Cousins from Daugavpils
Louis and Elizabeth Locketz saved a number of letters in Yiddish and Russian that one would assume held meaning for them. They were in turn kept by Seymour who passed most of them on to me. They indeed hold mysteries. Probably nothing that was intended to be held in eternal secret, but as both time and generations passed, the loss of language and the distance between relatives…connections severed by the passage of time and the marching on of history more than anything else…the relevance of some of these letters too seems to be lost. Recently I’ve fit three things they kept together like in a puzzle, though they leave several open questions. They also give a glimpse into the precarious experience of the Jewish People in that period and the desperate connections between those that remained in the Old World and those that got out.
Those puzzle pieces are as follows:
A letter in Yiddish from Chaya Pesha Reshtein in Daugavpils, Latvia (Dvinsk) to Louis Locketz. Chaya referes to herself as Louis’ cousin. The letter is dated May 14 1958. Louis was born in Daugavpils in 1887.
A packing list of a parcel of materials sent to Chaya Pesha Reshstein in Daugavpils from Louis in Minneapolis, shipped on July 10, 1958.
A letter in Yiddish from Sam Kiss in Monticello, New York to Louis Locketz in Minneapolis dated, July 22, 1959.
So who are these people? How are they related? Spoiler alert…I don’t know.
I had the shipping list translated a long time ago and then put it aside because nothing seemed significant about it. Frankly I forgot about it. I suppose it is possible the building that Chaya Pesha lived in still stands and I could have seen it when we were in Dvinsk. Next time. A few months ago I heard that it was possible to use AI to decipher handwriting in other languages and that it could also transcribe it. Turns out that is not the case yet for Yiddish, but it renewed my interest in the Yiddish letters and I posted #1 above to be translated - the one from Chaya Pesha Reshtein to Louis. The bill of goods…#2 above…must have been a response to this letter.
Envelope for letter from Chaya Pesha Reshstein.
Back of envelope with date received in Minneapolis dated, May 19, 1958.
May 14 1958
Esteemed cousin Leib(e), may you be healthy. You are surely wondering who is writing this letter to you – your cousin, Chaya Pesha Reshtein.
Two months have gone by since I wrote you a letter and I have not received an answer, so I decided to write you a second letter. I can’t believe my cousin won’t answer me. Maybe you never got my first letter. I enclosed a card with the letter. I am eager to hear from my own flesh and blood and I am in need of a little assistance...
because Gitler [Russians pronounce H as G] has hurt me very badly; he took from me my best friend together with his 3 [or 5, not sure] children who would have been a great source of joy for me in my senior years, but since they’ve been killed, it’s been very hard for me…
and bitter for me. My brother Sam helped me all these years as much as he could, but this has been a very bad winter for him, as you must know. Both he and his wife were sick and had to undergo operations – may we know no more of such things. I would really like to hear from you, whether you have a wife and a family. If so, I send my heartfelt greetings to them and please send me a [picture] postcard of all of you. It will give me a lot of pleasure. I remember that you had sister[s], one called Hinde. Send her regards on my behalf and send me her address. I would like to get to know them through a letter exchange. Since the years have flown by and we don’t see each other and we’re getting on in years there is no harm left in living, but we must hope
that God will send us more years and that there will be peace over the whole world. I hope that you won’t wait to answer this letter but that you will answer me straight away. Don’t need to ask me what sorts of things I need – anything you send will be good and God will repay you with good things. Only please pay all postal charges on your end as I am not in a situation where I can pay the charges. My two children send their very warmest regards.
Be well, your cousin, who awaits your good answer
Chaya Pesha Reshtein
Below is the packing list for the box Louis shipped to her about two months later. It seems to be a shipment of materials from Liberty Garment Mfg. Co, of which Louis was the owner. Perhaps it was so she could make coats for her family, or to sell for the proceeds.
In the “To” section, you can see it was sent to: Kh. A. Reshtein, Rabochaya St. house # 58, apt. 60
After having the letter translated and connecting it to this receipt, I wondered who might know who this woman was. So I posted on Facebook in a page called, “Latvian Jews,” asking if anyone had a connection to the Reshstein family in Daugavpils. I received a response from a woman in Israel named Sonya who wrote, “We lived in Daugavpils at this address. My grandmother was Reshtein Khaya Pesya who received letters and parcels from America.” She and I are now corresponding and her brother Vladimer still lives in Daugavpils…(wish I had known when we visited!)…but they do not know much about their grandmother Chaya Pesha other than that she was 13 when she married her husband, Solomon Reshstein in 1896. They do not know her her maiden name or her parents’ names. But that puts her at roughly the same age at Louis so they were contemporaries.
Louis and she were clearly not in close contact as Chaya Pesha asked Louis in the letter if he was married and had a family…she remembers he has a sister named Hinde…perhaps Helen? This letter in 1958 came more than 40 years after Louis left Latvia for America. But you can also hear the impact of the Holocaust on this woman and her family. I can only imagine what she experienced during those years. She likely lived a precarious existence. Perhaps we may be able to learn more about her life from Sonya and her brother even if they do not know her origin.
In my correspondence with Sonya, I shared all my family names, but she was not familiar with any of them. She mentioned that she had photos of the people from the United States who sent packages to her grandmother. Those photos are below.
I knew immediately I had seen the woman with the dark lipstick before, and the man with her as well. As I dug through my records, I went back through the collection of letters and found another yiddish letter dated 1959 from someone named Sam Kiss which included the following photo.
Sam and Mollie (nee Lutzky) Kiss in a photo sent with a letter to Louis Locketz in July of 1959.
I believe this photo to be Sam and Mollie Kiss holding a grandchild. Sam was born in Latvia in the 1890s. All the records say 1898, but that is questionable as he immigrated in 1911…which puts him on the very young side of things for an immigrant - but possible. His wife Molly (nee Lutzky) was born in “Russia” in 1901. They were married in New York on Nov 10, 1922. The letter from him is below. It appears that he and Louis had been in correspondence and were in conflict, or at least in debate. He mentions a shared cousin named Alter who was beaten in an uprising.
July 20 1959
My dear (male) cousin and (female) cousin with all the branches in your families: I received your dear letter with joy. And I’ve read over a few times how you described your past life in Kreslowa [Kraslava, or Kreslavka in Latvian] and all the years you’ve been here in America. I read about your mention of Europe and that you want to argue with me. I have great respect for you and I forgive you. Not because you’re richer than me, because money doesn’t mean everything. I have great regard for you because you are my blood, and because we grew up together, which is something I will never forget.
I don’t want to get embroiled in too many discussions with you concerning judging our respective intelligence. No man should exult and boast about what he has. For Man himself does not live…
…forever. I would like to dwell a moment on what you described about our dear cousin Alter. The incident was also the cause of great heart-ache for my dear God-blessed mother. I remember the details exactly. How, one day in particular, they attacked Chaim Khurin’s factory. About 500 soldiers came with weapons and they were swinging left and right. And they hauled off them off, all bloodied, to the Dwinsk [Daugavpils, Latvia] prison. Our cousin Alter was there among the wounded. About a week later he was returned to us all beaten up with pulmonary contusion [inflamed lungs]. Coughing up bits of blood. And Male would go to the market every day to bring back blocks of ice on her back to lay on the blisters on his back. Mother considered herself his mother at that time. And when he had recovered a bit, he was able to go back to work a little.
He moved to another residence. Our house, as poor as we were, always had an open-door-and-window policy for every needy person. I also recall that Hinde, may she live long, would often come to stay with us for a few weeks. And also your oldest God-blessed sister would come to us with her three children in the summer for a cottage experience. At the end of the summer her husband would come and take them home. Our little shtiebel [cottage] was big enough for everyone. My dear cousin Louis, had you not raised the matter of you doing good deeds, I wouldn’t have even brought it up with you today. It is good to do good. Goodness can’t be measured or weighed in dollars. When one does good, one secures his place in the world. My dear mother reached a ripe old age because she did good all her life.
I don’t want to be owing you a response. Right now I’m busy with my work. Because now is the ‘season’ - we have to cut the hay because the sun is shining [I think he is trying to translate the English ‘make hay while the sun shines’ into Yiddish...]. but for you I always have time.
Malle [Molly?], the kids and our beautiful grandchild and I are feeling fine. Notwithstanding our old age which is slowly creeping up our backs.
I hope my letter reaches you and Liza in good health.
Awaiting your prompt answer I remain as always
your faithful cousin Sam
Malle and the children send you and Liza their regards and wish you both a healthy old age.
So perhaps…
The Sam Kiss, who sent photos to both Chaya Pesha Reshstein and Louis Locketz is the brother Sam to whom Chaya Pesha refers in her letter. There are many possible connections. There was a connection to Creslovka which I believe is the same town mentioned in the letters. According to the excerpt below from Geula’s essay, Louis’ brother Joseph lived in Creslovka, and Louis likely spent time there as well based on other parts of the essay. Creslovka appears to be roughly about 50 KM away from Daugavpils/Dvinsk.
From an interview with Louis Locketz in 1959.
The extended Locketz family that regrouped in the Western Hemisphere between 1900-1920 all connect through the siblings that were known to Louis Locketz and his descendants, namely Morris, Gessie, Joseph, Louis and Helen (listed in likely birth order). Morris, Joseph and Louis all settled in Minnesota. Helen married Max Sherman and settled in New York. Gessie, according to Sidney Locketz’s family tree, appears to have married a number of times, but ultimately was married to Yossi Zilberman and immigrated to Buenos Aires. Family legend is that she had something wrong with her eye and was not able to enter the United States. Sid referred to her as having a “milk eye.”
These five siblings have descendants that number in the several hundred and that extend four or five generations at this time (2025). For the most part, they are no longer in touch, but how they are related on the family tree is very clear. Beyond this nuclear family (children of Yankel Shepsil and Chai Mashi) and their descendants, there are not many known or verifiable connections to explore. There is a murky connection to the Locketz family in South Africa. It may be verifiable by DNA, and they do have a connection to Kupiskis. There has been some contact between Minnesota and South Africa for over 50 years.
There are other DNA connections back to Latvia like with Dina Lokets (born in Riga, now in Chicago). But we have not been able to verify that line directly, though we are now in contact.
While I do not know that any of my open questions in this part of the tree would verify how Sam Kiss and Chaya Pesha Reshstein (assuming they were indeed siblings) were related to Louis, it seems like a good opportunity to pigtail the loose ends. So here are those loose ends as of today:
Louis’ mother was Khayia Basia (Chai Mashi colloquially by family) was born in 1854, was married to Yankel Shabsel (Yankel Shepsil by family) and is believed to have died during the birth of their fifth child, Helen in 1888. It is possible that Sam Kiss and Chaya Pesha Reshstein are the children of Khayia Basia’s sibling which would make them Louis’ first cousins. And if not that closely related, they could still indeed be connected through her…Louis’ mother of which we know almost nothing.
I have not checked in recently with my Locketz contacts in South Africa, but it is possible these names ring a bell with them.
It is possible that they were related through Yankel Shepsil’s uncle, Girsha (brother of Louis’ grandfather Josel Locketz b. 1817). I have written extensively about Girsha in the past…here is an excerpt: In the records, we can find that Girsha and Shora had at least one child, a daughter named Khaya Sora. She married a man named Feivish Sekunda and they had at least two sons, Michoel and Movska - these would be Yankel Shabsel’s first cousins. Girsha was born in 1833 and was the younger brother of Josel, my Great-Great-Great Grandfather. As far as I know, my branch of the family has had no contact with Girsha’s descendents since at least the time of the family’s emigration to the United States in the early 1900s. I would be 5th cousins with anyone in my generation, alive today, in that branch. (Michoel and Movska would be roughly the same age range as Louis, Chaya Pesha, and Sam Kiss…so if connected…I am not sure what that connection might be. But this would make it a connection back up through Yankel Shepsil on the Locketz family tree.
Another possibly that Chaya Pesha is related somehow through Louis’ half brother Nekeme whose existence likely comes as a surprise to anyone descending from Louis Locketz who is reading this. According to the records, Yankel Shepsil married again after Chai Mashi died and he had another child with this second wife. The woman he married was Rokha and they had a son name Nekeme. I have a copy of his birth record and I have no doubt there was a half brother named Nekeme. The records are clear. But I have not been able to find out any more information about them. It raises two unanswerable questions for me. The first, is why wasn’t that part of the story Louis told the family. If Chai Mashi died when she was giving birth to Helen, Louis would have been one year old. He must have gone with Yankel Shepsil when he remarried - this woman would have cared for him. The second question is connected to the first which is why was there was no subsequent contact with the half-brother? Louis arguably was a hub for the entire family. Many letters that have been translated begin with “thank you for the recent check.” If the records describe reality, It seems out of character for Louis to have lost touch with a sibling. Nekeme was born in 1892 when Louis was 5. Of course it is possible that Nekeme and his mother Rokha also perished in the same time frame as Yankel Shepsil’s death when Louis describes being out on his own and the Jewish orphanage, but still it is odd that he never spoke of them.
You can never know all the details of another’s life. In the best of times, the natural cycle of a family exanding through the generations is to drift. War, migration and the inability to stay in touch easily certainly exacerbated that drift.
