Our Ancestors

Lena Reinstein Eisner (1861-1924) was a diminutive powerhouse. She stood only four foot eleven inches, but she lived a big life. The best description of our colorful great grandmother comes from Rick’s Dad, Milt Silverman, who wrote: 

Lena Reinstein (Muzzy), born in Visalia, married her brother’s law partner Milton Eisner. Far ahead of her times, she was a teacher, a cooking expert, a cigar-smoking supporter of the arts, a close friend of such people as Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, Isadora and Morris Duncan, Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn. She guided the education of her daughter, Helen. When Lena learned she was dying from cancer, she took Helen for a final visit to Europe and then across Russia and Siberia on the Trans-Siberian Express.

She was born in Visalia, California, January 29, 1861. Her parents were Oscar (1827-1906) and Hanna (b. 1834) Reinstein. The Reinsteins were Jewish immigrants from Posen, Prussia. They came in the 1850’s during the California Gold Rush. In Visalia they worked as merchants, providing goods and services for prospectors. Lena was the fourth born of five Reinstein children. Her older siblings were: Jacob (1854-1911), Adeline (1856 -1923), Mary (1858-1945), and her younger sister August (1864-1914). During the 1860’s the Reinsteins moved to San Francisco, living on North Sansome Street. 

I visited the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley to learn more about our great grandmother. In the Milton Daniel Eisner (1886-1959) Papers box, were five manila folders dedicated to his mother, Lena (Reinstein) Eisner. I’ve photographed and posted Lena’s Bancroft sources. If you click on the bold, underlined text you can see each source including: diplomas from high school and college, correspondence with friends, two articles from San Francisco newspapers covering Lena’s luncheons, an essay by Lena on Jewish children celebrating Christmas,  and her Last Will and Testament. The collection contained a single photo of Lena with her children Helen Eisner (1889-1963) and Milton D. Eisner (1886-1959) taken in 1924, the year of her death. 

Student and Teacher

In the 1870’s Lena attended Denman Grammar School in San Francisco, named after James Denman often called the father of San Francisco public schools. During this decade, Denman was exclusively a girls’ school located on the northwest corner of Bush and Taylor streets. 

Lena went to Girls' High School in San Francisco, graduating on May 23,1878. According to the Annual Commencement brochure, Lena was in the Senior Class A, graduating second in this group of thirty nine. 

Four years later Lena earned her teaching certificate at the California Kindergarten Normal School, class of 1882. In the 19th century a Normal School was an institution created to train high school graduates to be teachers by educating them in pedagogy and curriculum. She was one of thirteen women to graduate.  

At the evening graduation exercises at the Dashaway Hall, on June 3, 1882, Miss Lena A. Reinstein performed an "Imaginary Conversation between Froebel and Pestalozzi." Froebel and Pestalozzi were important educators from the 18th century. Froebel emphasized learning through play with specific materials and activities. Pestalozzi was known for his motto, “Learning by head, hand and heart.” Among Lena’s effects was a poem, "Birthday Hymn" dedicated to Froebel,  written by her friend Anna Warner, who graduated the same evening.

Lena’s friend Anna also wrote and performed the Class Song during the evening graduation ceremony, where both received their teaching certificates. Anna's lyrics expressed the passionate dedication of the newly minted kindergarten teachers to their children. She wrote:

As lovers of sweet childhood

We gather here tonight:

In every heart the firm resolve

To toil for childhood’s right.

We firmly take our stand,

And for this noble cause we’ll work

With head, and heart, and hand.

Presumably, Lena taught at the Pagoda Hills Kindergarten since one folder contained an 1886 Thanksgiving performance program from this Oakland school. The slogan of the school was, “We Learn Through Doing.” On the back of program was Lena’s handwritten soda biscuit recipe, perhaps foreshadowing her considerable interest in the culinary arts. 

In 1904 Lena R. Eisner received a special certificate for teaching Domestic Science and Cookery in San Francisco. In addition to teaching these special subjects, she held a teacher’s certificate for regular subjects including: English grammar and spelling. Lena’s standing in her class was number one. 

Miss Lena Reinstein Becomes Mrs. Milton S. Eisner

Milt Silverman described Lena’s future husband, Milton Sidney Eisner (1860-1921), as a “romantic man-about-town.” Milton worked with Lena’s brother Jacob Reinstein in a law firm. Both men graduated from Cal, Berkeley, Jacob in 1873 and the younger Milton a decade later in 1883. We surmise, Jacob introduced Milton to his younger sister Lena. 

Milton’s parents were Daniel (1825-1870) and Mary (b.1831) Eisner. Both were immigrants from Bohemia who settled in California in the early 1850’s. The Eisner’s first home was in Folsom, California, where they worked in retail during the Gold Rush. Like the Reinsteins, they moved to San Francisco. The Eisners had six sons, Milton being the fifth in line.

In an era of wooing by letter, one folder contained evidence of courting between Lena Reinstein and Milton S. Eisner. For example, between 1882 and 1884 there are no less than sixteen envelopes addressed to Milton S. Eisner from Lena. Letters flowed back the other way, too, with Milton writing Lena. By 1883, she received a letter showing that Milton had become a lawyer, the envelope addressed from Milton S. Eisner Law Offices on 330 Pine St. to Miss Lena A. Reinstein.

Lena went to an 1884 Song Recital and Hop for Company F, where Corporal Milton S. Eisner, was on the Reception Committee. My guess is Lena got a warm one, reception that is, because this was the year that she married the Corporal. Children soon followed. In 1886, the couple had their first child, Milton Daniel Eisner. Three years later in 1889 Helen Eisner, our Nanny Helen, was born. 

Mrs. Milton S. Eisner would eventually become a grandmother of six. Her daughter Helen married Henry Friedman (1878-1948). They had four children, our parents: Margaret (1912-1993), Milton (1914-1991), Virginia (1915-1980) and Beatrice Friedman (1919-1997). Her son Milton Daniel Eisner (1886-1959) married Belle Gluckman (1887-1974). The couple had two children, Robert (1911-1969) and Williard (1914-1965) Eisner. 

Cooking Expert

Lena emerged as a turn of the century version of the frugal gourmet. The San Francisco Chronicle from Sunday June 1st, 1902, contained an article entitled, “Luncheon at Ten Cents a Head.”  In it, Lena Eisner was heralded for putting on a fantastic luncheon for twelve, for a total cost of $1.20 or .10 cents a guest. Ten cents in 1900 was about $3.00 a meal in today’s prices. 

The paper reported the menu prepared by Mrs. Eisner included no less than sixteen items and “her table, set for twelve in a room where gay lights were substituted for sun, was polished so highly that all the wares and decorations twinkled away in its mahogany depths, seeming to {highlight} the very novelty and joy of the occasion…”

The folder also contained Lena’s hand written copy of the luncheon menu, along with a humorous certificate of accomplishment given to her by her friends.  A few funny lines included:

Whereas, the meat trust having caused the price of meat to rise so high that is has become a luxury that only vegetarians can enjoy and...

Whereas we have all come with alarmingly large appetites and good digestion ...

Be it resolved that in spite of the above disheartening conditions Mrs. Eisners’ ten cent French luncheon of sixteen courses, including finger bowls and games, be proclaimed an unqualified success, very filling, and that she be commended for the judicious expenditures of money and talent…

Lena was also featured in a second article in the San Francisco Call, Sunday June 12th, 1910 which heralded her considerable cooking skills. It was entitled, "Dainty Luncheon for Fifteen Cost Hostess 15 Cents Each.” The reporter wrote:

Housekeepers attention! If you are possessed of brains and ingenuity and a moderate amount of pocket money you can entertain on a fairly elaborate scale at the rate of 15 cents a place. The fact was proved beyond a doubt at a luncheon which Mrs. M.S. Eisner was hostess at her home in Baker Street yesterday…. 

It is all a matter of presentation anyway,” Mrs. Eisner said yesterday as she put the finishing touches to the table decorations. “Take the choicest food and serve it carelessly and it makes less of an impression than a less expensive dish with attention to all of the dainty details."

Accompanying the article was a photo of Mrs. Eisner and her daughter  Miss Helen Eisner -- our Nanny Helen.

Lena was our very own Martha Stewart, but, of course, without the prison record. 

Friends

We know how important friendships were to Lena Reinstein Eisner from her memorabilia which contained poems, postcards, and cards to a variety of friends. For example, the first time we hear Lena’s voice was  a poem for a school friend dated Jan. 21, 1874. She was thirteen:

To Carrie, 

Though change may come,

And friends must part, 

Distance can not change my heart.

From your everlasting friend,

Lena Reinstein

One folder is dedicated to Lena’s correspondence to the Warner family, including her life-long friends Anna and Ella Warner. She saved several of Anna's poems including “Eschscholitzia" or "California Poppy,"  dated April 7, 1891. 

In 1891, Lena sent a note of condolence to Ella Warner, saddened by a death in the Warner family.  She wrote, 

My poor dear Ella, 

It is has been impossible to compose myself before now, to tell you of the sorrow in my heart and of my sympathy for the grief that fills yours. ... the dainty little blossom has faded away beyond human touch, beyond earthly recall- oh, the pity of it Ella. 

In December of 1906, Lena confessed in a notecard to Anna Warner that she was not feeling well: 

Dear Anna, 

I wish I could be transported to your side for a little while for there is so much I want to talk with you about, but I am in such a nervous state … I am really in need of a long rest.

We don’t know what led to Lena’s low spirits, although coincidentally it was sent several months after the terrifying Great Earthquake of San Francisco in April 1906.

One card to Ella Warner in 1922 revealed how Lena cherished her circle of friends. She wrote:

My very dearly loved Ella, 

For a little time past, it has been my pleasure to gather close to me a small group who have contributed so much in every way to my life and happiness, and as a slight recognition and recompense for such a loving contribution, I call them my “dollar a year people” -- the dollar however unlike the historical ‘during the war one’, to date from the recipient's birth -- hence the enclosed check which goes with my very best wishes.

Apparently, Lena created a tradition of sending one dollar a year to her closest friends. The idea was modeled after the “dollar-a-year men,” when wealthy business and government executives received a symbolic dollar from the government for their efforts in World War 1. Lena’s adapted this as a fond gesture for her best friends. 

Lena Eisner was part of the San Francisco Bay Area’s turn of the century intelligentsia. Uncle Milt pointed out that several of her friends were famous. For example, she had close friendships with luminaries such as poet, novelist and playwright Gertrude Stein and her life partner, Alice B. Toklas. Lena was a patron of the arts, especially modern dancers: Isadora Duncan, Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn. In her Will, Lena left money to both St. Denis and Shawn.

World Traveler

Postcards and passports tell the story of Lena Eisner world travels. The Warner family of Oakland received postcards from their friend during her extensive trips. Lena sent a postcard from Dresden Germany reporting on her, “most interesting trip through Syria and Palestine Partition, Cairo…” Postcards were also sent of the Sphinx in Egypt and of Bethlehem, wishing the Warners a Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year.  Lena sent travel postcards from Macao and Sidney, Australia. 

Lena Eisner had no fewer than seven passports issued in: 1898, 1907,1908, 1912, 1914, 1920, and 1924. According to her first passport, Lena “resided outside" the US from 1898-1900.  Her 1907 passport indicated that she was to remain abroad “for an indefinite period” between 1907-1909. In 1914 she spent time in Europe, sailing from Boulogne, France to New York aboard the President Lincoln. In 1920 Lena Eisner traveled to Central and South America on the Heredia. Her passport from that year indicated that she visited: Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay, Peru, Columbia, Ecuador, Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, Venezuela, and Guiana.  

Lena's last passport, issued February 12, 1924, documented her final trip to Europe, including visits to England, France, Portugal, Belgium and other European destinations. Milt Silverman tells us that this European trip was with her daughter Helen when she was dying of cancer. They not only visited European destinations, but “then across Russia and Siberia on the Trans-Siberian Express.” 

Over her lifetime, Lena’s adventures took her to six of the seven continents. 

Lena’s Essay: the Jewish child shall celebrate Christmas 

The longest piece of writing in Lena’s folders was a handwritten essay, which I’ve typed in its entirety. On the top of the first page she wrote, “Resolved: That the Jewish child shall celebrate Xmas.”  This composition may explain why all of us, Lena’s great grandchildren, grew up celebrating a secular Christmas with our families.

In this polemic, Lena argues that Jewish children should feel free to celebrate a secular Christmas, since Christ was a great person, his values ones which we should not be afraid to honor. She begins by acknowledging that for orthodox Jews and other non-Christians celebrating Christmas “spells trouble” since it is viewed as a “sectarian holiday.” She reminds us that the traditions of Christmas were taken from pagan festivals, long before Christ was born.  She adds, "After the introduction of Christianity, the ancient feasts were interpreted with a new spirit, to mean the banishment of darkness and ignorance, selfishness, and ill will, and to inculcate and spread the gospel of new light, hope and knowledge, love, kindness, and tolerance." 

Secondly, she asserts that American Jews could overcome the sting of segregation if they were willing to celebrate Christmas, "We must also remember that we are living in a nation whose history, traditions and makeup are essentially Christian and if we are to free ourselves from the ban of exclusiveness and segregation, we should enter into the spirit of these joyous times…" 

Nor does she feel that San Francisco Jews will lose their own Jewish identity by celebrating Christmas,  "…we Jews will lose nothing, but rather gain incalculably by joining with our Christian brethren to help the common cause of humanity, and to spread the gospel of love, peace and harmony.” 

She reminds us that we celebrate many famous people and events in the US. Why shouldn’t Christ be one such person? Finally, she points out that Christ is a great role model for our children because his life provided many “deeds of kindness and tender mercy, warm hearted help for the poor and needy, the helpless, and the distressed.”

In this essay she shows an extensive knowledge of customs and traditions from around the world. She buttresses her argument by adding her own travel observations from the Holy Land:

I had timed the date of my world tour so I could be in Bethlehem and Jerusalem during Xmas week and in my walks through both cities, I was led by curiosity to ask many Jewish children whom I saw playing with new toys about their gifts. There, as elsewhere in the world, the answers did not surprise me. The children worship to their Santa Claus as they love to call their Saint Nicholas, and care nothing for the religious side of it.

Our great grandmother ended her essay with "Ring Out, Wild Bells” a part of Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poem, "In Memoriam.” In copying or remembering the poem, Lena changed a few of Tennyson’s lines, most notably, omitting Tennyson's final line, “Ring in the Christ that is to be.” Nevertheless, the spirit of the poem is preserved. It is perhaps the best example of Lena’s Eisner’s philosophy of life contained among her keepsakes. She included the following lines:

Ring out the old, ring in the new,

Ring happy bells across the snow,

The years is going, let him go;

Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the feud of rich and poor, 

Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out the slowly dying cause,

And ancient forms of party strife.

Ring in the modern modes of life,

With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care, the sins,

The faithless coldness of the times,

Ring out false pride of place and blood,

The civic slander and the spite.

Ring in the love of truth and right.

Ring in the common love of good. 

Ring out old shapes of foul disease,

Ring out the narrow lust of gold,

Ring out the thousand wars of old, 

Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,

The larger heart, the kinder hand.

Ring out the darkness in the land,

Ring in the tolerance that ought to be.

A Life Well Lived

Lena’s husband, Milton S. Eisner, died in October of 1921. Lena would live three more years, residing at the Granada Hotel. She did not slow down, despite the death of her husband and contracting cancer. Our Uncle Milt Silverman wrote, “When Lena learned she was dying from cancer, she took Helen for a final visit to Europe and then across Russia and Siberia on the Trans-Siberian Express.” She passed away at sixty-three, December 14th, 1924.

Lena Eisner’s Will paints a picture of her loving family and friends. She assigned her son, Milton D. Eisner, and son-in-law, Henry Friedman, as the executors of her Will. It begins, “IN THE NAME OF GOD, AMEN." She left money to her seven grandchildren including our parents: Margaret, Milton, Virginia and Beatrice Friedman. She provided for her nieces and nephews, the Wolfs, and her Reinstein and Rosenshine cousins. Lena left gifts for a dozen friends. She donated to the Associated Charities of San Francisco, as well as the San Francisco Jewish Federated Charities. The remainder of her money and property was bequeathed to her son, Milton, and her daughter, Helen. They are shown with their mom, this final photo taken in 1924. 

Though short in stature, our talented great grandmother was big in intellect and heart. Lena Reinstein Eisner shined in her traditional roles as teacher, cook, and mother. That said, she lived an unconventional life for a woman of her day. She traveled the world, supported the arts, befriending with some of the Bay Area’s leading lights. Lena left a legacy of learning and world travel for her children and grandchildren, and her passion still reverberates in her descendants today. Hers was a life well lived.

DF - 2019