Goldfoot Genealogy

 Nadene Goldfoot                                      

This morning, I'm thinking about my family;  1st cousin, Don and how part of his youthful life was spent with our Bubbie, our grandmother Zlata Goldfoot nee Jermulowske/i.  Bubbie, or Hattie, a name on the census for her that I never heard in connection with her, was born in Lasdijai, Suwalki, Lithuania which was on the border with Poland. 

What am I remembering?  Measuring my height against hers.  She was so short.  Bubbie eating her favorite;  boiled potatoes with pickled herring.                        

 Also, my memory goes back to being at the house when all of us were there and being told that the Martians had landed and that my father was going to drive us to the mountains to escape them. That was radio news of the moment.  All of the family were in shock and awe.  It could be we were together for Yom Kippur .

She immigrated to the USA as a teen-ager, around age 17 and arrived in the USA in 1903-I believe.  Zlata was born on January 11, 1886 and died December 9, 1950 in Portland, Oregon. She was the daughter of Joshua Charles "Hatzkel" Isaiahel Jermulowskie and his first wife, if my genealogy searches are correct, Esther   "Essie" Decatsky Decad Frank.  Being I have found a DNA match to a very nice man with the surname of Decad makes me think that this is correct.  Joshua's Essie died and he married again and gave Zlata more siblings.  Now, of course, Decatsky is not coming up on FTDNA for my checking but I did find this:  the 1940 U.S. Census.

As it turned out, Zlata never went to school as she was illiterate.  She couldn't read or write in any language, and only spoke Yiddish.  Evidence is that she was home as the baby sitter taking care of her siblings.  All of them did become literate.  There was from Esther  (Essie) ;   Bessie, Jennie and Louis of the 1st marriage, and then there was from Deborah (Dora);  Lilly, Charles and Alice of the 2nd marriage.  I've also found an unknown;  Abram Owsej Ajzykowicz Jermulowski who I wonder since born in 1898, if he's a sibling, too.  He was born in Bialystock, Poland.  Maybe he's a cousin.  Also, the tradition in Judaism is that when a wife dies, she is replaced with her sister.  Were Esther and Deborah sisters?  I need DNA tests to tell.  Most likely not.                        

  Zlata's children include two PhDs with Don and his MS in the grandchildren with  most all being college graduates.  Don had gone on to be head of all the hospitals in Oregon except those in Multnomah County in their economic issues.  That was quite a responsibility.  He had to travel all over Oregon and check on their situations to keep them out of the red.

Don was the one who learned to really speak Yiddish with Bubbie.  He recalls favorite sayings with her to this day, part of the far distant memory that we all have.  We tend to remember the past but forget to take our pills in the morning.  If anyone heard Bubbie's favorite stories, it would have been Don, and he has told me a few.  He adores repeating the Yiddish he did learn from Bubbie.  It gives him his place in line with the Jewish people, if you can understand that.  Though his life didn't follow the Jewish culture as much, he did have that part of his childhood to remember.  

Bubbie, as it was, lived with her last child, Ann.  Ann was born several months after her father,  Nathan Goldfoot,  had died in a horse and wagon accident in SE Portland.  He had the horse and wagon, given to him by a Jewish group who helped the immigrants provide a living for their family.  As it happened, he was not used to handling horses.  His peddler experience was by foot.  So one time the horse was frightened by a noise, came to a halt and this threw Nathan Abraham Goldfoot out of his seat and he hit his head, was knocked out and never did wake up again.  All this occurred on a Friday.  Bubbie did not find out till a friend came the following Monday and told her he was dead and at St. Vincent's Hospital.  She went through  trauma herself, Shabbat and pregnant with 3 babies and a missing husband.  

Ann was born November 11, 1912 and her father had died July 19, 1912, 4 months before.  Can you imagine the state of mind that Bubbie was in?  She already had Charlie, Moshe (my father) and Essie-Elsie and had suffered earlier the death of her 3rd child, a boy-Abraham, who died in infancy at 5 months and 10 days in 1909, the year after my father's birth.  He evidently died of crib death though he slept with his parents in a feather-bed.  

Ann married possibly the last Jew to leave Germany, Werner Oster, who got out in May 1939.  Germany entered Poland in June 1939.  It was not an easy thing for his family to get him out, either.  He had already been picked up and kept in Aushwitz just before it became the Holocaust center of death.  He was picked up for hitting a cow with a stick on the path to the slaughter house of his father's.  It was a stick used to keep them on the path, a leading stick-not a stick used to hurt the animal.  The Germans used any reason to pick up Jews. After a horrendous experience of torture, he was able to return home then.  But his family had to figure that he would be the only one to survive.                                     

Ann had my 5 female cousins for Bubbie to care for as they appeared; Harriett, Darlene, Francis, Rose and Sandra.  They got to live with her and Don who was also there as a brother figure during several of the years.  His mother, Elsie, worked, and during those times, he was with Ann when not in school.

Werner was under great stress all the time as a butcher with my father in that he kept tabs on his family through a radio receiver that was against the law to use as I understand it.  Imagine trying to lead a normal life when your parents and then 16 year old sister's lives were threatened and eventually taken, of course.  Though Werner had been a great athlete in his teen years, it was so hard on him.  That would have also been transferred onto my aunt Hammie (Ann) as well.                                            

Life.  Even though we physically escaped the Holocaust, it left its mark on all of us Jews.  One wonders, wonders about what brought our Bubbie to America in the first place in 1903 and thankful, so thankful that it did.  I didn't even mention that she wound up in Council, Idaho, a little mountain town with some of her sibling members and new husband, Nathan. 

 She was even working washing dishes and such in a restaurant in Cuprum, Idaho.  Cuprum is an unincorporated community in Adams County in the U.S. state of Idaho. The community is located 27 mi (43 km) northwest of Council. Council is a beautiful spot.  Cuprum is Latin for “Copper,” an apt description as this remote part of Idaho likely still has huge untapped copper deposits. Several mines were in the area, leading to the need for a town. A hospital was built here in 1897, and a Post Office was established the same year on December 1st.  Cuprum is now a ghost town and hard to get to.   *Note* Two wheel drive accessible only in summer months. Kleinscmidt Grade is an historic road known for it’s steep grade.  From Ontario, Oregon head north on US-95 North for 44 miles. At the town of Cambridge Idaho, take a left on to ID-71.....How did she get there?  Probably by horse and buggy. 

She was married in November 20, 1905 in Boise, Idaho to Nathan Goldfoot of Council, Idaho, where her sisters Bessie was married to Sam Criss and Jennie was married to Harry Criss and Louis Jermulowske was single and living in Council in 1901 or 1902.  He didn't marry until 1908 and that was in Portland, OR.  She probably lived in Cuprum, Idaho with her sisters, a small mining town close to Council before she married Nathan.  You should see the certificate!  The spelling was so bad that unless you knew the facts, you couldn't translate it.  Sheltered Zlata, suddenly being thrust into cowboy-land or gold-mining land;   cleaning up from them.  

As a teacher, I laugh at the thought of my father and his brother Charlie diving under a bed to escape the broom attack of their mother in Portland.                    

Before Elsie was born, Charlie 4 and Moshe (Dad) 2, perhaps

Dad and Charlie were out  selling newspapers when dad was 4 and Charlie 6 to earn money for them all.  She was a teen-aged mom who was at the mercy of a 6, 4 and 1 year old and the broom was her only aid. The boys were even dismissed from Hebrew School for their antics.  Gosh, how did my father ever produce me,, the perfect school-child?  I don't know.  Must have been my mom's genes.    

Labels: Bubbie, Cuprum, Germany, Goldfoot Family, Idaho, Jermulowske Family, Martians, Oster Family, Robinson family

# posted by Nadene Goldfoot @ 12:02 PM