Joseph Blumenfeld, the fourth child of Isaac Blumenfeld and Biene, née Rothschild, was born on September 20, 1875, “at seven o’clock in the afternoon” in Momberg, Hesse. At that time, the family lived at number 39 Arneck (Arenecke).¹

At the age of 17, Joseph traveled from Bremen to New York on the steamship Elbe, arriving on June 6, 1893. The Winchester KY Daily Democrat reported later in June that “Joe Bloomfield, brother of Lee, arrived Monday from Europe and will make this city his future home.”² Joseph Blumenfeld became Joe Bloomfield upon his arrival in the USA. In April 1895, he was working as a salesman in his cousin Victor’s store in Winchester, Kentucky.³ Then Joe became manager of one of Victor’s stores in Nicholasville KY. When Joe left the store in Nicholasville to become manager of Victor’s New York Store in Danville KY, the Nicholasville Journal had the following to say about Joe:⁴

On March 16, 1899, Joe, who at the time was living in Owingsville KY, married Claudyne Braun. She was the daughter of Samuel M. Braun and Tillie, née Hays of Louisville KY. Rabbi A. Moses married the couple at her parents’ home at 114 East Breckenridge Street in Louisville, Kentucky.⁵ Her brother Morris and her uncle Fred Hays served as witnesses.⁶ The couple subsequently lived in Cynthiana, Kentucky. Joe started his own business and opened a clothing store. They also employed the 24-year-old Ida Workman as a domestic servant.⁷ Then, with liabilities of approximately $6,000 and assets of only $2,200, Joe was forced to file for bankruptcy in January 1903.⁸

The Daily Democrat reported in February 1903 that “Mr. and Mrs. Joe Bloomfield, Mr. and Mrs. Braun and family have removed to New York City where they have located.”⁹ In Manhattan, Joe worked as a traveling salesman. Claudyne’s 21-year-old brother Morris and her 19-year-old sister Selina also lived with them in their apartment on West 128th Street. Here, too, the Bloomfields had a young domestic servant, Kate McDonough.¹⁰

The year 1903 was an annus horribilis for the Bloomfields and Brauns: a business failure, the move to Manhattan, followed in March by the death of Claudyne’s parents Samuel Braun and Tillie Hays Braun. Samuel M. Braun died of cancer on March 5^th.¹¹ Tillie Hays Braun died following an operation for appendicitis on September 19^th.¹²

After only ten years of marriage, Claudyne died on June 9, 1909, as a result of abdominal surgery and was buried two days later at Adath Israel Cemetery in Louisville, Kentucky.¹³

On April 6, 1911, Joe married Myrtle Madeleine Strauss in New Haven, Connecticut.¹⁴ Myrtle was the daughter of Jacob Strauss and Theresa, née Herrman, born in Manhattan on October 10, 1883.¹⁵ Joe and Myrtle lived in rented apartments in various locations on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, in a more upscale neighborhood: West 87^th Street, West 103^rd Street, and West 86^th Street.¹⁶ Under the heading “Occupation” in the 1915 New York census, he is listed as a “salesman.” On his military card issued in 1918, Joe is listed as a “traveling salesman” and “district manager” for Ritter Brothers (clothing). In the 1930 census, he is listed as manufacturing women’s coats and is an “employer.” Ten years later, Joe is “only” a salesman of women’s clothing, but, according to the 1940 census, has an annual income of $5,000 at a time when the average annual income was $1,368.¹⁷

Myrtle Bloomfield-Braun died on May 19, 1943, at the age of 59. She was buried in the Herrman family mausoleum in Linden Hill Jewish Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York. Myrtle’s mother’s maiden name was Herrman. My cousin Steven Bloomfield gained access to the funeral home’s archives and reports that Myrtle’s coffin cost several thousand dollars, a considerable sum even with an annual salary of $5,000.¹⁸

“Uncle Joe” enabled at least three of his relatives to immigrate by sponsoring them and/or covering the cost of their passage: Hugo Blumenfeld (son of Abraham and Sophie Blumenfeld-Mansbach) in 1923, Ilse Blumenfeld (later Stein, daughter of Julius and Dina Blumenfeld-Heiser) in 1938, and Werner Blumenfeld (son of Julius and Dina Blumenfeld-Heiser) in 1947. Steven Bloomfield writes: Joe “was a kind of ‘mover and shaker,’ someone who brought the family together. I say this because everyone knew and liked him—except for the Bloomfields on Featherbed Lane (Jacob’s family). He hosted family members when they were in New York, even those who had entered into mixed marriages and renounced the Jewish faith.”¹⁹

Myrtle left a different impression, as Ilse Blumenfeld Stein told my cousin Steven Bloomfield. “After her arrival, Myrtle treated her like a domestic servant rather than a member of the family. Ilse had to clear the table and do the washing up, whether it was everyday life or when visitors came. Then she was quickly sent to the West (Indiana) to work as a ‘baby nurse,’ as Ilse told him.

When she arrived in New York, she had a trunk or other large suitcase with her, in which Ilse’s mother had carefully packed her best clothes—or as many as she was allowed to take. Everything was tailor-made in Germany […] nothing was ready-to-wear. As I understand it, this was not unusual in Germany at that time, as even women of modest means did not necessarily buy off the rack. As Ilse reported, Myrtle took everything away from her after her arrival and threw it away. Myrtle said it was all inferior.²⁰

Joe Bloomfield died at the age of 78 on March 10, 1953 in New York.²¹ He was buried in the Herrman-Bloomfield-Westheimer mausoleum at Linden Hill Jewish Cemetery where his wife Myrtle had been interred ten years before. My cousin Steven Bloomfield took the photo below of the mausoleum and provided some information about the site.

“The German Jews here were interred either in family crypts (many) as well as in ground burials with the traditional stone markers. Unfortunately, the vast majority of these mausoleums were plundered and vandalized […]. That’s why you see a large plank of plywood in place of where a proper entry should be to the Bloomfield mausoleum…looters smashed glass and made off with all the brass/metal fittings that included the doors, windows, vents, etc. The location of the Bloomfield crypt is particularly remote…sort of tucked into a far corner of the cemetery and situated at such an angle to make it easy for thieves to do their work unseen.”²²

1. Neustadt (Hesse) Registry Office, supplementary birth register 1875, No. 78, in: HStAMR Best. 915 No. 6458. ↩︎
2. [Anonymous], About People, The DailAfter only ten years of marriage, Claudyne died on June 9, 1909, as a result of abdominal surgery and was buried two days later at Adath Israel Cemetery in Louisville, Kentucky.y Democrat, Winchester KY, June 28, 1893, p. 3. ↩︎
3. [Advertisement], The Largest Clearance Sale Ever Known in Winchester., in: The Hazel Green Herald, Hazel Green KY, April 11, 1895, p. 6 ↩︎
4. [Anonymous], Personal Points, The Daily Democrat, Winchester KY, February 4, 1896, p. 3. ↩︎
5. [Anonymous], The Society Maid in Lent, in: The Courier-Journal, Louisville KY, March 12, 1899, p. 13. ↩︎
6. Marriage License and Marriage Certificate, digital copy by ancestry.com. ↩︎
7. US Census 1900. ↩︎
8. [Anonymous], KENTUCKY NEWS IN BRIEF., in: The Courier-Journal, Louisville KY, morning edition, January 5, 1903, p. 4. ↩︎
9. [Anonymous], About People, The Daily Democrat, Winchester KY, February 24, 1903, p. 3. ↩︎
10. New York State Census 1905, in: Ancestry.com. ↩︎
11. [Anonymous], Deaths, The Courier Journal, Louisville KY, March 7, 1903, p. 7, and [Anonymous], Wöchentliche Todtenliste., Louisville Argus, Louisville KY, March 12, 1903, p. 3. ↩︎
12. [Anonymous], Deaths, The Courier Journal, Louisville KY, September 22, 1903, p. 5. ↩︎
13. Death register, in Ancestry.com, Kentucky, Death Records, 1852-1964. ↩︎
14. Connecticut State Department of Health; Hartford, CT; Connecticut Vital Records – Index of Marriages, 1897-1968, in: Ancestry.com. ↩︎
15. New York, New York, Index to Birth Certificates, 1866-1909, in: Ancestry.com. ↩︎
16. New York State Census 1915, in: Ancestry.com, US Census 1930, in: Ancestry.com, US Census 1940, in: Ancestry.com. ↩︎
17. Diane Petro, Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?, The 1940 Census: Employment and Income, Prologue Magazine, Spring 2012, Vol. 44, No. 1, in: National Archives (archives.gov/publications). ↩︎
18. Steven Bloomfield to Richard J. Bloomfield (email), November 4, 2017. ↩︎
19. Steven Bloomfield to Richard J. Bloomfield (email), August 12, 2017. ↩︎
20. Steven Bloomfield to Richard J. Bloomfield (email), November 4, 2017. ↩︎
21. U.S., Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007, in: Ancestry.com. ↩︎
22. Steven Bloomfield to Richard J. Bloomfield (email), October 6, 2025. ↩︎
23. Gus Dallas, Gravestones as living history, Daily News, New York, NY, 19 July 1981, p. 265. ↩︎