Goldfoot Genealogy

Nadene Goldfoot                                                

Billy Meshke aka Morris Goldfoot, 1st generation American born

Our father, Maurice Goldfoot b: July 1, 1908, had become Billy Meshke, Boxer in Portland, Oregon at the Neighborhood House in South Portland.  He had gone professional.  Maurice's birth name was Moses on his birth certificate, which became Morris.  It's customary to take an English name starting with the Biblical birth name.  Morris morphed into Maurice at the suggestion of my mother.  Before they had met, he had become Billy Meshke.  Meshke is the Yiddish name for Moses.  Maurice died July 23, 1967 at age 59 and 22 days.  I remember him saying that if the guy looked very tough, he would take a fall.  He wasn't about to get beaten up.  However, because of his background, his fists were labeled legally as weapons, so he couldn't get into a fist fight with anyone.  Maurice weighed 170 lbs and stood 5'8".  He could have been classified as a middleweight, I would think.  We kept a big  poster of Dad that was a drawing of him boxing on the door of my playroom in the basement of our home.  His box or boxes of boxing gloves also stayed in the basement for many years until quite brittle.

He had to quit high school and miss most of his senior year because of needing to work to support his mother, 2 sisters and a brother who may have already graduated being his older  brother, Charlie,  was born in 1906.  His father had died in 1912 in a horse and wagon accident.  One way of earning money was to go pro in boxing.  He lived within walking distance of the Neighborhood House.

It seems that when Billy Meshke got a job as butcher at the local kosher meat market on SW Lincoln, he must have dropped boxing.  That's where he was working when my mother passed by with her charges of children that she was walking.  He whistled and that was the start of their courtship.  She was working and living with the Gurions.  He had already been married briefly and divorced, making him a scandalous person in those days.  He married our mother on April 29, 1932.
                                                                                 

Our tall mother of 5'6" with our short great aunt Jenny Criss.  Jenny was the sister of Dad's mother, Zlata Jermulowske.  My mother had Betty Grable legs, according to Dad.   Dolly Lyons, aka Adolf Lyons,  Jewish featherweight who fought against Joe Bernstien in 1899 and lost.  There's no picture of him on internet.  He was probably born c 1870s.   Below is an orthodox stance of a boxer, but no picture is found of Dolly aka Adolf Lyons.                                                                                                                 "A featherweight from New York, Lyons boxed primarily in Brooklyn during his career in the 1890s. At this time, boxing was still considered an undesirable sport by many middle class Americans because of its brutality and the presence of a number of 'lower' sorts associated with the sport. Yet, boxing also attracted colorful characters and Lyons certainly seems to have fit into the latter category. In July 1892, Lyons issued a statement in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. The Eagle explained that Lyons 'lays claim to championship of America in bantam weights,' and his statement read: "I want the public to understand that I do not weaken in the match made for me by the Coney Island athletic club to meet Billy Plimmer. I merely refuse to fight...for the $500 purse, $400 to go to the winner and $100 to the loser because they would not pay my training expenses to which I think I am entitled...To show that I mean business,  I will fight Plimmer for a $1,000 purse the winner to take all, for the championship of the world...If this is satisfactory the Coney Island athletic club knows where to find me." Lyons continued to fight regularly in Brooklyn in 1895 and 1896, including a bout against Maxey Haugh in front of 25,000 in May 1896. The following month, Lyons fought future world champion Solly Smith and in the third round, Lyons "landed a straight right on Smith's left eye and cut it severely, but the bout was "rather tame" and ended in a 10-round draw. Then, in July, Lyons fought Joe Bernstein, nicknamed 'The Pride of the Ghetto,' one of the best fighters from the Lower East Side. The bout ended in an eight-round draw. Lyons and Bernstein fought twice more, with Bernstein winning both bouts - the first on a knockout and the second, a 20-round decision. Lyons' third fight with Bernstein, which took place in March 1899, was his last recorded fight.   Joe Bernstein was most likely his boxing idol. His Yiddish name was Youselle Bernstein.                                                                                   "Featherweight Joe Bernstein (November 7, 1877 – 1931), died January 21, 1930 at age 52,  was one of the first great boxers to emerge from New York's Lower East Side.  . He fought for the championship three times, but lost all three bouts, often in close matches. Nicknamed "The Pride of the Ghetto" in the 1890s, his championship fights endeared him to newly arriving Jewish immigrants."  Bernstein was only 5'3" and a Featherweight.   Bernstein began fighting professionally at only sixteen in 1894. On July 27, 1896, he met Dolly Lyons, a well known Jewish Bantamweight and Featherweight in an eight round draw at the Palm Athletic Club in New York. Bernstein would take on Lyons twice more, beating him in a twenty round decision in Brooklyn in March of 1899 in what was likely a large audience. Going against a well known Jewish boxer from Brooklyn who could draw such impressive crowds brought Bernstein to the attention of a large Jewish audience early in his career."                                                                Benny  Leonard, age 30 in 1926, could have been another idol who was boxing when my father started the sport. " Benny  is a member of the National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame, the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame, the Ring Magazine Hall of Fame, the World Boxing Hall of Fame, and the International Boxing Hall of Fame.  Benny Leonard (born Benjamin Leiner; Hebrew name דוב בער בן אברהם גרשון [Dov Ber ben Avraham Gershon]; April 7, 1896 – April 18, 1947) was an American professional lightweight boxer."

                                                                               

Sammy Mandell, fighting under a Jewish surname, more likely just Italian.

Sammy Mandell:  His idol and mentor could have been a first generation Italian of Sicily, Sammy Mandell, who was the world lightweight boxing champion.  He was born February 5, 1904 and died November 7, 1967. Sammy had also gone through the names of Samuel Mandella to Salvatore Mandala.  He was born either in Rockford, Illinois or Sicily.   He was 5'6" tall and classed as a lightweight.  A lightweight in 1886's heaviest weight was 135 lbs.    A Southpaw, he died at age 63, and made it in the Italian-American Sports Hall of Fame.  Sammy's name came up when I googled for Jewish boxers.  A Sicilian could be Jewish, but I doubt it.  Sammy was good looking, also, compared to Rudolf Valentino, the silent film star, also Italian.  "A boxer of unquestionable toughness, Sammy Mandell was one of the top lightweights in the post-Benny Leonard era of the late-1920s. A tough slugger who turned pro in 1920, the still-teen-aged Mandell averaged 15-20 bouts a year during his early career."

Morris was 18 in 1926, which was 3 years before the 1929 Stock Market crash.  Things were looking up then until the crash.  He was brave to marry in 1932.

Resource:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Bernstein_(boxer)
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sammy_Mandell
http://www.niashf.org/inductees/sammy-mandell/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weight_class_(boxing)
Book:  Stars in the Ring:  Jewish Champions in the Golden Age of Boxing:  by Mike Silver
Book:  When Boxing Was a Jewish Sport
http://boxrec.com/media/index.php?title=Category:Jewish_Boxers&from=Kaplan%2C+Louis+(Kid)