On 25 July 1888, my great-grandfather Jacob Blumenfeld boarded the steamship Lahn in Bremen and followed his younger brother Levi to the New World.¹ Traveling with Marcus Blumenfeld,² another young man of his age from Momberg, he reached the harbor of New York City ten days later on August 3^rd.³ The photo at left, which Jacob kept in the cover of his pocket watch, shows him around 1887 before his departure.⁴

Marcus’s profession on the passenger list is given as “dealer,” which I take to mean “merchant.” Jacob indicated that he had no profession. In all other existing documents, Jacob’s profession is listed as “butcher.” Jacob, born in Momberg, Hessen, on 11 September 1871, was the oldes of the seven children of Isaac Blumenfeld and Biene Rotschild.⁵

In New York, Jacob met Regina Wolff who had been living in the city since May 12, 1884.⁶ Great-grandmother Regina was born in Nalbach, Saarlouis, Germany, on April 16, 1868.⁷ Rabbi Daniel Loewenthal married Jacob and Regina in the Synagogue Bnee (B’nai) Scholom in Manhattan on July 11, 1893.⁸ The pictures below were perhaps taken at the time of their engagement; we assume they were taken around 1892.⁹ On the marriage certificate, Great-grandfather Jacob was still using the last name Blumenfeld.

On May 14, 1893, Great-grandmother Regina gave birth to twins: Irving Edward¹⁰ and a second boy who was probably born dead. Great-grandfather’s name on the birth certificate is now given as “Bloomfield,” i.e., by this time, Jacob had changed his name. The dead twin was a part of the oral family history. The only documentation for the twin’s birth and death comes from the 1900 U.S. Census: “Number of children born: 4. Number of children living: 3.”¹¹ The couple’s second, i.e. third, son, Leonard, was born on September 13, 1896,¹² and their daughter, Frances, on May 13, 1899.¹³

Jacob Bloomfield submitted his petition for naturalization for himself and his family on September 18, 1907,¹⁴ which was approved on December 23^rd. Using their new passports, the whole family traveled to Europe in 1908 to visit relatives in Momberg. They returned to the US on July 21, 1908.¹⁵

Many documents and registry entries that I have examined in the course of my family research contain mistakes. The petition for naturalization pictured above is no exception. Although the family had used the name Bloomfield in all official documents for years, the family name in the petition is given as “Bloomfild” (without e), and Jacob signs accordingly. His place of birth is reported as “Mombach” instead of “Momberg.” Sometimes Great-grandfather’s first name appears in documents – like the entry in the register of births – with c and sometimes with k.

My great-grandparents lived in quite a few different places in Manhattan and the Bronx. According to the street directories, the Bloomfields had their own store at not less than four locations. After Jacob’s death, Regina moved to Morris Heights, where she had lived in 1925, to be with her daughter Frances Lewin and granddaughter Joan. They made a last move together later to the apartment on Featherbed Lane.

Year	Home Address	Business Address
1893	102 E. 113th Street, New York
1894 – 1895	444 10th Ave., New York	462 W. 35th Street, New York
1896 – 1899	Perhaps the family lived at the business address.	3433 W. 17th Street, New York
1900	308 E. 102nd Street, Manhattan
1905	2012 2nd Ave., Manhattan
1907 – 1908	2012 2nd Ave., Manhattan
1910 – 1913	1727 Lexington Ave., Manhattan
1915 – 1922	883 Freeman, Bronx
1916 – 1921	(same as above)	650 Melrose Ave., New York
1922 – 1923	(same as above)	904 Melrose Ave., New York under Regina Bloomfield’s name
1925	1346 Grand Ave., New York Data most likely from 1924.	904 Melrose Ave., New York
1925	1154 Sheridan Ave., Bronx
1928	1055 Findlay Ave., Bronx
1930	100 W. 174th Street, Bronx
1940 – 1963	52 Featherbed Lane, Bronx

“My ancestor Jacob was a wandering Armenian.” This passage from the Fifth Book of Moses 26:5 comes to mind when I consider the list of places where my great-grandparents Jacob and Regina lived. Their frequent moves appear to be almost nomadic. However, the reason behind the moves is certainly less idyllic. During the earliest years, it is likely that Jacob’s working place was the determining factor. The moves to Sheridan Avenue and especially the dislocation to Findlay Avenue were also linked to the store location. As his health declined, Jacob wanted to be closer to his store on Melrose Avenue.

During the 1920s and 1930s, it was common for people living in the Bronx to move frequently. It was a sign of upward social mobility. At the time, the Bronx was developing rapidly, new apartment buildings with all the amenities like an opulent foyer, a lift, and tiled bathrooms were springing up like mushrooms. Many owners were offering one or two months’ free rent as an enticement to move, and some families moved every year to profit from a buyers’ (renters’) market. Measured by the number of apartments with their own bath – and sometimes two! – the Bronx was at this time the most modern district in New York. The Bloomfield family had risen socially to the lower middle class, a few streets removed from the posher areas of the Bronx.¹⁶

Great-grandfather Jacob’s last butcher shop was located at 904 Melrose Avenue. I find it interesting that the store is listed under Regina’s name in Trow’s General Directory for the years 1922-23.

About 1920 a full-blown family drama began to develop according to court records¹⁷ and the oral history reported by Jacob and Regina Bloomfield’s granddaughter, Joan Lewin (later Feuerstein and Lahuta).¹⁸ The marriage that Joan’s mother, Frances, entered into on April 5, 1920, in the Bronx with Louis Lewin was a disaster from the start. After Joan’s birth on December 30, 1920, in New York, the family lived for a year or two in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Louis worked there as a butcher. But already in August 1922 Frances and her daughter were living in the Bronx again, where she filed a “matrimonial action for child support” against her husband on the 26^th of the same month. Evidently, the parties reached an agreement because on December 7^th the complaint was “discontinued” and the bond which Louis had had to pay was returned.

Shortly before Frances filed her complaint, Louis Lewin accused his parents-in-law of having broken up his marriage and filed a lawsuit against them on August 15, 1922. In his complaint, Louis charges that in November 1921 and later at diverse times his in-laws had slandered him publicly and privately in front of his wife Frances and accused him of intimate contact with women “in his neighborhood.” His “domestic life had become unbearable to the extent that he was compelled to abandon his home and wife and [was] now living actually living apart from her.”

In the complaint Jacob is accused of speaking “in the presence and hearing of [Louis’s] wife and diverse other persons the false, scandalous and defamatory words as follows: that is to say, ‘You dirty cur; I’ll shoot you dead in a minute; you are in the habit of visiting bad women. My daughter should not live with you; you are no good; you are always visiting women at their homes and sleep with them; everybody knows that; I can prove who you have been with.’” The complaint against Regina contains similar wording. Louis Lewin demands a judgment against the defendants for the sum of 10,000 dollars. On December 6, 1922, the complaint was withdrawn.

The complaint contains certain inconsistencies. Frances’s mother appears in the summons as “Rita” instead of “Regina.” “Rita’s” address on the summons appears as 1174 West Farms Road, New York, New York, where indeed a Jacob Bloomfield did live. However, this person was not Frances’ father. In 1922 Jacob and Regina lived at 883 Freeman Street. On the other hand, the summons was delivered to the “correct” Jacob in or in front of his butcher shop at Melrose and 162^nd Street. I assume that the court clerk had not done his homework properly and had simply noted the address of the first “Jacob Bloomfield” that he found in the city directory. Perhaps there was actually a Rita Bloomfield living at the address on West Farms Road who signed for the summons without knowing what it was about. My research on the internet has not turned up a Rita Bloomfield of the appropriate age in New York who could have been involved in this case instead of Regina Bloomfield. It would be too big a coincidence for two Jacob Bloomfields in New York to have sons-in-law both named Louis Lewin who had marriage problems. And even if there had been such a situation, chances are almost zero that they would have had the same lawyer. Just too many coincidences!

On December 24, 1935, Frances filed for divorce. The proceedings took place the end of January 1936, and the judgment was registered on February 21^st. Because the details of divorce proceedings cannot be made public for 100 years, it is not known if a divorce was granted. However, we know that Frances and Louis didn’t live together after 1921. For whatever reason, the US censuses of 1930 and 1940 both list Louis as “head” of the household with Frances and Joan. Only after 1942 is there documentation for a separate address for Louis at 347 St. Ann’s Avenue, Bronx, New York.¹⁹

Joan is the source of much that we know about Jacob, Regina and their children.²⁰ She knew, for example, that Jacob was struck by a car and severely injured near the end of his life. His recovery was difficult. Shortly after being injured, he was diagnosed with cancer of the liver and died eight months later on February 28, 1928. He was buried – as was his wife later – in the Mount Carmel Cemetery, Flushing, Queens County, New York.

Within two years of Jacob’s death Regina Wolff Bloomfield moved from Findlay Avenue to 100 West 174^th Street, where she lived together with her son Leonard, daughter Frances and granddaughter Joan.²¹ By 1940 she was living with the Lewins in a small apartment at 52 Featherbed Lane in the Bronx.²² She lived here until her death on December 29, 1963.

The 3½-room-apartment on the ground floor of an apartment building with lift on Featherbed Lane only had one bedroom. Mother Regina, daughter Frances, and granddaughter Joan shared the bedroom. Leonard slept on a foldaway bed in the foyer. The rent on the ground floor was probably more reasonable for an apartment in such a good part of town.²³

There is not much information to be found about Great-grandmother Regina Wolff Bloomfield in the existing sources and her son, my grandfather, Irving Edward, rarely talked about his family at all. The grandchildren tried time and again to tease some information out of Grandmother. She was of the opinion, however, that that was a theme that we didn’t want to “rehash” again. But we had no information that we could have “re-hashed!”

Once, Grandmother Rose Rauscher Bloomfield did tell me, though, that she first met her mother-in-law when she traveled to New York with her husband after having been married for 35 years. “If she isn’t interested in me, then I’m not interested in her either,” she seemed to be saying. Others in the family said that our great-grandmother had not approved of her son’s marriage to a Christian woman and had tried to prevent it or to break it up.

What Joan could relate about her grandmother Regina shines a little light into the black hole of what we know about our great-grandmother Bloomfield. She remembered that Regina talked about the cellar in the restaurant or hotel that her parents ran in Nalbach, Saarlouis, Germany, where the apples that she went to get smelled so good. At Pesach and Rosh ha-Shana, she always served cheesecake. Joan said that the cheesecake was the only visible sign from her of the approaching high holidays. Once a year Regina made a trip downtown to the Bowery Savings Bank on Grand Street on the Lower East Side where she withdrew a sum of money that was to (or had to) last the family for an entire year. Regina enjoyed playing cards very much. And when she lost interest in card playing everyone knew that the end was near. Even years after Jacob’s death Regina Wolff Bloomfield would sigh as she got into bed, “Jacob, I’m so lonesome.”

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1. New York Passenger Lists, 1820–1957, in: Ancestry.com, Year: 1888; Arrival: New York, United States; Microfilm serial: M237; Microfilm roll: 237_523; Line: 1; List number: 1061, in: Ancestry.com. ↩︎
2. Ibid. ↩︎
3. Petition for Naturalization, Jacob Bloomfield, in: Ancestry.com, The National Archives and Records Administration; Washington, D.C; Petitions for Naturalization from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, 1897–1944; Series: M1972; Roll 72, in: Ancestry.com. ↩︎
4. Foto aus dem Familienstammbaum von James S. Bloomfield, in: Ancestry.com, https://www.ancestry.com/mediaui-viewer/collection/1030/tree/114262713/person/110133354536/media/0a81a4c8-436a-46cc-a4bb-a0a89d47ab74?_phsrc=CXv210&usePUBJs=true [27.08.2018]. ↩︎
5. Geburtsregister der Juden von Momberg (Neustadt) 1850-1874 (HHStAW Abt. 365 Nr. 608, Entry number 71. ↩︎
6. The National Archives in Washington, DC; Washington, DC, USA; Passenger Lists of Vessels Arriving at New York, New York, 1820-1897; Microfilm Serial or NAID: M237; RG Title: Records of the U.S. Customs Service; RG: 36, in: Ancestry.com. ↩︎
7. Date from Headstone. ↩︎
8. Copy of marriage certificate in possession of author. ↩︎
9. Photos James S. Bloomfield’s family tree in Ancestry.com. ↩︎
10. Copie of birth certificate for Irving Bloomfield in possession of author. ↩︎
11. US Census 1900, in: Ancestry.com, Year: 1900; Census Place: Manhattan, New York, New York; Roll: 1121; Page: 7B; Enumeration District: 0894; FHL microfilm: 1241121. ↩︎
12. Leonard Bloomfield, New York, New York, U.S. Birth Index, 1891-1902, in: Ancestry.com. ↩︎
13. Jacob Bloomfield, Petition for Naturalization, The National Archives in Washington, DC; Washington, DC; NAI Title: Index to Petitions For Naturalizations Filed in Federal, State, and Local Courts in New York City, 1792-1906; NAI Number: 5700802; Record Group Title: Records of District Courts of the United States, 1685-2009; Record Group Number: Rg 21, in: Ancestry.com. ↩︎
14. Ibid. ↩︎
15. The National Archives in Washington, DC; Washington, DC, USA; Passenger and Crew Lists of Vessels Arriving at New York, New York, 1897-1957; Microfilm Serial or NAID: T715; RG Title: Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, 1787-2004; RG: 85, in: Ancestry.com. ↩︎
16. This information was provided by cousin Steven Bloomfield, New York. ↩︎
17. County Clerk’s Office, Bronx County, 15. August 1922, Complaint, Louis Lewin vs. Rita Bloomfield, Vol. 4, Page 137, File No. 2974. Copie of court records in possession of the author. ↩︎
18. Steven Bloomfield to Richard J. Bloomfield (E-Mail), 5 September 2017. ↩︎
19. US World War II Draft Registration Cards, 1942, National Archives and Records Administration (NARA); Washington, D.C.; State Headquarters: New York, in: Ancestry.com. ↩︎
20. Steven Bloomfield to Richard J. Bloomfield (E-Mail), 3 August 2017. ↩︎
21. U.S. Census 1930. ↩︎
22. U.S. Census 1940. ↩︎
23. Steven Bloomfield to Richard J. Bloomfield (E-Mail), 7 September 2017. ↩︎