Campaign Seeks to Put a Woman on the $20 Bill

[Mayerling]

Ooh! Was it Clara Young?

No. My last name (through my father) is "Bloomfield". His side of the family had a cousin named "Diana Blumenfeld" who was a prominent Yiddish actress in the 1920s - 1940s.

[Robert]

This one, Jeff?

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/yiddish-jewish-78-RPM-diana-blumenfeld-10-hiner-mit-a-katchke-spiro-records-/370770189991

[Errata]

No. My last name (through my father) is "Bloomfield". His side of the family had a cousin named "Diana Blumenfeld" who was a prominent Yiddish actress in the 1920s - 1940s.

You're related to a hero of the Warsaw Ghetto and you call her an "actress"? That's a bit like introducing your cousin Frank Sinatra as a golf player.

[Mayerling]

This one, Jeff?

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/yiddish-je...-/370770189991

Yes that seems to be her. Thanks for the site on E-Bay. If I had the record (or any Yiddish record) I would not know what it means - Dad was the linguist in the family (about ten languages, including German, Russian, French, Spanish, Italian, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Yiddish). After English, Hebrew (in religious school) and Spanish I passed on any further languages (although Dad offered to teach me Greek and Latin).

Jeff

[Mayerling]

You're related to a hero of the Warsaw Ghetto and you call her an "actress"? That's a bit like introducing your cousin Frank Sinatra as a golf player.

Hi Errata,

Diana (whom I never met - or if she saw me I was a baby), was always referred to as an "actress". I have learned since that she and her husband behaved heroically in the Warsaw Ghetto uprising of 1943, and managed to be among the few who escaped Stroops' men. I would have liked to have known her better and heard of her experiences.

Jeff

[Robert]

Ten languages is extremely impressive, Jeff.

[Mayerling]

Ten languages is extremely impressive, Jeff.

He was something unique Robert. He also knew how to differentiate between Frisian, Old Frisian, Old German, Middle High German, and had a grasp on some other languages like Dutch, Norwegian, even Hungarian. An amazing man in many ways.

Jeff

[Errata]

Hi Errata,

Diana (whom I never met - or if she saw me I was a baby), was always referred to as an "actress". I have learned since that she and her husband behaved heroically in the Warsaw Ghetto uprising of 1943, and managed to be among the few who escaped Stroops' men. I would have liked to have known her better and heard of her experiences.

Jeff

My great uncle idolized her his whole life. He encouraged me to sing because of her. She would stand in cafes, restaurants, street corners and sing about Jewish life, about life in the ghetto, about hope. She would sing folk songs, song from Yiddish theater, and new songs written for her so the people could hear songs about living, surviving, a light at the end of the tunnel, about pride. She was one of the greatest Jewish musicians we've ever had. She was a singer. She was in Yiddish theater because they were musicals, but she wasn't an actress. She sang, she played piano. She was a one woman Jewish USO. She sang for displaced persons, she sang for camp survivors, she sang for Jews trying to get into Palestine. My great uncle said that she sang until she lost her voice to grief. That she gave everything she had, and then moved on to a regular singing career in post war Europe. He was like, her biggest fan until the day she died. He said Kaddish for her. He said she saved his life, that he was going to run and would have died, but he stopped to listen to her, and her music made him want to live. He had signed pictures, old tickets, even one of her piano keys. Most of which I think went to the Ghetto heroes museum when he died.

Big fan. Creepy big fan. But I heard about her my whole life. Mostly because I was a singer, she was a singer. I was an alto, she was an alto. We had similar hair. He dressed me as her for Purim one year which did not go over well but at least I didn't have greasepaint on my face. Uncle Aron would probably kiss your feet if he was still alive. I think it's because he was 16, she was his first crush. But she is the reason I got to sing as long as I did. Uncle Aron did everything for me in her name. So she is kind of my patron saint.

[Robert]

That's a very moving tribute.

[GUT]

Hi Errata,

Diana (whom I never met - or if she saw me I was a baby), was always referred to as an "actress". I have learned since that she and her husband behaved heroically in the Warsaw Ghetto uprising of 1943, and managed to be among the few who escaped Stroops' men. I would have liked to have known her better and heard of her experiences.

Jeff

There are so many things that if I could turn the clock back I would have asked of relatives and people I knew, sometimes you just don't realise the significance of people who you just know as Tom or Bill or Gran until it is all to late.

So often I wish I had got more interested in JtR and Family History while those who knew were still alive, My Great Uncle [raised dad so more like a grandfather] was born in 1883 and dies when I was 17, though he did introduce mt to The Ripper I now wish I had asked him more. He always said the family knew who Jack was, and may even have told me, but I am only now piecing things together that makes the little I remember make sense.

[Mayerling]

There are so many things that if I could turn the clock back I would have asked of relatives and people I knew, sometimes you just don't realise the significance of people who you just know as Tom or Bill or Gran until it is all to late.

So often I wish I had got more interested in JtR and Family History while those who knew were still alive, My Great Uncle [raised dad so more like a grandfather] was born in 1883 and dies when I was 17, though he did introduce mt to The Ripper I now wish I had asked him more. He always said the family knew who Jack was, and may even have told me, but I am only now piecing things together that makes the little I remember make sense.

G'Day GUT,

It happens to all of us - when we are kids we never think of these things, but when are old enough few of the last two generations are still around.

None of my surviving grandparents were in England at the time of the Autumn of Terror (my mother's grandfather Isaac Singer came to the U.S. in 1886, and married my mother's grandmother Becky Kreutznar in 1888 - oddly enough on the day of the infamous "Blizzard" of that year (family tradition says so). Isaac (or "Ike") came from Birmingham, England, so he may have heard from relatives there about what happened, but he died in 1941, thirteen years before my birth.

Some things from the past I learned. My grandmother Anna (mom's mother) was comforting a friend of her's who had come down with an illness and missed an excursion that she and her family had looked forward to. While trying to raise her friend's spirits, she and her friend and her friend's family heard yelling and screaming in the street. The "General Slocum" was burning in the East River, and that had been the ship excursion that grandma's friend missed in June 1904.

My grandfather met baseball great Mel Ott once. He and mom saw Lou Gehrig at Yankee Stadium.

Things like that cropped up - but nothing really big ever did.

Jeff

[Beowulf]

There are so many things that if I could turn the clock back I would have asked of relatives and people I knew, sometimes you just don't realise the significance of people who you just know as Tom or Bill or Gran until it is all to late.

So often I wish I had got more interested in JtR and Family History while those who knew were still alive, My Great Uncle [raised dad so more like a grandfather] was born in 1883 and dies when I was 17, though he did introduce mt to The Ripper I now wish I had asked him more. He always said the family knew who Jack was, and may even have told me, but I am only now piecing things together that makes the little I remember make sense.

When I read, "though he did introduce me to The Ripper I now wish I had asked him more." and had read you had relatives that lived back then I thought you meant those relatives actually KNEW JTR and introduced you to the man himself.

Well I went on a wild goose chase for a bit here, looking back at all these posts and imagining you met JTR sometime in the 50s or something when you were very little and they KNEW him. Like he was a family secret.

Omg, I must be crazy. LOL. My heart is still pounding from the excitement and search through the posts looking for further info, like what he looked like or some evidence that might be forthcoming...

[GUT]

When I read, "though he did introduce me to The Ripper I now wish I had asked him more." and had read you had relatives that lived back then I thought you meant those relatives actually KNEW JTR and introduced you to the man himself.

Well I went on a wild goose chase for a bit here, looking back at all these posts and imagining you met JTR sometime in the 50s or something when you were very little and they KNEW him. Like he was a family secret.

Omg, I must be crazy. LOL. My heart is still pounding from the excitement and search through the posts looking for further info, like what he looked like or some evidence that might be forthcoming...

Don't I wish it was an actual introduction, but the one thing I do remember is that he was adamant that our family knew exactly who it was and how it was they knew, but there are some parts of the story that either I wasn't told or just don't remember.

[Mayerling]

Don't I wish it was an actual introduction, but the one thing I do remember is that he was adamant that our family knew exactly who it was and how it was they knew, but there are some parts of the story that either I wasn't told or just don't remember.

Well make a checklist and try to see if any of these might have been mentioned by your granduncle or others in the family:

1) the person died under murky circumstances, and his wife went to prison for awhile for poisoning him
2) he was a practitioner in black arts, and knew a prominent news editor.
3) he was a well known painter who liked to talk about crimes
4) he was a royal physician who everyone thought was too ill from a stroke to do anything anymore.
5) he was a vacant minded heir to the throne.
6) he was a sad religious poet.
7) he was a barrister and teacher who died by drowning.
8) he was a prominent writer who wrote poetry and prose concerning a young girl he photographed.
9) he was the son of a mad judge and died in an asylum
10) he was an American quack doctor.
11) he was a Scottish-Canadian-American doctor who was supposed to be in a prison at the time.
12) he was the owner of a dubious and dangerous hotel in Chicago.
13) he was a barber surgeon from Poland.
14) he was a conman and wife (and children) murderer
15) he was a she who hated a rival
16) she was a malevolent children's baby farmer.
17) he was a drunk who killed his wife and found the police may have suspected him.
18) he wore an Astrakhan hat
19) his son died of syphilis from a young prostitute.
20) he was a petty thief who had really awful eating habits.
21) he was a nutty Jewish guy who threatened his family but was put into an asylum
22) he was a recently self-injured artist who spoke with a mixed French and Dutch accent.

[Beowulf]

Don't I wish it was an actual introduction, but the one thing I do remember is that he was adamant that our family knew exactly who it was and how it was they knew, but there are some parts of the story that either I wasn't told or just don't remember.

That is pretty interesting

I do hope something pops up from somewhere in your searching.