Talk given by Eve Jacobs-Carnahan at the Booth Family Reunion, August 8, 2014

 

This is a short history of the Booth family based on my research. It will provide context for our visit to the B’nai Abraham Synagogue in Virginia tomorrow. The accompanying booklet has selected photos and historical documents. It is a sampling of the materials I discovered in the past year and a half.

 

Booth Family Immigrates to the United States and Travels to Minnesota

 

In the winter of 1906, the Booth family left Riga, Latvia. Morris Benjamin Booth (known as Beryl or M.B.) and his wife Jennie Kanter Booth traveled with their six children ranging in age from the oldest Sam (age 8) to the youngest David (age 1 1/2). They took a ship from Bremen, Germany, to New York City.

 

They were met in New York City by Beryl’s half-brother, Morris H. Kubowitt. He was 12 years younger than Beryl and had already been in New York three years. He had come over at age 17. Within 4 months of arriving in New York, the family moved to Green Bay, Wisconsin.

 

M.B. Booth was a kosher butcher, called a shochet, as well as a cantor. When Jews settled in the mid-West frontier towns, they needed people in both these professions to preserve their Jewish customs and way of life.

 

The reason they went to Green Bay is that Jennie’s two older sisters and two brothers lived there. Jennie had not seen her sisters for 14 years, since Rosa Kanter, her husband Azriel and children, along with her sister Sarah immigrated.

 

After about 11 months in Green Bay, the family moved to Virginia. One of M.B.’s first contacts there was Sam Milavetz, a prominent Virginia merchant. He was one of the founders of the B’nai Abraham Society that had been organized less than two years earlier with about 20 families. By 1907 they were looking for someone to lead services and teach in the new Sunday school.

 

Life in Virginia, Minn. in the First Year (May 1907 – June 1908)

 

The first year for the family in Virginia was full of change. The city itself was really new. In 1900, a fire in a sawmill had destroyed the entire downtown business district. An account written by Mrs. Lafayette Bliss, the wife of the superintendent of schools, described the town in 1904, three years before the Booth family arrived. She said the streets were unpaved and cattle roamed all over. Housing was in short supply. Mrs. Bliss said that Cedar Street (where the Booths settled) was considered far out of town.

The city was full of foreigners, as she put it, so the superintendent started a night school to teach English. Another source described this rough mining and logging town in 1906, saying there were 50 saloons in a 4-block section of the city.

 

That’s the setting when the Booths arrived in May 1907. I don’t know where they lived the first year, but I found out things did not start out well. The youngest child, David (Leiba), died of diptheria a month after they arrived in Virginia. He was not quite 3 years old. It must have been so difficult for his mother Jennie, since she was eight months pregnant with Phil. Here they were in this rough frontier town, possibly living with some other family, and Jennie has just lost a child, has an infant to care for, and has five other children running around.

 

In late July of that same year, M.B.’s brother, Morris Hyman Kubowitt moved to Virginia. He was a traveling salesman, otherwise known as a peddler. He may have worked for two businessmen in Duluth who were witnesses for him on his naturalization papers. According to the census, in 1910 he roomed in the Levinson household in Virginia along with two other young peddlers.

 

Becoming established in the early years 1908-1910

 

As we know, M.B. moved to Virginia to be the cantor of the newly founded B’nai Abraham Society. They did have a building yet, so in 1907 he led High Holiday services at the Masonic Temple. Several hundred Jews from six range towns attended the services. The congregation did not have a rabbi, but the newspaper called him “Rabbi Booth.”

 

The Booth family was actively involved in efforts to raise money for building the synagogue that we are going to see tomorrow. Jennie regularly attended meetings of the B’nai Abraham Ladies Aid Society. They organized events to raise money for the construction of the synagogue. In December 1908 they held was a concert followed by a dance and “an elegant supper served by the ladies.” Among the performers of musical numbers in this concert were M.B. and the oldest son, Sam. Construction of the synagogue started in late 1909 and the building was dedicated in April 1910.

 

The Ladies Society honored Jennie with a social party according to the minutes of February 1909. I have not figured out what the occasion was. No one else seems to have been honored in this way in the minutes.

 

In July 1908 the family bought property at the corner of Wyoming Ave. and Cedar Street. The property was already a meat market, so it provided a good place for M.B. to set up business. From what I can figure out, M.B. went into business with two other butchers: Macbeth & Gardner. They called the store People’s Meat Market. The family may have lived above (or behind) the store for a time, and then in 1910, the Booths purchased the lot and house next door (229 Cedar St.). Mrs. Booth hosted a social event for the Ladies Aid Society at her home in May 1910; that may have been in their new house. The

Booths added on to the original shop building, extending it into the new lot and wrapping around behind the house.

 

More Building and Growth

 

Throughout this time the city was growing. In 1912 a trolley began running on Wyoming Street, so M.B.’s store was right on the trolley line. Along with many other property owners, the Booths were assessed taxes for the construction of sewers and sidewalks in 1912. In 1913, M.B. took out a mortgage and constructed a 25 x 40 foot 2-story building in the rear of his lot. He rented the new commercial space to a milliner and a photographer. Sarah, the only daughter of M.B. and Jennie, worked as a hat maker, a milliner; it is quite possible she worked in Mrs. Tillie Anderson’s shop. At the Virginia Area Historical Society my husband Paul found a photo of the photographer’s shop in the Booth property.

 

The news accounts described a whole slew of changes in 1914. These included the construction of 200 homes in one year, a new school, a water reservoir, improvements to the park, construction of the gas plant, and miles of paved streets, block sidewalks, and boardwalks.

 

Meat and Grocery Business 1911-1918

 

The meat business was a regulated one. The city meat inspector’s reports to the city council were regularly printed in the newspaper. There were instances when M.B. had meat condemned for health reasons, such as when there problems with his icebox. He also had problems with his business partners. He sued Macbeth & Gardner in January 1911. He then appears to have engaged in a business relationship with a series of other butchers, who either rented space from him or managed the shop for him. He had both a grocery and a butcher shop in his building.

 

The meat business seems to have been quite competitive. Things really heated up in 1914. A disgruntled butcher named Frank Siebert complained to the city council about the other butchers. He alleged that there was a meat trust that was fixing prices and that it had forced him out of business. In October 1914 the city council held hearings to investigate the meat business in the city. There was a huge newspaper article about the hearings on October 9, 1914, recounting all the testimony – including testimony from

M.B. Booth. You can then see his advertisements later that year in which he affirms that the People’s Market has never been part of any trust of combine! The matter came to a head in November when one butcher refused to give the city council his invoices and business records. So the council had him arrested and put him in jail. By the end of that night, the community was calling the whole thing a farce.

 

Though M.B. seems to have gotten through the city council investigation in one piece, he had his share of business problems. Starting in 1914, he was involved in several lawsuits each year. Clearly people were having trouble paying their bills, and this made him unable to stay current on his own accounts. Whether because of the mine strikes in the

summer of 1916 or other reasons, he filed for bankruptcy in January 1918. The bankruptcy papers show his equipment and his suppliers for his store. He had a mixture of customers, since many who owed him money were not Jewish. But we know he was still the kosher butcher because when he moved away in 1921, the members of B’nai Abraham discussed what to do about obtaining kosher meat.

 

M.B. Booth Active in War Relief Efforts

 

In October 1913, shortly after World War I began in Europe the Ladies Aid Society held  a dance to raise money “to relieve the suffering of masses in Europe” due to the war. The next year, the newspaper reported that M.B. Booth conducted the Jewish New Year services at the synagogue in Eveleth where he made a strong plea for money to aid Jewish war sufferers in Europe.

 

Family Growing and Changing 1912 – 1920

 

From 1912 to at least 1915, the oldest child, Sam, worked in his father’s store. As a result, he was not able to go to high school. It appears he continued studying on his own through correspondence courses with the International Textbook Company. Sam appears to have left Virginia after 1916. I recall learning at a previous reunion that Sam took a job as a traveling salesman and used to stay with his uncle Morris in Chicago when he traveled. Morris had moved to Chicago in 1911.

 

Sarah was the second oldest. The newspaper says that in June 1916 she played piano in a recital of Miss Pearl Sheehy’s pupils at her studio in the Rex Theater building.

 

The next in line was James. He worked as a clerk in the family store in 1917 while he was in high school. In June 1918 he graduated with the largest high school class up to that time: 61 students. He enrolled in the Superior Normal School, in Superior, Wisconsin, right across the canal from Duluth. After spending one year there, he went to the University of Chicago in October 1919.

 

The last of the children who show up in the newspapers is Harry. In 1917, he participated in the eighth grade school pageant where the students enacted scenes from the history of the United States. In March 1920 Harry and another student were winners of the Virginia High School declamatory contest. (Of course we know Harry became a lawyer.) They took their debating skills on to the district contest. He left to attend college at the University of Minnesota in September 1920.

 

I wondered whether the family was isolated up in the northern part of Minnesota, but I don’t think that was really the case. The newspaper reported that M.B.’s sister Eva Friedlander and her children came from New Jersey to spend several weeks in Virginia in August 1915. The same news article reported M.B.’s brother Morris came to visit for a week.

There was at least some contact with the Kanter sisters in Green Bay, because someone in the family obtained medical treatment from Dr. Minahan in Green Bay. I recall that Sam took his sister Sarah to Green Bay to get hearing aids, so that have been with Dr.

Minahan.

 

Leaving the Iron Range

 

After 14 years in Virginia, the family left the Iron Range in the spring of 1921. The booming economic times of the Iron Range had dissipated and people were leaving the area. The two oldest boys were both living in Chicago by then, as was M.B.’s brother Morris. Harry transferred to the University of Chicago around that time as well, so the whole family moved on to make their way in a new city.

 

 

 

By Eve Jacobs-Carnahan Montpelier, Vermont ejcarnahan@gmail.com