Visiting relatives

 Many of you know that I have been researching my family history for quite a while now.  Several years ago, (while my mother was still alive) the search engine at Ellisisland.org yielded up a surprise. We had known that my mother's mother came to New York with her mother and her younger sister Vechne, known in the family as Becky. Looking at the ship's manifest I found another sister named Feige.

Now, my mother had always assumed that she was named for her father's sister Feige Tzivia who had died tragically young after giving birth to her second son. My mother was so touched to learn that she was named not just for her paternal aunt Feige Tzivia Siegel but her maternal aunt Feige Weisglass as well. A bit more digging led me to learn that  Feige Weisglass had died at age twelve less than a year after arriving in New York.

We remembered a story my mother's older sister had told us about one of my grandmother's sisters' dying after she fell out of a window. 

As more and more records become digitized I have learned that my Great Aunt Feige Weisglass was buried

at Mount Zion Cemetery in Maspeth, Queens.

I had known the sad story of Feige Tzivia Siegel's tragic death all of my life. How she had contracted "childbed fever" and had died  a few days after her second son was born. It was a death that could have been prevented by a course of antibiotics that were discovered too late to save her life. I had also discovered another layer of the tragedy, Feige Tzivia gave birth to a baby named Yetta in 1919 who died at seven months old. I was able to locate both of their graves.

My husband suggested that we go visit the graves of both Feiges as well as the grave of baby Yetta. Today was the day.

We started our adventure at  Mount Zion. It is an old cemetery created in the days when tall dark gravestones were popular. The graves are close together and from a distance  the gravestones look like a group of people praying together.

When the cemetery was built, it was in the country.

Now smokestacks are visible from most of the cemetery. We went into the office and they gave us a cemetery map and marked out directions so we could find Feige Weisglass. I suspect that she hadn't been visited since 1919 when her father died. 

We found the right  section and path. We walked through the gates of the Kamanetz Podolsk burial society (my great grandmother, Feige's mothe,. came from there)

Well, we looked and looked. We couldn't find Feige.

The lovely groundskeeper who was cleaning up the weeds from around the graves asked us who we were looking for. 

We told him that we were looking for Feige. He asked how old she was and then directed us to the section with children's graves.

Children's graves behind my husband

These small grave markers were made of sandstone.  Most of the lettering had just melted away.

The lovely groundskeeper was helping us look for my great aunt

Some weeds still needed to be cut

Seeing those washed away gravestones was so unspeakably sad. The groundskeeper suggested that we go check again with the folks in the office. So we did. They pulled out an ancient map that had been marked out on paper that was reinforced with a linen backing. The women in the office explained that at age twelve, my grandmother's sister wasn't among the babies but was with the older children.  

We were given better directions and went back to try again to find Aunt Feige.

We were told that she was eleven graves from the end of the row. We counted eleven graves and found

Feige's grave had either fallen down or had simply sunk into the ground. Feige's grave was the rectangular stone below the one marked "Mother".

I hadn't known that Great Aunt Feige Weisglass even existed until about a dozen years ago. I had found her grave...and the stone was missing. 

I wondered if this stone carved to look like a tree trunk was part of Feige's gravestone.

The stone to the left of where Feige was buried is for a young woman named Freya who like my aunt also had a father named Chaim. The two were about the same age when they died. I wondered if they kept one another company in the hereafter.

This stone not far from where my aunt Feige was buried contains a beautiful acrostic poem that compares the Bluma who is buried beneath this stone  to a flower and also talks about the deep grief of her parents. I hope that Feige had a similar tribute on her stone.

We left the tumbled down baby graves and my great aunts last resting place

 and continued to Mount Hebron Cemetery where Baby Yetta and her mother Feige Tzivia Siegel were both buried.

Baby Yetta was buried in the Workman Circle section. She was buried among other babies, but we had to find her. 

First I found some beautiful stones with their enamel portraits still intact.

I finally found the babies.

These sandstone markers were easier to read.  We went through all of them . So much sadness. So many babies had died.

And then, I found her!!!

Why does it say Etta and not Yetta??? because her family referred to her by her Yiddish name Itta. My husband and I recited the El Maleh Rachamim.

After we left Baby Yetta we saw stones for other young children. The boy pictured here was just five years old.

Just past the baby section was the section for young people who died far too young with their grave markers looking like cut trees.

This stone is just a few rows away from the baby section. It just broke my heart.

This is the front of that stone.

The Bernstein family clearly had many tragedies. 

We made our way back to the car and went off the find my mother's other Aunt Feige, Feige Tzivia Siegel. I had already seen a photo of the grave thanks to Findagrave.com.

I knew that Feige tzivia was buried in the Czernowitzer section of Mount Hebron. My mother's grandfather came from Czernowitz.

We walked the rows of graves until we found her.

Her photo either fell off it its mounting or was stolen. She was a beautiful woman.

I left a stone.

We recited the El Maleh Rachamim.

I was so struck to see my great grandfather's name. Fannie died on the day before Sukkot.

There was a footstone as well and her name was corrected to read "Fennie". Like I said earlier in this post, in my family it is the Jewish name that counts and the English name is fluid.

Mount Hebron Cemetery is organized into blocks. Little Yetta was in a block far from her mother.  My grandfather's sister Feige Tzivia was just two short blocks from my in-laws so we went to pay them a visit.

We recited a maleh for both of them and left stones to let them know we visited.

Then we went to their old house which is about a mile from their graves. Their little brick fronted one family two storey house is now a three storey two family house that is completely faced in brick. The only thing that remains the same is the address.

It was a day that was both exhausting and deeply meaningful. I am so deeply grateful to my husband for making today possible.