Abraham & Rebecca (nee Zochorowitz) Jacobs
Rebecca and Abraham Jacobs were contemporaries of Ruben and Ida Rubenstein. They were roughly the same age, established themselves in Des Moines around the same time…even lived on the same block…yet as far as I know, there are no photographs of them that remain. Though, I believe someone must have one. As has been the case with our Iowa ancestors, these two also had common names with others in their city and it makes the records a puzzle. We can say for certain that Abraham came to the US around 1890 and Rebecca and their five children did not come until 1899. This is also a common theme in the American (Jewish) immigrant experience. Though a nine year separation is a very long time compared to many. It is not known if Abraham travelled back and forth in those ten years. One can imagine the hardship on Rebecca remaining in “Russia” with the five kids. Joe was only one year old.
They too, only put “Russia” in all the documents that have been found. More than half a century later, in an early 1950’s interview in the “Highland Park News,” Joe Jacobs, the youngest of the children who was only 10 when they immigrated, was quoted as saying the family came from Minsk. Saying you were from Minsk, which was the big city in the area, was sort of like telling someone you are from Minneapolis when you live in Minnetonka. It doesn’t narrow things down too much.
From the “Highland Park News,” early 1950’s
In the same interview, Joe noted that Des Moines was their final destination because they knew people there. They stopped in New York to visit family, but then headed on to Des Moines. Did Abraham go to Des Moines ten years beforehand because they knew people there? Or was Abraham the people they knew there…and Rebecca and kids came to reunite with Dad. Hard to say. There was a whole list of Jacobs in the directories of the 1890’s in Des Moines.
Likely our Abraham as he lived on just one building over once the family arrived, perhaps moving to a larger apartment.
Gleaned from the census reports that are available we can piece together bits of information about Abraham, less about Rebecca. There is almost nothing to build on…again the challenge of searching for “Abraham Jacobs from Russia”…another needle in a haystack until more documents can be uncovered. I have checked with the Iowa Jewish Historical Society but they haven’t identified any information I don’t already have.
Abraham arrived in Des Moines around 1890.
In 1891, He was listed in the local directory as a peddler living at 613 E. 2nd St.
In the 1900 census, Abraham listed butcher as his profession. It also states that he and Rebecca were both 40 years old and had been married for 25 years…which made them a young bride and groom at 15 years old.
In the 1900 census, five children were listed, Anna 22, Ben 20 (a tailor), Louis 16 (also a tailor), Rosa 14, and Joe 10.
Ten years later in the 1910, Joe was the only offspring still living with Abraham and Rebecca and they lived in Saylor Township on a farm, Abraham was a farmer and Joe a laborer (could this be a different family? Maybe…as I said there are entwined records with similar names and ages.)
In 1920, they were living with daughter and son-in-law, Anna and Morris Lutz on Grand Ave.
Abraham died on January 20, 1927
Cause of Death: Bronchial Pneumonia
Rebecca died March 12, 1931. Cause of death: Senility
