A circle of sorts

One of the fun benefits of having a blog is keeping track of the stats. No, I’m not the NSA, but I’m able to see what countries my readers are from.  Usually most of my readers are from the US and Canada. Because I have sewing buddies that I know through some internet sewing discussion groups who live all over the world, when I see that I have a reader from New Zealand or from England I can guess who it is ( Hi Anne! Hi Sandy!)

Sometimes though, a post takes on a life of it’s own.  This post seems to have struck a nerve in the sewing world and it has been reposted in a variety of places including on a Swedish sewing board. That post seems to have created interest in both Romania and the Ukraine. I now have a steady stream of readers who come from the land of my ancestors. My mother’s family comes from either side of the border, my grandfather’s family from what is now Kosogorka, but was known in those days as Frampol, in the Podolia province of the Ukraine, just outside of Kamenetz- Podolsk.
My grandmother came from outside of Czernowitz in the Bukovina. In 1903 when she came with her family to the US, it was under Austrian rule.

This was my grandmother’s relative, Siegmund Weisglass. I haven’t quite figured out exactly how he was related but he is definitely my relative.

He was actually an important guy. If you look at page 3 of the program for the 1909 Zionist Congress , you will see his name listed as the delegate from Zastavna.Program from the 1909 Zionist Congress. Siegmund and his family were big land owners.

an admission ticket to the 1909 Zionist Congress

Siegmund was actually elected mayor of Zastavna in 1904.  His roots in Zastavna were deep. The chaos after WWI caused him to move to Vienna with his family. Here is the death notice for  his father Hersch death notice. Heresch buried in Vienna and then disinterred and reburied in Zastavna.
Siegmund was also part of a small group of men who drafted a letter after WWI demanding that Jews retain the civil rights they had while under Austrian rule, even though Czernowitz and it’s surrounding area was ten under Romanian rule. That and the death notice are the last bits of information I have  about Siegmund.
My mother’s father, Yaakov Yisrael came from the town of Frampol, now, Kosogorska in the Ukraine.
This tombstone is from the Jewish cemetery in Frampol. I don’t know if the woman buried under this tombstone is my relative. I do love the heavy lettering style.
Well, if any of you know any more about Frampol, or Zastavna, the illustrious Weisglass family or the lovely but far less illustrious Frater/Levak family, please let me know.