Hannah Schwartz -

Hannah Schwartz was my great grandmother on my mom's dad's side of the family.  I'm going to do my best to keep track of who was who and related how....otherwise it's all too confusing!

I don't know much about Hannah.  I haven't heard many stories, or seen many pictures.  My mother remembers visiting her and that she had a toilet outside the house, or maybe an outhouse.  That would have been in the mid 20's.

Hannah was born in Hungary in about 1855 and died January 16th, 1926.  72 years old, not bad for those times.

I believe that the Schwartz family emigrated here around 1891-1894.  I had some difficulty with finding the early census as the 1900 census shows the Head of the Household as called "Rris" (married to Hannie).  Actually, this makes sense, as Hannah's husband's name was "Moritz" - often referred to as Morris in later census records.

The 1900 census, has the family as Rris - 50 years old  and Hannie - 45 years old, with Nettie, 23;  Rosie, 21; Sam - 18, Bennie (age 13 - my grandfather). Father was a cigar maker, which is consistent with later census records.  There should be a younger son listed, Harry who would have been around 10 years old, but you can tell from the handwriting on the census list that this census taker was either impatient or exhausted, so Harry got missed on this census.

Hannah lists 9 children born, and 5 living.   She could read, write and speak English.  They lived on Columbia Street, which runs between Houston and Delancy street.  You can be sure it was a typical tenement building; go to this site for a tour of what tenement living was like in those days.  A two or three room apartment for at least 7 people.

A public school on the corner of Broome and Columbia Street, I'll have to do some research to see where the younger kids in the family went to school - perhaps here.

A typical lower east side scene.

In the 1910 census, only Ben and Harry were living at home with their parents.

The only food story that I have about Hannah is that my grandfather loved her rolls, and claimed that his wife's rolls were never as good.  My grandmother went to visit her mother in law and asked about the rolls.  Turns out that Hannah bought them at a local bakery.

A rare photo of Hannah's husband Moritz (Morris) Schwartz.  The story is that he didn't allow his photo to be taken due to his religious beliefs.

I wonder what he's looking at thru those binoculars!

Link to Family Tree

Introduction

For a few years now I've wanted to compile family recipes into a book and have it available for family members.  I've collected recipes, collected pictures and have the idea in my head...but also have no time to do the actual book assembly. I hired an out-of-work friend to do the work for me but she got a new job and doesn't have the time to do it either.  

So I got the brilliant idea to start a new blog and simply build the book post by post.  I'll give out the blog address to family members and in the end I can make the book thru Blurb.

As I write this a historic storm is raging outside.  It's early morning on February 9th, 2013 and the snow is about 3 feet high outside my sunroom window. Perfect time to begin this new task.

My plan is to focus on the women in the family - giving as much history as I can about each one, and show their handwritten recipes along with a typewritten or clearly written recipe.  Why typed or rewritten?  You'll see as we get to the recipes.  My plan is to test as many of the recipes as I can, which will be challenging as many of them have no real measurements written down.  

So that's the intro to this project, I'll start testing recipes, posting, researching and posting more.