22 October 2013

Tombstone Tuesday: Max Morris


Here lies
Baruch Mordechai son of Yitzchak Shlomo
16 Iyar 5723
HUSBAND      FATHER
MAX B. MORRIS
AUG. 23, 1903 - MAY 10, 1963

Mea culpa! Here's where I admit the sins of the past: I found this photo on the web somewhere along with a few other Morris family tombstone images in the same cemetery back in February 2008 (i.e., early in my genealogy "career"). I must have Yahoo'd (which I used a great deal back then) one Morris relative's name and came up with this. I recollect that the images were associated with a synagogue (maybe?  :-D  ). I cannot relocate these on the web, the graves are not indexed in Find a Grave or the JewishGen Online World Burial Registry and I have zero notion as to the cemetery in which they are located (although I strongly suspect the cemetery is in New Jersey).

I have a query in to Max's granddaughter, but, until I hear from her, I'm still searching. I tried loading each photo into tineye.com - an online application that will, supposedly, find images on the web. Nothing.

I will update this post when I figure out where Max is buried. [Red Bank Hebrew Cemetery. This image was located on DistantCousin.com.]

Max B. Morris was born, according to his son Don, on 23 August 1901. Don said that the tombstone carver made an error and wrote a birth year of 1903. The stone may have another error, as well, although one cannot conclude it was the carver's fault. Max's father's name is shown as Yitzchak Shlomo. I had always heard that Isidore's Hebrew name was Yitzchak Leib (and this is what is on Isidore's tombstone). I was told that my Hebrew name (Gilah Gabora) was derived as a female version Yitzchak Leib, whom I am named after. 

Max was the first son and the third child of Isidore and Sarah Morris. He was born Mottel Mazewitsky in Lubin, Russia (Labun or, now, Yurovshchina, Ukraine). Max, his mother and siblings emigrated on the Vaderland from the port at Antwerp in 1910. [1]

Like his father, brothers and several other relatives, Max became a glazier. On 15 September 1920, he married Irene Ratner. [2] They had four children who lived to adulthood: Bernice (1922-1996), Muriel (1926-1962), Dr. Edwin (1928-1996) and Donald (1937-2010). Recently, I located the family in the 1925 New York State Census and was surprised to see two additional children Charles (born about 1923) and Vera (one week old). [3] By the 1930 U.S. Census, when the family is in Red Bank, New Jersey, neither Charles nor Vera are recorded. [4] I have found no New York City Death Certificates for these two. It is possible that they passed away in New Jersey, but I have yet to locate evidence of that.

Notes:
1. "New York Passenger Lists, 1820-1957," digital images, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com: accessed 11 January 2012), manifest, Vaderland, Antwerp to New York, arriving 7 June 1910, p. 1, Mottel Morris; citing National Archives Microfilm Serial T715.
2. New York County, New York, Certificate and Record of Marriage number 34502 (15 September 1920), ax Morris and Irene Ratner, New York City Municipal Archives, New York.
3. 1925 New York States Census, New York County, New York, population schedule,  Enumeration District 18, Assembly District 7, sheet 21, Max and Irene Morris; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 10 January 2013), New York State Archives: Albany, New York.
4. 1930 U.S. Census, Monmouth County, New Jersey, population schedule, Red Bank, Enumeration District 13-104, sheet 1A, family 10, Max Morris, digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 1 March 2008), citing Family History Library microfilm 2,341,107.

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