Rosa
My mother, Rosa, was the daughter of Yeruchum Fishel and Chaya(Clara) Stern. Yeruchum Fishel was a uniform maker for the Tsar’s army, in Kishinev, Bessarabia, in Southern Russia, but later moved to Odessa, where Ma was born. Chaya had a sister, Neysa Herbert. Norma was named for her. Neysa had been married to Yeruchum Fishel’s brother, but he had died quite young. Neysa was a very independent woman, who traveled widely. She had even traveled on her own to the United States in the 1860’s, returned to Russia, then went back to the USA to stay.
Eventually, Neysa came to live with her sister’s family. Through Neysa’s influence, when the Jews were thrown out of the Crimea in 1890, they managed to get out on a ship bound for America. On the way, in Constantinople, Yeruchum Fishel had bought the passport of a man named Goldberg who had lost all his family; and so they family name became Goldberg. When they arrived in Boston, they settled in the West End section, which had many Jewish immigrants. The house stood on Cambridge Street, where a bank in the Charles Cinema complex now stands. They later moved to an apartment in the South End near Union Park.
Chaya died around 1897 of cancer, three and a half months after giving birth to Frances, the youngest child.
Goldberg(Stern) Family, 1895
Neysa continued to live in the house, acting as nurse and housekeeper to the seven Goldberg children. After a while, however, the neighbors started to whisper that it was scandalous that Yeruchum Fishel was living in the same house as an unmarried woman. So to quiet the neighbors, Yeruchum Fishel married Neysa, although they never really lived as husband and wife. Yeruchum Fishel died two years later.
Young Rosa grew up loving reading and school, and was a constant visitor to the West End library.
Into her eighties, she read constantly, and was frequently called upon to address formal invitations in her elegant Palmer Method handwriting.
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