Who Was David Cecil Feinberg's First Wife? (Scandalous!)

The historical record of my great-grandfather David Cecil Feinberg begins with his 1894 marriage to Jennie Katz, his second wife, in Chicago. 

Missing from the record are the birth records of David's two children from his first marriage: Anna and my grandfather Max. Also missing is any evidence to help identify that first wife, the subject of this entry.

Grandpa Max had no interest in discussing his biological mother, whom he was too young to remember in the first place. His slightly older sister Anna Ginsberg might have been more helpful, but she died before I was even born. Filling out her death certificate, her son Joseph could not identify Anna's mother. Luckily there were others who could help me solve the mystery.

My late aunt Helena Rosenberg claimed to be named after that mysterious woman. As the eldest daughter, one would expect she would receive the name of her deceased grandmother.  Their Yiddish name was "Chayka" (hard "Ch" like "Chanukah"), a diminutive of the common Yiddish name "Chaya." For reasons unknown to me, immigrant Jews named "Chaya" often changed their names to "Helena" or "Helen."

Grandpa Max's sister Anna Ginsberg also named a daughter "Helen." On the 1925 Iowa State Census, which asks for names of parents, Anna identified her mother also as "Helen." (Max lived in Nebraska in 1925 and did not have to respond to that question.)

Their cousin Dora Pidgeon Wolfson told me Chaya's maiden name was Goldring. Her source was none other than her Aunt Jennie Katz Feinberg.

Combining these clues, we get Chaya Goldring as the maiden name of David Cecil Feinberg's first wife. She should not be confused with the David's mother, also named Chaya. That Chaya, whose maiden name was Epstein, was previously married to Lev Goldring. They were the parents of David's half-brother Moshe (Maurice) Goldring, born 1862 in Sakiai, Lithuania, and who later lived in Canada, Chicago and Los Angeles.

Ashkenazi Jewish marriages in the "Old Country" usually involved some sort of family connection.  Thus it appears David Feinberg's first marriage was to one of his mother's former Goldring in-laws. While there are many vital records for Goldrings in and near Sakiai, none have been found to show just how Chaya was related to Lev Goldring. So while I can identify Chaya Goldring as my natural great-grandmother, my family tree cannot go any further back with any certainty.

Nevertheless, there is a good chance Chaya's mother was named Chana-Bayla, which happens to be Anna Ginsberg's full Yiddish name, as inscribed on her monument at Des Moines Glendale Cemetery. Just as Max and Anna would later name daughters after their deceased mother, it was reasonable that Chaya named Anna for her own deceased mother. 

The family tree can now show a qualified "Chana-Bayla?" as my great-great grandmother. Is that all we will know about her?

Suppose I found a second Chana-Bayla who was born around the same time as Anna Ginsberg and who had some connection to my family. People with the same name born around the same time are often cousins, namesakes of the same grandparent. It so happens that "Chana-Bayla" is a relatively rare name combo, so if I did find another, it would be worth checking out.

I never did find a perfect candidate, but I did find a woman of interest.  Her legal name was Anna, which of course in Hebrew or Yiddish is "Chana." Growing up in Iowa, her nickname was "Billy." How could a Jewish girl be known as "Billy?"  Perhaps it was an Americanization of "Bayla," the other part of her traditional Yiddish "double-name" used by her Yiddish-speaking immigrant parents.

Anna "Billy" was born in 1900 when Anna Feinberg was age 9, so yes they could have been cousins. The trouble with this "Billy," however, is that she is not related on Grandpa Max's side, but on Grandma Mae's side. In fact, Anna "Billy" was Mae's sister.

Billy, Mae and the other children of Nathan and Lizzie Chapman had a maternal grandmother identified in Lizzie's transliterated birth record as Gena Pakalnishki, the second wife of Avram Ginsberg. "Gena" (hard "g") must have been a variation of "Chana," because on vital records, along with that same 1925 Iowa State Census, Lizzie and her Ginsberg siblings referred to her as "Anna."

If Gena (Chana) Pakalnishki was the mother of the Ginsberg family, how could she also be the mother of Chaya Goldring Feinberg? The answer, as always, boils down to remarriage. David Feinberg was married twice. His mother was married at least twice. Lizzie Chapman was born to her father's second wife. Who is to say her mother Chana-Bayla was not also previously married - to a Goldring.

This possibility would explain why Max Feinberg and his sister both married descendants of Gena Pakalnishki and Avram Ginsberg. Anna married their son Hyman Ginsberg in 1913. Max married the daughter of Lizzie Ginsberg Chapman in 1915. Earlier in this posting, I said it was a common practice in the "Old Country" to arrange marriages between connected families. Clearly, Iowa's immigrant Jews had not yet abandoned this tradition in the early 20th Century.

Often the connected families were so close as to make newlyweds out of cousins. There is no secret that two of Mae's Chapman cousins from Centerville married each other. However, no marriage record is found in Centerville for Max W. Chapman and Ruby Voxman. Perhaps they married in Missouri, where, unlike Iowa, cousin marriages were legal.

If my theory is correct, my grandparents, who would have had the same maternal grandmother, were also cousins. Because their mothers would have been half-sisters, they would technically have been "half-cousins."

By the same token, it would mean that Anna Feinberg had married her "half-uncle" Hyman Ginsberg.

Both the Feinberg-Chapman and Feinberg-Ginsberg weddings were in Iowa.

As I stated at the top, Grandpa Max spurned questions about his biological mother. He insisted that "Jennie was my only mother." Others told me he wanted to discourage the notion that he and Anna were separate from the nine children born by Jennie. 

Now we see another, more pressing reason for Max to bury the subject. Cousin and uncle-niece ("avuncular") marriages were illegal in Iowa.  If somehow it became known that such marriages had taken place, they could be declared illegitimate. What would that make the children of these marriages?

The stigma of "illegitimacy" is not so burdensome today, but it is possible that maintaining a secret about David Feinberg's first wife saved my father, his sisters and his Ginsberg cousins from tremendous grief.

Rubinson or Robinson? You Have No Idea!

In October 2020, I stumbled across some records of interest to my Rubinson-Robinson cousins, and perhaps my Rothschild cousins, too.

My great-grandparents Emma Rothschild and Maurice Rubinson's 1899 marriage was arranged in Oskaloosa, Iowa, 40 miles southeast of Des Moines. My great-uncle Sam Rubinson, himself a family historian, explained that bride and groom were both related to Oskaloosa resident Morris Gould. I realized long ago that Emma was a first cousin to Morris's wife Ida, who is buried in a plot in Chicago with Emma's brother Kalman and whose monument actually says she was a Rothschild. As for Maurice's connection to the Goulds, that was still a mystery.

Wandering around the Ancestry website this past Saturday, I stumbled on several family trees that included Morris Gould under his original name Moshe Gold. His father was Jacob Gold and his mother was Devorah Garber. Devorah's father was Benjamin. 

The name "Benjamin" gave me pause. Maurice's father's father was supposed to be Benjamin Rubinson. My great-uncle Ben Robinson must have been named after him. 

A few years ago I searched Benjamin Rubinson on the Jewish Genealogy site (JewishGen.org). The only good search result was Benjamin Rubinovich of Vilkiya, Lithuania, who lived from 1824 to 1914. He was old enough to be the father of Rubin Rubinson, Maurice's father. In addition, some of the other Rubinson's in Des Moines, said to be related, had documents in Ancestry that said they were from Vilkiya.

There was just one problem. Uncle Ben Robinson was born in 1910. How could he be named for his great-grandfather who was still alive? For that reason, I was willing to consider a Ben with a different last name.

I knew from experience that some families in the 1800s had alternate last names.  Some last names are known as "patronymics." They originally referred to a father's name. Think of "Johnson" or "Davidson" or even "Rubinson." Other last names were derived from a place name or an occupation. "Garber" means tanner in Yiddish, and it is related to the German word "Gerber."

The Golds and Garbers lived in Cekiske, Lithuania, which is maybe ten miles from Vilkija. JewishGen has many translated vital records from Cekiske, including Benjamin Garber's death record, which tells us he lived 1806-1889, and he was the son of Rubin.

Another record is for Taube Garber, who lived 1811-1898 and who was the widow of "Benyamin Rubinovich" whose "paternal name was Rubin." This was an unusual notation, as if someone reporting Taube's death felt it was important to emphasize it.

By the way, Uncle Sam did say that Maurice's grandmother was "Tobey." I felt I was getting close to a big discovery, and when I checked the Garber birth records for Cekiske, there it was: Moshe Leib, born June 28, 1871, to Rubin (son of Benjamin) and Chaya. This was a perfect match for Grandpa Maurice, whose Americanized middle name was Lewis.

But how do we know for certain that it's not some wild coincidence that these Garbers had identical first names to my Rubinsons? I looked at the other families in Cekiske descended from Benjamin and Taube, and then I looked at Ancestry. Maurice had a cousin Aaron "Gerber" who sailed to Philadelphia in 1913. When the immigration officer asked Aaron to name the relative he was going to meet, Aaron said, "my brother Simon Rubinson." Sure enough, there was a Philadelphian who identified himself to the draft board as "Simon Garber Rubinson."

Simon himself immigrated to New York City in 1904. Asked at Ellis Island to name his nearest US relative, Simon said: Morris "Rubinsohn" of 142 Madison Street. I immediately recognized that address as belonging to Morris and Emma from about 1903 to 1907.

There you have it. Grandpa Morris was born Moshe Garber in Cekiske, Lithuania, in 1871, and he really lived to be 92. His Aunt Devorah was actually Morris Gould's stepmother, but for all intents and purposes, Moshe Garber and Moshe Gold were two cousins growing up in the same small town.  When Garber smashed the glass under the wedding canopy in Oskaloosa, he was "Morrice L. Rubinson." Morris Gould was the witness.

I still think our Garbers were related to the Rubinovich families of Vilkija. All were descended from an original Rubin who lived in the late 1700s and early 1800s. After reading up on the Jews of Cekiske, I think it is very possible that Benjamin and Taube moved there from Vilkija in the mid-1800s. When Benjamin was a child in the 1810s, surnames were not yet required, so he was simply Rubin's son.

Moshe Garber

1871-1963

Fanny Ginsberg of Lancashire

For Ashkenazi Jews, most DNA Matching tools are effective at identifying relatives near the top of the match list. Further down there are matches who are really not matches. They may have an insignificant amount of DNA from multiple ancestors which, combined, appears like a significant match. This can happen with all matching services, including Ancestry.

Sometimes the match includes DNA on the X chromosome, where matches rarely indicate a recent common ancestry. It may also include DNA that is so common to the ethnic group that again it does not signify an actual close relation. Ancestry avoids these errors, which is why I think it does the best job predicting cousins.

One match on my Ancestry list, listed as "J.C," is stronger than that of any documented third cousin. Ancestry also shows that all of our top mutual DNA matches are related through my paternal Grandma Mae or her mother Lizzie Chapman, nee Ginsberg. When I saw on 23andMe exactly where on the genome Joanne and I match, every large segment was in an area inherited from Grandma Mae.

Joanne Clarke is 22% Jewish. She knew that one of her grandmothers was adopted by the McCradiey family, which lived in a village south of Manchester, Lancashire, England. One story told by her family was that a Jewish couple boarded with them but left behind an abandoned baby girl later known as Florence McCradiey Birchall, mother of nine.

This story did not provide the names of these Jewish visitors. Meanwhile, for some reason, Joanne's uncle Harry Birchall had in his possession a 1911 naturalization paper for a 32-year old Russian immigrant tailor who identified himself as "Chiel Blum, also known as Leon Ginsberg." ("Chiel" would be a rare shorthand for "Yekhiel," a not-so-rare Hebrew name.) The paper did not name his wife, but did name his son, 3-year old David Ginsberg.

Searching the 1911 UK Census on Ancestry, I found Leon and David along with Leon's slightly-older wife Fanny. They went by Ginsberg. I also found the McRadiey's. Both families lived in Salford, Lancashire.  Searching the birth registrations, I found that both Florence McCradiey Birchall and David Ginsberg were born during the last three months of 1907.

In 1901, a Chiel Blum sailed across the North Sea from Hamburg, Germany, to Grimsby, England. His previous residence of Schweksne (the German spelling) resembled the name of "Swesni" given on Blum/Ginsberg's naturalization papers. Now it was indisputable that Leon completely changed his surname. There is no documentation showing Fanny was a Ginsberg, but that could help explain Leon's decision. It also could explain how Joanne's strongest Jewish DNA matches are all Ginsberg descendants.

Leon Ginsberg may have rented a room from the McCradiey's when his wife Fanny was expecting a child. Imagine if she unexpectedly had twins, a boy and a girl. Barely able to support one child, they offered the girl to their landlord for adoption. In 1916 Fanny had another girl named Minnie who in 1939 was a piano teacher still living with her parents in Salford. The 1939 Register notes Minnie's eventual married name: Simon.

Was Fanny a daughter of Avram Ginsberg and his second wife Gena Pakalniski? Their known children were born from 1870 to 1885, so Fanny would have been in the middle of the pack. Perhaps a death or marriage record will turn up to confirm. Meanwhile, we can guess that son David was name after Gena's father, as was Lizzie Chapman's son David, who was born ten years earlier.

Avram and Gena had two sets of twins: Lizzie and Sol was one, and Harry and Rae (Cohen) was the other. If the tendency to have twins is genetic, the possibility is greater that Fanny would have twins David and Florence.

"Avram," the original name of the Biblical Abraham, means "great father." Avram Yosef Ginsberg was known to be a prolific progenitor. If Fanny was his daughter, he had at least ten known children from two marriages. Fanny would be the only one of them known to settle in the UK.

Footnote: The magistrate who presided over Leon Ginsberg's naturalization was a Member of Parliament from the Manchester area named Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill.

DNA Origins of the Rise/Reis Branch

Since early 2018, I have spent an inordinate amount of my retirement time trying to use DNA matches to discover new family tree branches and to gain insight into ancestral origins. The return on investment of time has been paltry, but I did recently make a discovery of particular interest to my Marcovis 2nd/3rd Cousins and my Leon/Schevach/Reiss 3rd/4th Cousins.

This discovery was only possible by the willingness of my mother and sister to spit into a tube for 23andMe. That allowed me to identify which DNA matching segments were from my maternal chromosomes. 

It also helped that many of you cousins did the same autosomal DNA test and shared the results so I could see where in the genome we match. If they tested on Ancestry, which only gives the total amount of shared DNA, they uploaded their Ancestry DNA to Gedmatch (it's free), which displays the actual matching segments.

Thanks to all these available clues, I can usually tell if my mother's DNA match is from her mother's or father's side. In some cases, I can even identify which of her grandparents handed down a given DNA segment.

Getting to this level of "DNA Painting" (sorting the genome by ancestor) allowed me to better evaluate DNA matches with four of Mom's presumptive 3rd Cousins. 

Linda and Robin and their 1st Cousins Janet and Susan are all descended from a David Reiss (born 1853), who raised his family in Buhusi, Romania. Our ancestor Leah Rachel Reiss, later known in Des Moines, Iowa, as Leah Rachel Leon (born 1840), also grew up in Buhusi, along with her brothers David (born 1836) and Alter. Both David Reisses named a son "Wolf," suggesting a common ancestor by that name.

Ashkenazi Jews are believed to descend from a small number of people who lived about a thousand years ago. As a result, any two such Jews could share some DNA. Thanks to my "DNA painting," I could filter out matching segments that came down through my other maternal grandparent.

One of the remaining segments is near the high end of Chromosome 1, where my mother matches with Susan Reiss Roscoe. Also matching that segment are Barbara Gibian Heinrich and her 3rd Cousin Elyse Lipkin-Katz. Their common ancestors, from the Schaeffer and Wolensky families, were not from Buhusi, or even from Romania, but from a shtetl called Lunno, in the northwest part of present-day Belarus.

Yet another person matching our DNA in this region is Leo Kliot, a 90-year old Holocaust survivor from Dzisna in northern Belarus who now lives in Montreal. While we do not have a known cousin of his to confirm how we are related, his mother Esther Kulvarsky came from Pieski, a village very close to Lunno.

Ashkenazi Jews only began to arrive in Buhusi in the 1820s, meaning Leah Rachel Reiss's parents were born somewhere else. The DNA evidence says they most likely came from somewhere near Lunno and Pieski. In the days of the Russian Empire, those villages were part of Grodno Guberniya (province). In terms of Yiddish culture, they would be classified as "Litvak" (Lithuanian) Jews, whose territory ran far beyond today's Lithuanian borders.

Newly-arrived Jews living among the Romanians would eventually develop their own cultural features. Romanian Jews who moved to Israel, especially after the Holocaust, had to contend with distinct and not-always-flattering stereotypes. But when Leah Rachel's son Solomon Leon arrived in Des Moines in 1882, the cultural gulf between him and the Litvak majority may not have been so wide. Solomon wasted no time marrying a Litvak woman, and fifteen years later became a factional leader in the local Hebrew Republican Club.

Discoveries like this require as many clues as possible, both in terms of DNA and old-fashioned documentation. If you have done a DNA test, consider downloading the DNA file and uploading it for free to Gedmatch, which has many free tools. Here are the instructions: 

http://www.irelanddavis.com/dna/gedmatch/default.aspx

If you have not done such a test yet, I am happy to answer your questions before you order a test kit.

Behind the Marriage of Max and Mae Feinberg

Behind every marriage is the question, "How did they meet?" According to the norms of "Traditional Marriage," they met by arrangement of their parents or extended families. This clearly was how things worked in the "Pale" of Eastern Europe, as many weddings turn out to involve families related by earlier weddings.

The arranged marriage did not necessarily give way to the love marriage on this side of the Atlantic Ocean. In an earlier blog, I showed how the earliest Romanian-Jewish immigrants in Des Moines arranged the marriage of my maternal great-grandparents Aaron and Clara Marcovis in 1888.

The Feinberg-Ginsberg Connection

I have long suspected that the 1915 marriage of my paternal grandparents Max Feinberg and Mae Chapman was also arranged. Mae's mother was a Ginsberg. Two years earlier, in 1913, Max's older sister Anna married Mae's Uncle Hyman Ginsberg. Seven years before that, in 1906, Max's maternal uncle Hyman Cohen married Mae's Aunt Rae Ginsberg.

What's with the Feinbergs and the Ginsbergs of Des Moines and Centerville, Iowa? I have not found any Feinberg ancestors of Mae Chapman, nor Ginsberg ancestors for Max Feinberg's ancestry. As for Max, we are not even sure who his mother was.

The Feinberg-Goldring Connection

While my father Ted Feinberg was stationed in San Diego after World War II, he visited his Aunt Fannie. Schutzbank and her husband Leo in Los Angeles. The Schutzbanks introduced him to a Goldring family. Dad knew from his father that the Goldrings and Feinberg were connected, but neither of them knew how. One relative speculated that David Feinberg changed his surname from Goldring to appear as an only child in order to avoid conscription in the Russian Army.

Long ago I called up Aunt Fannie's daughter Pat Engle. Pat recalled a Minnie Goldring Wolfe who attended her wedding. I tracked down Minnie's niece Sarelle Riave Friedman (1932-2017) who remember the name Fannie Schutzbank. "Who could forget it?"

Minnie's Wolfe's father was Maurice Samuel Goldring (1862-1937). His obituary said he was born in Sakiai, Lithuania, and when Sakiai birth records were found and translated, Moshe Shlomo Goldring was there. Death records included Moshe's father, who died in 1867. David Feinberg was reportedly born in 1871. They could not be full siblings, but they could have been half-siblings, born to the same mother but different fathers.

The birth record shows Moshe's mother was Khaya Hinda, maiden name unknown. Both Maurice Goldring and David Feinberg had daughters named Ida, a common translation of Khaya. Ida Goldring was born in 1888, and Ida Feinberg was born in 1896.

The Goldring-Markson Connection

Maurice’s first wife Hannah (Kert) had a sister who lived in Lewiston, Maine, named Ethel Markson, the wife of Nathan. Together in 1882, the Goldrings and Marksons migrated from “Budkin” in Lithuania to Montreal.

The Markson-Ginsberg Connection

Nathan Markson (1857-1943), born in Pilviskiai, Lithuania, was the son of Moshe Tzvi. The Hebrew "Tzvi" corresponds with the Yiddish "Hirsh."

Abraham Markson (1839-1901) was also from Pilviskiai, Lithuania, and he also lived in Lewiston, Maine. His parents were "Harris and Fanny."

Itsko Markson was listed in the resident book for the town of Zapyskis, Lithuania, but the book notes he was born in Pilviskiai in 1843 to Hirsh Markson and Feiga Ginsberg. Itsko (Isaac Lewis Markson) died in Polk County, Iowa, (which includes Des Moines) in 1899.

Seeing Ginsberg and Zapyskis in the same record, it is likely the Feiga Ginsberg Markson was the daughter of Avram and Khaya Ginsberg of Zapyskis. Because so many Zapyskis-Ginsberg descendants settled in Des Moines, I believe they are also my Ginsberg ancestors. That would make Feiga the great-aunt of my Grandma Mae.

The Zapyskis resident book includes many Feinbergs, including the Mordechai Feinberg who I believe was Grandpa Max’s grandfather. The resident book also reveals a marriage between the Ginsberg and Feinberg families.

Theories

The foregoing examples showed a close familiarity between the Ginsbergs and the Feinbergs. I made several attempts to explain more specifically why David Feinberg's two eldest children both married into the Ginsbergs. These were laid out in previous versions of this post. 

For my latest theory, see the more recent post (2021) about David Feinberg’s first wife.

Hillary, If You're Listening

Although most people seem to think Secretary Clinton won last night's second debate, I was dissatisfied how her performance lacked the zingers that get people excited about their support. Since Trump consistently beat the predictions in his primaries, Clinton will need the strongest possible lead going into Election Day.

So Hillary, if you're listening, here are my talking points that will not only fire up your base but cut into The Donald's.

My friend Mitch Bloom sports his Yiddish "I'm with her" badge.

1. Enough has been said about my opponent’s attitudes toward women. If you are still a Trump supporter after hearing these disgusting tapes, what difference would it make?
2. My opponent’s claim to be the better choice for president rests entirely on his success as a businessman, however, someone who goes into bankruptcy several times and who reports a loss of almost a billion dollars on his tax return is not a successful businessman. That alone should be enough to settle this election, but in case it is not, keep listening.
3. There is no question that many if not most terror attacks around the world have been inspired by groups like ISIS. My opponent thinks the way to fight back is by calling it Islamic Terrorism. Well nothing could please ISIS more. The whole purpose of these attacks is to foster a global conflict between all Muslims and the entire rest of the world, and emphasizing this as Islamic terrorism just plays into their hands. My opponent has also repeatedly said that the administration I served created ISIS by withdrawing our troops from Iraq. I would remind him the withdrawal was agreed to by President Bush and the president of Iraq in 2008. My opponent never objected to that withdrawal, unless it was in a private conversation with Sean Hannity.
4. We both want our country to be as great as it can be, but what makes a great country? Does a great country go to war to plunder the wealth of another country? Does a great country solve its problems by scapegoating Mexicans and Muslims? Does a great country rely solely on military and economic power to gain the respect of the world? No, a great country works with other countries to make the entire world secure and prosperous. A great country educates its citizens and regulates its economy so that all can improve their lives through hard work. A great country leads the fight against global warming. A great country promotes democracy by electing officials based on their ability to represent their constituents and not on their ability to raise money, which is why we need a Supreme Court that will overturn Citizens United.
5. Sometimes my opponent says he knows better than anyone else how to make America great. Other times, he says he will hire the best people and let them solve our problems. What we know is this: Experience matters. It matters that the pilot flying your plane is experienced. It matters that your surgeon is experienced. You don’t just start cutting up patients because you’re angry at the hospital establishment. Experience also matters in public service. So while my opponent has a few years’ experience leading the Birther movement, I have 8 years’ experience in Congress, where passing legislation takes persistent organizing and coalition building, usually with people from the other party. I have 12 years’ experience in the nation’s executive branch, and there, too, even the President needs to work persistently with others to get things done. My opponent is having trouble working with his running mate.
6. On November 8, every registered voter will have a say in who gets hired for the job of President of the United States. It’s a real job, not a celebrity apprenticeship. If your vote is based on our resumes, I thank you for your support. If your vote is based on the candidate’s personality, then I trust you to decide who has shown real toughness, both in life and in this campaign, and I thank you for your support.

Journey to Indonesia

From a geographic perspective, my 10 day journey to Indonesia was the best ever. Not only did I first cross the equator, I skirted the Arctic Circle on the return flight.

The first leg of the trip gave me my first glimpse of lakes Huron and Superior and Western Canada. Following the route from Winnipeg to north of Edmonton, I could still see signs of civilization (roads and rectangular fields) as far as the Rockies in British Columbia. The view remained mountainous as the jet passed what I believe was Cook Inlet, which leads to Anchorage.

Landing in Tokyo I was greeted by a text from T-Mobile that data and text roaming was free, and talk was 20 cents a minute. Who needs airport WiFi I thought as I made a test call to my mother in San Diego.

A flight delay gave me ample time at Narita Airport to check my pronunciation of Indonesian with Hardi, who was returning after two years with Chevron. He must have done well before the oil bust as he visited all 50 state capitol and was flying business.

ANA (All Nippon Airlines) had far greater legroom in coach than United, so I was less jealous of my new friend in business. In fact, United's legroom was so tight that even after the people sitting next to me got up, it was hard to get to the aisle. Imagine what a non-skinny person must go through.

Steve, my friend in Jakarta, promised an immigration expediter to meet me at the gate. Alas no sign with my name. Again glad for the cell phone roaming benefits so I could arrange to meet Steve in front of the A&W restaurant, pronounced "Ah Way." Then into the car with his driver at the wheel (on the right side) and home to South Jakarta in a district of embassies and other upscale, walled-off properties.

Upon waking early I took a dip in the pool and a tour of the neighborhood, where relentless, high-rise construction meets slums and high-class restaurants on Senopati St. Actually the slums were the most appealing with the smells of the warungs (food shacks). Only fear of getting the runs on the first day kept me from sampling the goods.

Now back to the airport for our trip to Bali, located off the eastern end of Java island. Java is the population center for a country of 250,000,000. From my window seat I saw much of the land filled with red globs, indicating the tightly packed dwellings which formed a village. But there was still more green than red, including several volcanoes.

In Bali we stayed at the luxurious Oberoi, an expansive beach-front resort. The beach itself was on the Indian Ocean. Getting wet with my third ocean was another geographic accomplishment.

The horrible holiday weekend traffic counterbalanced the tranquility of the resort, but it was worth the trouble to get to an area north of Ubud for a day of home cooked meals, a trip to a coffee plantation and a bike ride. Half the fun was sharing the tour with three generations of the McCloskey family from Brisbane.

The plantation had more than coffee trees. There was durian fruit, mango, cocoa and something called mangosteen. Past where a woman was grinding beans the old fashioned way were the tasting tables where everyone enjoyed drinking from 12 cups placed on a card identifying the teas and coffees.

The bike was mostly downhill so even Steve, I and grandmum McCloskey, all 60-something, could keep up with parents Dion, Suzanne and their girls Lilly, Georgia and Jade. We stopped at a family compound with several dwellings, a meeting space, and their temple. Now I understood why everywhere in Bali I saw clusters of tiny thatched-roof temples behind brick walls. We also saw rice fields in various stages of growth and learned that paddies are flooded to kill weeds.

The next day Steve and I returned on our own to Ubud to see the monkey forest in the center of town. We spent far more time in traffic but it was wonderful seeing the free-ranging macaques, including babies clutching their mothers to be breast-fed.

The second half of my visit was back in Jakarta where I got to meet Ruri, who I previously met online. Ruri is just 28 but has traveled to much of Europe and was starting a temporary job with the Swedish embassy.

On Sunday the three of us went to the Dutch colonial district ("Kota") to tour the old government house and a shadow puppet museum. At the museum, a man latched on to us to show us around and hustle us to his workshop, where he gave us a private shadow puppet show. And wasn't I nice enough to buy a puppet afterwards. Then we dined at the stately Cafe Batavia, the Dutch name for Jakarta. After a walk past a long dock of old fishing boats we were ready to get back to the air conditioned house.

That night I went on my own to explore the 6-story Pacific Place mall, with its huge variety of restaurants and anchored by Galleries Lafayette. To get there, Steve’s guard gave me a lift on his motorbike. Ruri goes everywhere by motorbike taxi, but for me, one time hanging on for dear life was sufficient. I walked home.

Monday I discovered a way to get around that was both cheap and fast. The TransJakarta "bus rapid transit" system has its own lane and a subway like turnstile and elevated platform. It will do until construction of the real subway line is completed.

The park around the nation monument was closed. While I could see the obelisk-shaped monument clearly from the gate, this forced me to walk around the kilometer-square park to get to the great Istiqlal Mosque, the largest in Southeast Asia. The other challenge getting there was the five lane road with no crosswalks. A generous old man led me across by walking into traffic with his hand stretched out to make sure we were noticed. That's actually how they cross streets in Jakarta.

The same generous man offered a free tour of the mosque for a donation.  He did well, but stupid me forgot to ask the price of the donation, which turned out to be 50 percent more than I'd prefer. In retrospect he was a greedy, lying SOB.

The last day was a trip by train with Ruri to the nearby city of Bogor, famous for its botanical garden that features an orchid gallery. We also went through the free Ethnobotany Museum, an extensive collection of plants, spices and crafts from around the country.

Bogor is also known for its ubiquitous green minibuses (angkots) that more resemble covered pickup trucks. And, unlike Jakarta, vehicles don't stop if you walk into traffic. Going to Bogor with Ruri probably saved my life.

The flight home made it clear that ANA is superior to United. In lieu of window shutter, I could electronically select a tint level. And, unlike on United, I did not have to struggle with a touch-screen that either ignored or misinterpreted my touch.

But the flight home from Tokyo was a thrill as it went over Fairbanks, mountainous Yukon and the charcoal-colored tundra of the Northwest Territory. Above 60 degrees latitude on May 11, it is still winter, albeit a very sunny winter.