almost immediately by the Davidson family to work in their "Boston Store," first as salesman, then as manager. About three years later, with $50 loans from brothers-in-law Dave Matulef and Leo Schutzbank, Max acquired a grocery and was once more self-employed.

"Foot" Note: When Nebraska comes to mind the first thing many people think of is University of Nebraska football. Dad told me that his uncle Dave Chapman (1897-1949) was the first NU freshman to play first string. I found a web site (huskermax.com) that has all the rosters, and from 1914 through 1923 there was nobody named Chapman.

Reconstructing Rose Rothschild

Three steps up my maternal lineage is my great-grandmother Emma Robinson, nee Rothschild. Emma was one of 9 children born to Moses and Sheyna (Kahano) Rotshild in Virbalis, Lithuania.

One of Emma's sons, my great-uncle Sam Robinson, wrote a family history that helped me rather easily learn about the six Rothschild brothers.

The history was less helpful with regard to her two sisters.  The older sister, name unknown, was the only child who stayed behind. The other sister was Rose: “Mom’s baby sister passed away from cancer many years back.”

The older sister turned up in recently translated Virbalis death records, which included the names of both parents. Rachel Grinstein was born in 1875 and died of influenza in 1939.

Finding Rose should have been easier. I knew her first name and she came to America. My first break came from Agnes Rothschild (1903-2003), whose father-in-law Sol was one of the six brothers. Agnes seemed to have good memory when I met her in 1998.

Agnes believed that Rose was married once or twice. The last husband, Aaron Rosenberg, was at least ten years younger than Rose.  "He caused her a lot of grief." They married in the 1920s or early 1930s. He did movie work, perhaps script writing or crane operating. Rose would have died under the name Rosenberg. She had no children.

It made sense the Rose would have lived in Los Angeles near her brothers Sol, Clarence and Abe. I searched county marriage indexes for a Rosenberg groom, preferably named Aaron, and a "suitable" bride, but nothing caught my eye.

My second break came from the computerized California death index, now online and free. Searching for maiden name Rothschild, I discovered Rose Farber, 1884-1949, whose mother's maiden name was Kahn (close enough to Kahano). This was a sure hit. The death certificate confirmed she died of cancer, which spread from her right breast to her spine despite the doctor operating on her in 1946. She was a widow who operated a children's clothing business.

After stating that the deceased lived in Los Angeles, the certificate said she had lived "in this place" four years. Perhaps she only moved to Los Angeles to have the support of her brothers during treatment. She moved to 2667 S. La Brea in 1945.

So who was this Mr. Farber who predeceased Rose? What was his first name? Did he work in the motion picture industry? Searching for Mrs. Rose Rothschild Farber in the Los Angeles marriage records, newspaper announcements and voter registration lists was just as futile as searching for Mrs. Rose Rothschild Rosenberg.

The best lead appeared to be a weak one. The Los Angeles Times carried an announcement of Morris Farber's marriage to an older woman named Rose. The date was May 10, 1933. Bride Rose Ettelson was 43.  Our mysterious aunt Rose was at least 48.

With no other trace of either Rose Farber or Rose Ettelson, my next step was to request the social security application of the Rose Farber who died in 1949 . It showed that in 1944 she lived in University City, Missouri. She was already a widow.

"U City," as I knew it while attending Washington University, is part of St. Louis County, which is separate from St. Louis City. County directories listed Rose M. Farber in outlying Chesterfield from 1941 through 1946. If this was our Rose, she could have moved to Los Angeles in 1945 after the 1946 directory had been prepared.

I still did not know if the Rose Farber of the 1940s was the Rose Ettleson Farber of the 1930s. At first, searches for Rose Ettelson turned up several women, but the results did not reveal maiden names or places of origin.  Ancestry, however, keeps adding new information, so in July 2012 I tried again. This time I found the 1931 naturalization record of Rose Ettelson, born 1884 in "Wirbalen, Poland" (German version of Virbalis), immigrated via London, England, and Port Huron, Michigan, in 1913, childless, and widow of Solomon of "Kebarte," present-day Kybartai, Lithuania, three kilometers west of Virbalis.

This was the record that broke open the dam. When Solomon arrived in New York, his destination was A. (Abe) Rothschild, who was still in Des Moines. From 1916 to 1922, Solomon and Rose lived in Canton, Ohio, where he was a cattle dealer, cattle buyer and butcher. Rose's brother Phil also lived in Canton until he died from the influenza epidemic in 1919.

Soloman Ettelman died in Los Angeles in 1927. As noted, Rose would marry Morris Farber six years later, but their years together remain a mystery. Though the 1940 census is now fully indexed, they are not found unless one considers a married restaurant manager who lived apart from his wife on Vine Street. About that time, the Los Angeles Times reported Morris Farber, a caterer living at that address, was charged with serving putrid chicken at a banquet of the Jewish Welfare Center. Was this an example of the "grief" Agnes said he caused Rose?

Rose was interred above ground at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery.