CHAPTER FOUR

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Family Secrets Buried in The B’nai Zion Jewish Cemetery

 

 Henry Bernheim and Sigfried Weis

 

Pete and I found the old B’nai Zion Jewish Cemetery behind the Danville High School, not far from the nursing home where we had met with Sike Miller the day before.  We immediately felt a connection to this cemetery when we noticed headstones with the names “Dreifuss” “Bernheimer” and “Bernheim.”

Some stones made reference to Altdorf and Schmieheim, Germany.  We were in the right place.

 

Two Important Findings in the B’nai Zion Cemetery

 

There was much we hoped to learn from the old Jewish Cemetery, but, although many of the headstones we found there recited familiar surnames, they told us little about the lives or family histories of those buried there.  But there were two gravesites we found at B’nai Zion Cemetery from which we did learn much about Leopold’s immigration and what we learned about these individuals significantly changed the direction or our research.  Additional research on both of these individuals gave us a much broader understanding of the immigration of the Dreifuss siblings.

 

Finding Henry Bernheim

 

The name of the first of these individuals buried in the old Jewish Cemetery was not a surprise to us.  Leonard’s research and his understanding of the writings of Isaac W. Bernheim lead him believe that a man named Henry Bernheim, who was living in Selinsgrove at approximately the time that young Leopold Dreifuss arrived in Pennsylvania had been Leopold’s uncle, and that somehow this Uncle Henry Bernheim had taken young Leopold, and his siblings that immigrated later, under his wing and provided for them until they could provide for themselves.  The following remarks were found in Leonard’s notes:

 

“Rosina Bernheim, Leopold’s mother had many relatives living in Altdorf (Germany) at the time of Isaac’s death  so I deduced that after Rosina’s death the Children were left in the care of the Bernheims.  As the children reached their majority each was sent to the U.S.  Henry Bernheim was a peddler in Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania so I believe they were sent in his care.”

 

Although the surname of the man that Leonard found living in Selinsgrove in the 1870 census was listed as “Henry Barnhein,” Isaac W. Bernheim’s statement in his autobiographical book that his father’s brother, Henry Bernheim had lived in “Selins Grove” and died “about 1878” lead Leonard to the conclusion that this was the family of Rosina Drefuss’ brother.  Henry Bernheim’s headstone at the B’nai Zion cemetery told us only that Bernheim died in 1877 at the age of only 51, but this was significant.  Although IWB’s book indicated that Henry had died in “about 1878,” Prior to discovering his gravesite I had not considered how young Henry Bernheim was when he died, or the impact his early death must have had upon the younger Dreifuss siblings.  Evidence suggests that Rosa, the youngest of the Dreifuss siblings, did not immigrate until the early 1880s, years after Henry’s passing.

 

Pete and I needed to understand more about this Henry Bernheim and the later findings from our research contributed to our understanding of the role he may have played in the immigration of the Dreifuss children.  What we subsequently learned from our research about Henry Bernheim did not prove that any of the Dreifuss siblings had been sent to Selinsgrove into Henry Bernheim’s care, but it did teach us much about the life of this man and established the likelihood that, as Leonard believed, Henry had somehow played a significant part in the immigration of Leopold and his siblings.

 

Leonard knew little about his German family and most of what he believed he knew about Henry Bernheim of Selinsgrove came from one awkward sentence in Isaac Wolf Bernheim’s 1910 autobiography, “The Story of the Bernheim Family:”

 

“Both my father and his brother, my uncle Henry Bernheim, who emigrated to the United States in 1850 and who died about 1878 in Selins Grove, Penna., where he was a merchant, received their education first in the Hebrew School at Schmieheim and later in a small graded school in Ettenheim about four American miles from Schmieheim.”

 

To Leonard this sentence meant that Henry Bernheim, his grandfather’s uncle, was likely living in Selinsgrove at the time Leopold immigrated in 1868, and would have been able to care for his young nephew when he arrived.  If Henry was the brother of Leopold’s late mother he would have been motivated to assist her young children in America.

 

The 1870 census records confirmed for my father that sometime in that census year, a Henry Bernheim still lived in Selinsgrove with his wife, his mother-in-law and young daughter.  It was Henry’s 1850 emigration date, as stated by IWB, and the 1878 date of death that likely convinced Leonard that this Henry Bernheim must have been in Selinsgrove before Leopold arrived.

 

But as our research progressed and we learned more about Henry Bernheim, Pete and I realized that Henry could not have been the care-taker for all four of the Dreifuss children.  Henry Bernheim died in 1877, (not 1878) and we speculate that Leopold’s sister Rosa did not arrive in the United States until sometime in the early 1880s.  If this was so, Henry could not have been in Selinsgrove for Rosa, yet she also lived in Selinsgrove according to Leonard’s stories.

 

1860 census records seemed to indicate that, even after being in this country for almost ten years Henry was still working as a laborer in Allentown.  By 1870 he was a peddler in Selinsgrove, but had accumulated several large judgments including one filed by his mother-in-law, Mary Ellenbogen.  Henry did not sound like an individual financially capable of bearing the financial commitment necessary to bring the Dreifuss brothers to Pennsylvania and to provide for them until they were able to support themselves.

 

But the information that we later found in Ortssippenbuch and Baden records would support Leonard’s belief that Henry was an uncle to the Dreifuss siblings, as did the Blum data that Leonard relied upon.

 

Ortssippenbuch (OSB) information from the towns of Altdorf and Schmieheim in Germany told us about Leopold’s German family.  The OSB records from Altdorf agreed with Leopold’s Brooklyn Death certificate that told Leonard that his grandfather’s parents had been Isaac Dreifuss and Rosina Bernheimer, whom Leonard knew had been residents of Altdorf, Baden Germany.  OSB records told us that while Leopold’s father was Isaak Dreifuss of Altdorf, his mother was Rosina Bernheimer from Schmieheim.  His maternal grandparents, we now knew, were Salomon Bernheimer and Ela Schnurmann, also of Schmieheim.

 

 “Hershel Bernheimer” was another child of Salomon and Ela, according to OSB records.  Hershel had grown up in Schmieheim but later records establish that he later immigrated to Pennsylvania.  This Hershel Bernheimer of Schmieheim would have been Leopold’s uncle, and an uncle of Isaac W. Bernheim.  Hershel was the brother of IWB’s father and all evidence indicates that it was this Hershel (Henry) Bernheim who was in Selinsgrove at the time of the 1870 census.  It had been reasonable for Leonard to conclude that Hershel Bernheimer, the son of Salomon Bernheimer was the Henry Bernheim who was had been in Selinsgrove when Leopold arrived in 1868.  It was this Henry Bernheim that Leonard suspected had served as caretaker for his grandfather and his siblings.

 

From The Schmieheim OSB

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Leopold Dreifuss, according to the Altdorf OSB, was a son of Rosina Bernheimer, daughter of Salomon Bernheimer and Ella Scneuermann from Schmieheim (listed as Racheles in the Schmieheim OSB).  Leopold, according to the OSB had been born in 1850, while brothers Aaron and Henry (Heinrich) had been born in 1857 and 1859 respectively.  Leopold’s sister Rosa had been born in 1861, which meant that she was just 3 years old when her mother died in 1864 and only 7 when Leopold left Altdorf.  Another sister, Emma shown in the OSB, apparently never left Germany, perhaps staying behind to care for father Isaak .

 

From The Altdorf OSB

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Earlier Immigrating Dreifuss and Bernheimer Families in Pennsylvania

 

Although Leonard believed that Henry Bernheim was the relative who agreed to care for the Dreifuss siblings in Pennsylvania, on many occasions during his life he shared with his sons his strong feeling that there must have been a network of relatives living in or near Selinsgrove to help care and provide for the Dreifuss siblings.

 

This was the reason that I began the search, described in the previous chapter, to determine if I could locate other relatives of Leopold using the names Bernheim or Dreifuss, regardless of the spelling, who might have lived in or around Selinsgrove when he arrived in 1868 who might have been able to care for him and his siblings when they arrived in Pennsylvania.  I found several Dreifuss and Bernheim families living in the area well before Leopold arrived, some of which had accumulated levels of success in Pennsylvania that may have given them the ability to provide the support that the young immigrants would have required.  Unfortunately, we were unable to establish a direct relationship between any of these families and our own or that any of them had provided aid of any type to Leopold or his siblings.

 

Although the OSB states that Hershel and Rosina Bernheimer had another Bernheimer brother by the name of “Isaac” who immigrated to America in 1851, we have been unable to substantiate this Bernheimer brother’s immigration through immigration records or otherwise.  Since we now know that Henry immigrated in 1851 we suspect that OSB records confused Isaac with Henry.  According to OSB records, the family of Salomon Bernheimer and Ella Schnurmann Bernheimer looked something like the following chart:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Henry Bernheim, it appears was married and living in Pennsylvania in 1864 when his sister, Rosina the mother of Leopold Dreifuss and his siblings died.  It would have been understandable if Rosina’s younger brother Henry had agreed to provide for the care of his sister’s children in their new home in Selinsgrove Pennsylvania.  In Selinsgrove Henry was earning his living as a peddler in 1870 and by the time of his death in 1877, his nephew IWB had described him as a merchant.  Henry might have taught the peddling trade to his young nephews.  Clearly, our information supported the conclusion that, even if Henry Bernheim was not the caretaker of all of the children as Leonard had speculated, he was clearly an important figure to the immigration of Dreifuss siblings.

 

Since census information supported the conclusion that Henry Bernheim was living in Selisgrove two years after Leopold’s 1868 arrival in Pennsylvania, we were surprised to learn that on February 7, 1869 Leopold had filed a Declaration of his Intention to seek United States citizenship in Montour County, Pennsylvania rather than in Snyder County, indicating that perhaps Leopold was not living with Henry Bernheim in Selinsgrove at that time.

 

But this concern was lessened when Pete found a record of a man by the name of Henry “Burnhammer” on a 1863 list of men eligible for duty in the Civil War.  This Henry was a 32 year-old married peddler living in Danville.  This peddler was a German immigrant, that could have been our Henry Bernheim who later moved from Allentown to Danville.  Perhaps, by 1868 when Leopold arrived, Henry had not yet moved from Danville to the home in Selinsgrove where he was found at the time of the 1870 census.  Leopold may have moved to Selinsgrove with Henry’s family.  By the time IWB wrote about his Uncle Henry Bernheim in Selinsgrove, Henry had made the move from Danville.  We realized we still had much to learn about this important relative, but at least now there was a credible explanation for what had appeared to be conflicting information.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1863 Registrar of Young Men Eligible for Military Service Showing a

Peddler named Henry Burnhammer working in Danville

 

Henry Bernheim’s gravesite at the B’nai Zion Cemetery in Danville stated simply:

 

  “HENRY BERNHEIM

 Born 1825,

 Died Sept 1877.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Henry’s birth year of 1825, etched upon this stone, matches the year of the birth of the Hershel Bernheimer described in the Schmieheim OSB, a date of death not inconsistent with Isaac W. Bernheim’s quote concerning his father’s brother, Henry Bernheim, in which IWB stated that his father’s only brother died “about 1878” in “Selins Grove, Penna.”  It is very likely that this grave is the final resting place of Leopold Dreifuss’ Uncle Henry.

 

The evidence supports the conclusion that Uncle Henry Bernheim, was living in Selinsgrove in 1868, when Leopold arrived in Pennsylvania, and did not die until 1877, several years after Leopold, Aaron and Henry Dreifuss arrived.  Clearly, Henry could have been of assistance the Dreifuss brothers as they became oriented in Selinsgrove, but Rosa, the youngest of the four Dreifuss siblings, did not leave Germany until the early 1880s, after the death of Henry Bernheim.  We later found marriage records suggesting that Rosa lived in Philadelphia before coming to Selinsgrove so perhaps Henry was only involved in the care of the three Dreifuss brothers.

 

Hershel Bernheimer of Schmieheim would have been just short of his 52nd birthday on September 1, 1877, which his headstone identifies as his date of death.  Even in the nineteenth century, this was a short lifespan.  Henry’s wife and even his mother-in law survived him by many years and are buried elsewhere in B’nai Zion Cemetery.

 

Henry’s Naturalization Document in Easton

 

It would be several years before we would find, a document identifying itself to be “Naturalization Papers” for a twenty-six-year-old Henry Bernheim from Baden, Germany in approximately 1851.  The document was filed in Easton, Northampton County Pennsylvania on September 14, 1854.  This document indicates that Henry landed at the Port of New York on November 2, 1851, which would have made him 23 years old at the time.  Most of Henry’s siblings had apparently remained in Schmieheim, and although we understood that Henry’s mother, Ella Schnurman Bernheimer, died in 1851 it was not clear to us, at that time ,why Henry would have left Schmieheim that same year.  According to the Naturalization Papers his intention was to live in the City of Easton, Pennsylvania.  Descendents of Henry Bernheim’s that we have spoken to confirmed to us that family information passed down to them acknowledged that their ancestors had lived in Easton before coming to Selinsgrove.

 

 

 

But by 1860 Henry and his family was living, not in Easton, Pennsylvania, but close by in Allentown, Pennsylvania, claiming to be 30 years old.  If Henry was born in 1825 as Ortssippenbuch records and his tombstone state, he would have actually been 35 at the time, but it was not unusual for immigrants to understate their ages whenever possible in Government required documents.

 

The Covenant of Peace Congregation in Easton Pennsylvania has, in its early German language records, confirmation of a Henry “Bernheimer,”  that joined that Congregation in 1858 .  If we assume that this is the same Henry Bernheim, it would not necessarily mean that he was a resident of Easton in 1858, since there was no Allentown Synagogue at that time, and there are many records of Allentown Jews joining the Congregation in Easton prior to the opening of an Allentown Synagogue years later.

 

Nothing about these census records suggest why Henry Bernheim emigrated and came to Easton in 1851 or why nine years later he would have moved to nearby Allentown, only to work as a day laborer.  We could only speculate that Henry left Allentown sometime after 1860, when his German birth records suggest he would have been 35, and took his family to Selinsgrove in order to take advantage of the expanding economy there and to better his family’s financial situation.  The Jewish community in nearby Danville provided a network of fellow Jews, many of who were from the German towns of Altdorf and Schmieheim.  The fact that many of the non-Jewish residents of the area had a Dutch background and spoke German made this area all the more favorable for a young German peddler.

 

We found little in Selinsgrove to explain how Henry Bernheim made his living in there, or about the judgments we found recorded against him in a local courthouse.  However, on February 21, 1878, soon after the death of Henry Bernheim, the first of four identical advertisements appeared in the Snyder County Tribune:

 

 “A RARE CHANCE!  The undersigned would offer at Private Sale the BOTTLING ESTABLISHMENT, formerly ran by her husband the late Henry Bernheim.  Here is a rare chance for any parties who wish to invest in a paying enterprise.  It is a full and complete establishment, containing all the necessary equipments, as well as a machine for making Sarsaparilla.  Call upon or address the undersigned for information.”

       MRS. HENRY BERNHEIM, Selinsgrove, Pa.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From this advertisement, apparently published by Richa Bernheim after her husband’s death, in a Selinsgrove newspaper, we learned that Henry had owned equipment for the manufacture and bottling of “sarsaparilla”, a soft drink similar to root beer, which was popular during Henry’s time.  The advertisement suggests that Henry’s wife was selling not just sarsaparilla making and bottling equipment, but a “Bottling Establishment,” perhaps the business that Henry had managed prior to his death.  The selling of this bottled beverage may have been the peddling occupation that Henry refers to in the 1870 census and perhaps the reason why his nephew, IWB referred to his uncle, not as peddler, but as a “merchant.”

 

In the eighteenth century sarsaparilla was often sold based upon its alleged healing attributes, as per the advertisement found below.

 

 

 

Perhaps it was sarsaparilla that Leopold was being trained to sell during his short residence in

Selinsgrove.  It is possible that Aaron and Henry also sold sarsaparilla for a period before they opened their first store.  However, we found no advertisements for a sarsaparilla business in or around Selinsgrove during this period.

 

After Henry’s death, apparently his widow Richa sought to regain part of her late husband’s investment in the bottling establishment and apparatus which might have been the source of Henry’s debt to Richa’s mother, Mary Ellenbogen.  The relatively large amount that Henry apparently owed to Mary Ellenbogen may suggest that Henry’s mother-in-law may have loaned him the money to acquire the sarsaparilla apparatus.

 

The information we have been able to accumulate concerning Mary’s background does not suggest where she would have obtained the funds to loan to her son-in-law for his business in Selinsgrove .  None of the census records we have found listing Mary’s data discloses any means of employment by her, or sources of support other than from her son-in-law, Henry Bernheim.  Possibly, though she received money through other members of her own family living nearby.

 

There were other Ellenbogens living locally that could have been relatives and may have been Mary’s source of funds .  We do not have enough information to determine if or how these other Ellenbogens might have been related to Mary, but lacking other good theories we must theorize that she had such an alternative source of income.  Other census records support the view that Mary had a source of support other than Henry. It is possible that Richa’s unidentified father was the source of the funds

 

In the 1880 census, after Henry’s death, his mother-in-law, Mary Ellenbogen, with no stated employment, is listed as head of her household of four, which included young Sigfried Weis.  In addition, a land record search disclosed that Henry’s wife, Richa, had purchased, by sheriff’s sale in 1873, a house and property on Market Street in her name alone, four years before Henry died.  Although it is possible that Richa used Henry’s funds for this purchase, it is possible that she received the money for this purchase from her mother.  Henry may have been omitted from the deed to protect the house from his creditors or it may be that he was already very ill at the time of this purchase when Richa needed to find a dwelling large enough to house her now expanded family.

 

The Genealogy of Mary and Richa Ellenbogen

 

In the Altdorf Orsippenbuch, I found a reference to a “Marianna Ellenbogen.”  Unlike most OSB records, Marianna’s spouse or date of birth is not specified, however there is a reference to one “kinder” (child): “Rebekka” born March 1, 1829.  March 1, 1829 is the exact birth date that Richa Ellenbogen Bernheim, recites on her tombstone at B’nai Zion to be her date of birth, so it is likely that this is the OSB’s birth record of the Richa Ellenbogen that married Henry Bernheim of Selinsgrove. The failure of the OSB to specify Marianna’s spouse suggests to us that that the compilers of the OSB considered Richa to be without a legal father .

 

The Ortssippenbuch reference for Marianna Ellenbogen fails to state a date of death for mother or daughter, leaving open the possibility that they departed Altorf and and perhaps emigrated to the United States.  Based upon this information, it appears likely that Marianna and Rebekka are our Mary and Richa.  From OSB records, it appears that Richa was, at least in the eyes of the German authority, born without a legal father and thus illegitimate.

 

 

 

Confirmation Through German Records

 

In May of 2007, Karen Franklin, a genealogist, working on behalf of living Weis descendants of Henry Bernheim and Sigfreid Weis, (who were directly descended from Richa Ellenbogen) had a German researcher, Myrah Adams follow up on my findings in the records of Badel located now in Germany.  Myrah found additional evidence in Karlsruhe, Germany that in the eyes of the Baden government, Marianna Ellenbogen (Mary) had given birth to her daughter Rebekka (Richa) out of wedlock.  Myrah located at least one other child born to Marianna, with no known father and determined Mary’s parents (Richa’s grandparents) to be Moses and Sara Weil Ellenbogen, both of whom were dead by 1821, prior to the birth of their granddaughter, Richa.  Could the shoemaker, named Moses Ellenbogen, living in Danville in 1880 and later buried in B’nai Zion Cemetery, have been a sibling or cousin?

 

One could surmise that during the last decade of his life, the debt to his mother-in-law would have caused Henry considerable pain at home.  But it was on September 16, 1868, one year before Mary Ellenbogen went into court to obtain her judgment against her son-in-law, that nephew Leopold Dreifuss immigrated to America.  Could these two events have been related?

 

Two years later, during the 1870 census, in the midst of the turmoil caused by Henry’s debt and judgment to her, Mary Ellenbogen was still living in Henry’s household.  If Leopold Dreifuss had ever lived in that household, he had now moved on and is not evidenced by those census records.  By 1877 Henry was dead at the age of 51.

 

It is possible that Henry’s financial difficulties were, at least in part, the result of a lengthy illness.  The fact that Henry was apparently not called to serve in the Civil War, though he filed for the draft in 1863, might be evidence of a frail condition and disease.  Mary’s residence in Henry’s home in 1870 while pursuing judgment against him might indicate that the sarsaparilla peddler was already quite sick and unable to pursue repayment of his mother-in-law.

 

Perhaps Richa’s attempt to sell the bottling and sarsaparilla making equipment was her attempt to repay her mother for some part of her late husband’s debt.  But if Henry was already ill in 1870 how could he have assisted Aaron and Henry Dreifuss in the peddler’s trade when they arrived?

 

The Weis Section of the B’nai Zion Cemetery

Suggesting a Weis Family Contribution to the Selinsgrove Connection

 

In the B’nai Zion Jewish Cemetery in Danville there is a section of the cemetery set-aside for members of the Weis family of Selinsgrove.  A large stone containing the name “WEIS” identifies this section of the cemetery.  Around this large stone are many graves marked by smaller stones, which designate Weis family members, most but not all bearing the surname “Weis.”

 

The earliest grave in this section appears to be that of the original Sigfried Weis who began a notions business in Selinsgrove in the early 1870s that he called Weis Fancy Store.  Sigfried Weis died on December 23, 1907.  His grave is marked “Father” and immediately to his left is the grave of Ella Weis, marked as “Mother.”

 

Harry and Sigmund Weis, the sons of Sigfried and Ella Weis, who turned Sigfried’s business into a successful chain of grocery stores after the death of their father may have purchased this “WEIS” section of the B’nai Zion Cemetery when their father died, as well as the large “WEIS” stone in the center.  Two additional generations of Weis children, including Harry and Sigmund and their children have since chosen to be buried with Sigfried and Ella in the Weis section of the old Jewish cemetery.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ella Weis, Granddaughter of Henry Bernheim

 

It was during our first visit to the B’nai Zion Cemetery that Pete and I noticed that one of the stones in the Weis section of the B’nai Zion cemetery marked the grave of someone bearing the name of “Richa Bernheim,” We recognized this name to be that of Henry Bernheim’s wife.  We had seen Richa’s name previously in the 1870 U.S. census records, identified as the wife of Henry Bernheim and the mother of Ellen Bernheimer.  Why would Henry Bernheim’s wife have been buried in the Weis section of the B’nai Zion cemetery, and not with the grave of her husband who is buried in a different section of the B’nai Zion Cemetery.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The 1880 U. S. census provided the answer.  In that census record, taken after the death of Henry Bernheim, 86 year-old Mary “Elenbogen” is listed as the head of the household that consisted of Mary, her daughter Richa and Richa’s daughter, Ella and Ella’s husband Sigfried Weis.  This record told me that sometime between 1870 and 1880, Ellen the only daughter of Henry and Richa Bernheim had married the merchant, Sigfried Weis and at the time of the 1880 census the young couple was residing with Henry Bernheim’s widow, Richa Bernheim and Ellen’s grandmother Mary Ellenbogen.  This was when we realized that Sigfried Weis’ wife Ella had been a first cousin to our ancestor Leopold Dreifuss and his siblings.

 

We now understood why Richa Bernheim had not been buried with her husband, Henry.  Richa survived her husband Henry by more than forty years and had been buried by her grandchildren, Harry and Sigmund Weis in the site they set aside for their family.  Harry and Sigmund could not have known their grandfather Henry Bernheim or their great grandmother, Mary Ellenbogen, although both are buried at B’nai Zion Cemetery, outside of the Weis section  .  Mary died on May 15 1882 according to her headstone.

 

And so, as Pete and I had come to the B’nai Zion Cemetery, hoping to find a network of ancestors named Dreifuss or Bernheim, here we discovered a network of Leopold Dreifuss’ family that had come to Selinsgrove before him; its name was Weis.  Sigfried Weis was an Austrian immigrant who came to Selinsgrove in the early 1870s and created a business that was widely respected.  Sigfried became a much respected merchant in Selinsgrove and both he and his wife, Ellen Bernheimer were highly thought of by the community for their business skills and integrity.  After Sigfried’s death in 1907, the well educated sons of Sigfried and Ellen turned their father’s business into a highly successful chain of grocery stores.  Is it possible that Sigfried and Ellen had become part of a network of Dreifuss relatives that supported the immigration of the four Dreifuss siblings from Baden?

 

Leopold was apparently in Danville by 1868, possibly even before Sigfried Weis arrived in Selinsgrove, but perhaps Sigfried and Ellen supported Henry Bernheim’s nurturing of young Leopold and continued their support for the other three Dreifuss siblings after Ellen’s father died in 1877.  To determine if this was so we needed to understand the history of Sigfried and Ellen in Selinsgrove before the arrival of the children of Isaak and Rosina Dreifuss .

 

 

 

On April 3, 1994 the Intellegencer Newspaper from Central Bucks County, Pennsylvania published an article about the Weis family that stated that “Sigfried Weis,” who was the grandson and namesake of the earlier Sigfried Weis of Selinsgrove,  believed that his grandfather lived in Lebanon County between 1867 and 1872, and “was originally a peddler who walked through the countryside with a pack on his back, selling wares to farmers.”  Later, according to the younger Sigfried Weis, his grandfather continued his peddling beginning with a horse and wagon.  Other research suggests that Weis emigrated from Pilsen, Austria in March of 1867.  According to his 1907 obituary, Sigfried Weis came to Selinsgrove in 1872 and opened his store there, selling dry goods and notions, which he called “New York Fancy Store.”

 

Market Street, to this day, remains the center of the business district in Selinsgrove and it appears that even in 1872 Sigfried Weis wanted his business to be on Market Street.  His original store, we learned, was on the NE corner of Market and Walnut, the site on which the Weis empire later developed.  But in late 1873 Weis had to move his “New York Fancy Store” to a property that he leased on the NW corner of Market and Pine Streets that had previously been referred to as the “George Schnure property.”

 

The Great Selinsgrove Fire of 1874

 

Tragically, Weis’ store and much of the Market Street business district was destroyed a year later in 1874, in a massive fire, often referred to as the “great fire” of Selinsgrove.  According to newspaper reports, the “great fire” claimed forty-five to fifty buildings in the heart of Selinsgrove.   One of these sources states that the fire started in the stable of the “George Schnure property,” which was part of the property in which Sigfried Weis had his “New York Fancy Store.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Market Street in Selinsgrove (purportedly the NW corner of Market and Pine)

 following the 1874 Fire.

 

An advertisement that appeared in the Middleburgh Post in November of 1874 suggests that the fire had taken a significant toll upon the early Weis’ business:

 

“S. Weis of the N.Y. fancy store, John App’s building, Selinsgrove, is selling off his stock which              was saved from the late fire at a great sacrifice.  Everybody who wants to buy cheap goods should go there.”

 

The Clothing Store of Solomon Oppenheimer and Sigried Weis

 

In the next ten years after the fire, Weis, the consummate businessman, kept his notions business alive with a series of short-term leases in the reconstructed downtown of Selinsgrove for his New York Fancy Store, and continued to sell notions and “fancy-goods” there, while simultaneously opening a clothing store, owned by a partnership between himself and another immigrant clothing merchant named Solomon Oppenheimer.

 

Prior to his partnership with Weis, Oppenheimer had partnered in a clothing store in nearby Sunbury called “Simon & Oppenheimer, where he had apparently learned about the clothing business and about how to advertise.  It may have been that Oppenheimer may have run the clothing store on a day to day basis, while his partner, Sigfried Weis attended to his “Fancy Store.”  Weis’ contribution to the partnership may have been nothing more than his capitol and his good name.  It appears that Weis’ relationship with Oppenheimer was not always a smooth one.  This partnership had a location on the east side of North Market Street, in the southern portion of the Nelson App Building.

 

Although Weis may have had reservations about his partnership with Oppenheimer, he knew his business reputation in Selinsgrove would help this clothing partnership if his customers knew about it.  Consequently, his N.Y. Fancy Store advertising, without mentioning the name of the partnership carefully let the community know of its relationship to the new clothing store.  Note the last paragraph of this 1876 ad:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At the time of the 1870 census, 23 year-old Solomon Oppenheimer had been living in a group home in Lebanon, Pennsylvania, listing his occupation as “notion peddler.”  But now, his new Selinsgrove clothing store owned by “Weis and Oppenheimer” advertised aggressively, although the partnership itself appears to have had problems from the very beginning.  Soon after the start of the partnership, Weis and Oppenheimer began to state in their advertising that it was the intention of both partners to soon end the partnership, suggesting that its ultimate dissolution would result in great deals to customers.  Notwithstanding the advertisements however, the Weis & Oppenheimer partnership was not actually dissolved until sometime in 1880.  After 1880 it  appears that Sigfried Weis had abandoned the pre-made clothing business permanently, focusing his attention solely upon his Fancy Store, which he now called simply “S. Weis”  Although, after the end of his partnership with Oppenheimer, Weis would still occasionally advertise the sale of “dry goods” and clothing items these advertisements usually emphasized products such as carpets, textiles and “sundries.”

 

I have not found a suitable definition of “dry goods’ or “notions” to distinguish the sale of such products from clothing, but I think the prior two terms would include cloth and sewing supplies and other products used by the public to make their own cloths.  The clothing store business owned by Weis and Oppenheimer appears to have specialized in the sale of ready-made clothing made in manufacturing centers such as New York and Philadelphia.  Weis and Oppenheimer must have had some agreed upon definition of the “clothing” sold by their partnership to distinguish it from notions and dry goods sold in Weis’ New York Fancy Store.

 

By 1884 Weis acquired the still vacant lot on the NW corner of Market and Pine Streets, which, prior to the fire, had been the site of Weis’ notions store.  Upon this lot, he constructed a new building where, for the remainder of his life, he would continue his notions business featuring the sale of  “fancy goods.”

 

The photograph above was taken from the center of Market Street at an 1889 Civil War reunion in Selinsgrove.  On the right side of the street one can observe the building that Weis built for his “New York Fancy Store” at the intersection of Pine Street and Market Street in Selinsgrove.  Weis’ brick building, properly decorated for the celebration, probably looks very much like it did when it was constructed four years earlier.

 

Weis and his family may have still been living on the second floor of the structure at the time this photograph was taken.  The vacant lot next to the Weis property enables a view of the advertisement on the side of his building emphasizing his merchandise of “carpets and oilcloths.”

 

Sigfried Weis Weds Ellen Bernheim

 

At some point, before or during his struggle to redevelop his notions business, before or after the 1874 fire, Sigfried Weis met young Ellen Bernheim, the daughter of German immigrant peddler, Henry Bernheim.  An anecdote passed down within the Weis family contends that Sigfried met Ellen at a dance, held jointly by the Jewish communities of combined Pennsylvania towns in the area to give Jewish singles in these communities an opportunity to meet.

 

If Ellen was born in 1858, as her tombstone states, she would have been twenty when she married thirty-two-year-old Sigfried Weis sometime in 1878, probably after the death of her father, Henry Bernheim.  On May 30, 1878, The Middleburgh Post that had for many years published the many Weis advertisements for his business, was happy to publish the following announcement:

 

“On Tuesday the 21st. inst., our esteemed friend S. Weis of the New York Fancy Store, Selinsgrove, yielded to Cupid’s relentless attacks and took himself a ‘better half…”

 

The young couple soon moved in with Ellen’s mother, Richa Bernheim and her grandmother Mary Ellenbogen in Selinsgrove, where they can be found in the 1880 census.  According to Ellen’s obituary, which appeared in The Snyder County Tribune on January 7, 1932:

 

“Mrs. Weis born in Easton on May 3, 1858, came to Selinsgrove with her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Henry Bernheim when she was a little girl.  It was here that she married Siegfried Weis and moved to Danville.  Later Mr. and Mrs. Weis returned to Selinsgrove and opened a dry goods store on the corner now occupied by the American store.”

 

Ellen’s obituary suggests that Sigfried Weis was living in Danville and not in Selinsgrove when he married her and that after their marriage, Ellen joined her husband to live in Danville.  It was only afterwards, according to this obituary, that the couple returned to Selinsgrove where Sigfried would later open his notions store.  This scenario is unlikely since our research suggests that Weis opened his notions store in Selinsgrove prior to 1878 when the couple was wed.  It is likely, however, that the couple chose to be married at the B’nai Zion Synagogue, located in Danville.

 

                                        The Bernheim and Weis Families in Selinsgrove

 

The 1870 census tells us that at that time, the family of Henry Bernheim was living in Selinsgrove.  Property addresses in the township of Selinsgrove were not assigned until 1918 so census records cannot help us locate the presumably rented property that the Bernheim family occupied at that time.  But, in an 1873 Sheriff’s Sale, Ellen’s mother Richa purchased a modest brick home at 213 South Market Street the address of which we were able to identify by tracing deeds on that property forward, past the 1918 date when addresses had been assigned.  It is likely that this is where Sigfried and Ellen resided with Ellen’s mother and grandmother at the time of the 1880 census.

 

Although Richa purchased this property in her name only, Henry did not die until 1877, and apparently lived there during the final years of his life.  Richa conveyed the property into her daughter’s name in 1879, and that is, most likely, where Richa, Sigfried and Ellen lived at the time of the 1880 census along with Richa’s mother Mary Ellenbogen.  Although 1880 census records list Richa first, suggesting that she was “head of household”, it appears that, by that time the house was already titled in Ellen’s name.  (Although it is possible that it was acquired with funds she had acquired from her mother.)

 

Perhaps it was because of Henry’s financial difficulties that his name did not appear on the deed, but it may be that the money for the purchase of Henry’s Sarsaparilla paraphernalia actually was loaned to Henry by Richa’s mother, Mary Ellenbogen and perhaps this debt was the source of Mary’s judgment against Henry.  It is also possible that Henry was sick at the time the property was purchased and it was feared that his condition or his death could have become a possible encumbrance to ownership.  If Henry was sick, this might also explain why he could not repay his debt to Mary Ellenbogen.

 

The photograph below, on the right, shows the lot and the house purchased by Richa, as it currently appears, a well-maintained historic property in a middle class community.

 

 

 

A 1910 photograph of that same property (shown above, on the left) may better reflect how the property appeared at the time that Henry and Richa Bernheim lived there with daughter Ellen and with Ellen’s husband Sigfried Weis.  The porch on the side of the house and the portico over the front door seems to have been added since 1910 and was probably not in place at the time Henry’s family resided there.  We wondered if any of the Dreifuss siblings had lived in this house while learning their trade, prior to their move to Mifflinburg.

 

 

 

The next available U.S. census record for the family, taken in 1900, documents the then 53 year-old Sigfried and his 42 year-old wife, Ella living with their two sons Harry and Sigmund, now aged 18 and 17.  Mary Ellenbogen died in 1882, but the 1900 census recorded 68 year-old Richa Bernheim still residing with her daughter’s family.  By this time Sigfried’s business had become quite successful and the Weis family had moved to a much larger and more elegant home, also on Market Street in Selinsgrove, which Sigfried Weis purchased in 1889.  This structure still survives as a fraternity house, and has been owned for many years by Susquehanna University.

 

 

 

 

 

 

By 1890 the site of the store of Sigfried Weis had become an important structure in the business section of Market Street.

 

Sigfried Weis died on December 23, 1903.  Sigfried’s wife, Ellen Bernheim Weis lived until January 2, 1932.  Both Sigfried and Ellen are buried in what is now the Weis section of the B’nai Zion Cemetery.  Henry Bernheim and Mary Ellenbogen are both also buried in the B’nai Zion Cemetery, but their memorial stones are not located in the Weis section.  It appears that Sigfried’s gravestone is the oldest in the Weis section of the cemetery.

 

The following photograph was taken in 1914 or 1915, after Sigfried’s two sons, Harry and Sigmund had taken over their father’s business.  The Weis building appears little changed on the exterior, but a new building is visible to the right of it, apparently constructed by the Weis sons on the lot, which had stood vacant in the earlier photographs.  This building was constructed after Sigfried’s death to serve as the residence of Harry and Sigmund’s mother, Ellen Bernheim Weis, daughter of Henry and Richa Bernheim.

 

 

 

After Sigfried’s death, Ellen lived alone in this property until sometime in 1928 when, according to her granddaughter, Ellen Weis Wasserman, she became too infirm to live by herself and moved in with the family of her son Harry Weis (Ellen’s father).  Ellen Weis lived with Harry’s family until her death in 1932.  She had become a visible and important part of the Weis business, and her obituary reflects the admiration that the community held for she and her husband:

 

“Through their (Ellen and Sigfried Weis') industry during the years they were in business here, they not only became the leading business firm of the town, but by their personalities won the admiration and highest respect of people throughout this section.”

 

Since we now understood that Ellen Weis Bernheim was the daughter of Henry Bernheim and thus a first cousin to Leopold Dreifuss and his siblings, we should not have been surprised to learn that Ellen and her husband had played a role in the immigration of the children of Isaak and Rosina Dreifuss.  Evidence to this effect will be discussed in later chapters.