Our Ancestors

Your Grandma Fran was named Frances JULIA Newman (1925-1995). Her middle name Julia, was the first name of her grandmother Julia Caro Newman (1867-1924). She didn’t know her grandmother, who died a year before she was born. No doubt, her dad Frank Z. Newman (1894-1978) wanted to honor the memory of his mother when his youngest daughter was born.

I recently learned that Julia’s father was Isaac Caro (b. 1843), born in Prussia. My 2nd great grandfather Isaac and I had something in common: four daughters. His were named Regina (1861-1937), Julia (1867-1924), Jennie (1870-1956), and Olga (1874-1952). His second daughter Julia was my great grandmother.

Julia Caro, who was your great great grandmother, married your great great grandfather, Samuel Newman (1858-1918), in 1891. She was 24. They had four children, including my Grandfather, whom we called Baba.

With a little research, I've learned: Julia Caro was born in 1867. Her ship’s manifest indicates she was born in the region of Posen and the town of Kolmar, then part of the German kingdom of Prussia. Kolmar is now called Chodziesen, located in Northwestern Poland. So, we’ll have to add Posen and Chodziesen to a future family heritage tour of Eastern Europe, along with Marijampole, Amdur, Sulwalki and Bialystok.  I think we are going to like Chodziesen, which a quick Internet search describes as the "the Switzerland of Chodzież", with mountains, lakes, and forests. Our type of place.

Our Newman, Friedman and Stein ancestors lived in the Russian Pale, towns in Lithuania, Poland, and Belarus, under the boot of the Russian Czar. My mom once told me that her grandmother, Julia, came from an area that went back and forth between Polish and German rule. She was right. Posen was in Poland before the Napoleonic Wars, but was annexed by Prussia in 1815. After World War 1 Posen was returned to Poland. The town’s Polish name is Poznan.

What was life like in Prussian Posen for the Caros? We don’t know their specific jobs or circumstances. According to the Jewish Virtual Library, “two fifths of Prussian Jewry were concentrated in Posen (where they formed 6% of the population) …The majority of Prussian Jewry lived in rural and semi-rural conditions, peddling, shop- and inn keeping, commerce, and livestock trade were the main occupations.”

Did Prussian Jews face discrimination and anti-Semitism, as our relatives from the Russian Pale? Apparently, Prussia had a mixed record. The Jewish Virtual Library says, “In spite of the noteworthy cultural, economic, and social achievement of Prussian Jews within the new German Empire, Prussia retained a specific conservative, anti-Jewish, social and political attitudes…” 

Nor do we know the specific reasons for the Caros’ immigration to the US. We do know that 16-year-old Julia Caro traveled from Hamburg, Germany on the ship Rugia to New York in 1883. It appears she traveled alone, although her older sister Regina emigrated the same year. Records also indicate that Julia’s father Isaac, and her younger sisters, Jennie and Olga, also arrived in the US in the late nineteenth century as well.

San Francisco was a special place, with freedoms and opportunities for Julia and her family. According to the summary of the film, American Jerusalem: Jews and the Making of San Francisco, “In San Francisco they [Jewish immigrants] found their Promised Land. In the middle of the 19th century, San Francisco’s infrastructure and institution were not yet built. Therefore, in stark contrast to cities elsewhere in America, where Jews had to fit into an existing power structure, many Jewish pioneers built those institutions, becoming prominent merchants, politicians, and civic leaders.”

In San Francisco, young Julia lived with her older sister, Regina, and her husband Salluc Scheyer. In the interview I did with my grandfather in 1976, he explained how his mother met his father. “In about 1889 or 1890, one of the department store owners, Mr. Scheyer, on 16 Sansome Street, invited my father to come to his home, where two of his wife’s single sisters were living. My father met my mother, Julia Caro. After a period, they were married in 1890.”

During the 1890’s Samuel and Julia Newman tried several unsuccessful attempts to establish businesses in Hanford, Stockton, and Napa before returning to San Francisco. Apparently, Julia hated the Hanford heat, and who could blame her? The couple and their kids moved back to San Francisco at the turn of the century.

In San Francisco Samuel and Julia lost their store in the Great Earthquake. Frank Z. Newman explained, “In 1906, the big earthquake and fire took place. My father's business was burned to the ground… Then the thought came to him and others with the Redlick family that with the city destroyed, homes needed to be furnished. They went into the furniture business at 18th and Mission Streets. They stayed in that location from 1906 to 1917, and moved to the big large quarters and 17th and Mission Streets…”

Samuel and Julia had four children, Frank (1894 -1978), Violet (1896-1971), Genevieve (1901-1991), and Leslie (1904-1989). They lived on 3912 Clay Street. Samuel J. Newman passed away in 1918, six years before Julia died in 1924.  They are buried side by side at the Salem Memorial Park and Garden cemetery in Colma.

We can only imagine what it must have been like for a 16-year-old Julia to travel alone by ship to the US, leaving her Eastern European world behind. She did have family here, which must have been a comfort. Still, we admire her courage.

A year after Julia’s death, in 1925 your Grandma Fran was born.  Frank and Arline Newman paid tribute to Julia Newman by naming their youngest daughter Frances JULIA Newman.

Sometimes legacies include land and fortunes. Families may pass along the respect for learning through the generations.  However, love is the most precious legacy of all. Surely, Frank and Arline Newman felt loved by Julia Caro, and they loved her. What better way to honor Julia’s memory than to bequeath her name to their youngest child?

Let this grand tradition continue.

  

DF -  2019