| There's a chapter on Morris and Esther
Rubenstein and their NYC homes and neighborhood from 1907. This includes
maps of the era, old photos, and digital photos from a terrific little camera my brother
sent, first used on an expedition to the Lower East Side for this chapter. It was
also great for photos of the Times Square Hotel, still as elegant as the days when Morris's
Family Circle met there. The chapter, Farming interlude, Ulster,
New York, 1919, shows the 4 Rubenstein boys as they grew, mainly through photos
from the album of Tanta Ethel. She appears to have received a copy from every
important photo session. (Skip the accompanying prose in that story, composed for
first edition of this one.) How did CousinsPlus come
to be?
"First there were the four brothers, and now there are the
cousins," my brother, Michael-David, said in September, 1996, when he and I were in
California to visit our parents who lived in Laguna Hills at the time. That was how he
introduced the subject of the latest incarnation of our family association, this one based
on a foundation of one active offspring from each of Morris Rubenstein's four sons.
Brother's idea
Then Michael-David broached the subject of a family web page, which
he intended for me to produce, since he had appointed me custodian of the family
photographs. We agreed that a family web site is the ideal way to share these
riches as well as family news. In March, 1997, the page went up. Since then, family
participation from coast to coast has been enthusiastic, which you can see from the
entries in our Guestbook.
From sea to shining sea
When I learned that Morris's grandfather had a brother, whose
descendants were regulars at the Family Circle, I began to look for them. After
finally learning that the descendants of Harris (Itka) Uberstein of Ohio spelled their
surname "Uberstine," the descendants of many offspring began growing our tree.
Cousins Very Plus
When hand-drawn trees of nuclear family groups reached 43 pages, it
was unmanageable, and so I installed Family Tree Maker, and joined the Genealogy and
Family History special interest group of the New York Personal Computer Club.
In March, 1999, our tree broke the 900 mark and kept climbing to a temporary rest at 1041
as we moved into the 21st century.
Then, through the Farbermans, we encountered the Glockners, and as 2002
became 2003, our family numbered
1,375. |
| (You can save the over-trees by putting your mouse
arrow on top, and then clicking on your right mouse button. If you save it to your
desktop, you may well be able to open it whenever you wish by double-clicking on the
file. You can also print it out in a variety of ways. One way is to insert it
as a graphic into your word processing program.) Defining
degrees of cousinhood
An explanation linked from our Trees chapter tells
how to properly describe second, third, etc. cousins at various degrees of being
"removed." However, I find it more comfortable and clearer to identify
family with a description such as, "a grandson of the nephew of my
great-great-grandfather. Having an over-tree inhand (and eventually, in one's head)
makes looking at our family pages more fun. It's also easier to understand who's who
and what's what. In the next three paragraphs, everyone mentioned can be referenced
on Usher's over-tree.
An abundance of riches: the Varonok album
As time passed, more and more wonderful material and
photographs came our way for use on our web pages. The Varonok heirloom family
album, created by Ethel's son, Sam Varonok, was given by his widow, Natalie Varonok, to
Ruth Sollender Goldstein. Ruth's mother, Rose, was Sam's older sister. Ruth
and her husband, Mel, kindly loaned the fragile Sam Varonok album to me for the purpose of
sharing photos with the family at large. Perhaps half the photos used to begin the
web page came from that precious album.
The Varon photo archives
While writing the first edition of this section, Federal
Express delivered a 10-pound box from Barry Varon of Port Charlotte, Florida, containing
two oversized heirloom family albums put together by his father, Arthur. These
wonderful old photos of the life and times of Ethel's youngest son, his siblings, and a
lifetime of family gatherings, enrich the selections on our pages from the Varonok
album.
Karben and Chasman contributions
Dora Rubenstein Karben's daughter, Shirley, loaned a little
pile of photos, on view in The Karben Albums. Eleanor Chasman,
whose mother-in-law, Esther, was Morris' first cousin, mailed on three occasions
selections of precious photos. The Chasmans of Newark were the wealthiest in the
family in the early decades. My father remembers that Esther Chasman would send
their family car to pick up Morris's family and drive them to Newark for one of the two
nights of Seder. The other night, Esther, her husband, Leonid, and their three
children would drive to Morris's home for the Seder.
The Chasmans
Esther Chasman was Louis' niece, and they certainly knew
each other in New York City and probably met at Ethel's or Morris's home. Tanta
Ethel's album included photos of Esther's brother and father, and also a portrait of the
family when the children were infants. That portrait is in Ethel's Story.
The grandchildren of one of the youngsters in that portrait now live in California,
near concentrations of family in Louis's branch, but they have not yet connected.
Remembrances of the old country
My introduction to our family's history began on vacation
trips from Denver, Colorado, to visit the relatives in New York City. I asked questions,
made trees and took lots of now yellowing notes. On settling in NYC after college, I
discovered that Carl Karben, the husband of Morris's youngest sister, Dora, had a great deal to
say about what life was like in our Gorodok before he came over with his family in 1923.
That's in Carl's Story.
Getting together in the U.S.A.
We have actually had a de facto cousins' club of our own
generation for some time, thanks to the ongoing networking among at least one of the two
offspring of each of Morris' four sons: Bruce, Jerry, Michael-David, and Robin. In
the video of the wedding of Debbie and Stuart Allen (Morris's great grandson), you could
see an informal conference taking place in the motel swimming pool. Captured there on
video were Jerry, Michael-David, and Bruce, kibitzing as they bobbed up and down while
treading water in the sunshine.
Three boroughs plus Colorado
You may recall that the four sons of Morris Rubenstein and
Esther Simon didn't set up house on the same street, but they did typically reunite for
holidays. Sidney and Bea Rubenstein had a house in Brooklyn; Arthur and Ruth Rogers lived
in an apartment in The Bronx; and Sam and Yetta Rubenstein settled in Queens.
My
parents, Larry and Tess Rogers, moved 2,000 miles west in 1947, to put down roots in
Denver, Colorado.
Across the fruited plain
Keeping in touch with relatives was so valued by Larry and
Tess that my brother and I spent more than one August in the hot back seat of our light
green Pontiac. As we drove across the fruited plain to New York City, we picnicked on
sandwiches in town square parks, counted Burma Shave signs on the highways, and lived for
the afternoon treat from Dairy Queen.
Morris's grandchildren spread out
The next generation is even more spread out geographically.
Consider just the founding four cousins: Jerry and Eve Rubenstein are up in
Rochester, New York; Bruce and Norma Rogers live in Nashville, Tennessee; Michael-David
and Jan BenDor settled on a farm near Ypsilanti, Michigan; and Robin Rubenstein and her
husband, Gordon Poer, live in Carrboro, North Carolina.
E-mail rules
The founding four cousins have long used
E-mail to keep in
touch, and many family members who did not are getting "wired" out of a desire
to participate in CousinsPlus. It's a great way to dash off a quick note, and
daily it proves a conduit for sharing things we otherwise might not have. |
