Family Matters: The Story of an American Family from the Shtetl

By Philip Catsman

This is the story of a family starting with the birth of my grandparents in what is today Belarus in the 1880s. It describes details of extreme living conditions in the shtetls of Czarist Russia and documents the contrast of tremendous financial and social success realized after immigration to the United States.

The story evolves with the next generation that was dominated by the actions and narcissism of the firstborn son, Sam. His, for the most part, disregard and disrespect of his father and siblings along with unbridled ambition catapulted him into a position of economic, social, and political power. In short, he was ruthless.

The last born, who was more than a decade younger than Sam, was my father Ray. Ray had "two fathers": Philip and a surrogate-Sam. He was dominated by his older brother and accordingly developed a wide range of insecurities which created challenges in his development. On the other hand and in contrast, Ray was born into the "lap of luxury" whereas Sam was born in Russia and grew up with his father's financial and social success.

It continues with my own generation and gradually becomes more self-centric. Details of my life of sailing adventures, wilderness living in the mountains, entrepreneurial pursuits/experiences across America, Canada, China, India, Mexico, Turkey, the UK and elsewhere on the globe are described as well. My struggles to discover a balance between "adult behaviors" and taking the time to "smell the roses" are also chronicled.

Humor or at least my interpretation of it along with anecdotes and brief philosophizing hopefully make this an enjoyable read.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Newman Springs Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jan 3, 2024
• ISBN: 9798887639215

Book preview

Preface

The following preface is based on

Nancy Jean’s and Maxine’s memories and recollections as well as records of Tante Elka’s (Ethel) immigration papers;

Church of Latter Day Saints (Mormon) and Jewish genealogy records (various groups),

Research of Davyd Gorodok website;

Research of the Davyd Horodokers group in Detroit (only one in the United States);

Research into various Belarusian, Polish, Lithuanian, and Latvian histories, records, Yizkors, etc.; and

Davyd Horodok Yizkor, Pinsk Yizkor.

A targeted history of Eastern Europe, Russia, and Ukraine from AD 1000 until the failed Russian Revolution of 1905

Davyd Gorodok (Russian)—Horodok (Belarusian)—literally means David’s Town. There are numerous communities in western Russia—Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia, etc.—having the Horodok designation which makes it somewhat confusing, even more so considering the Cyrillic alphabet, Yiddish, and Hebrew.

The town of Philip (Pesach) Katzman’s birth was created by Yaroslav the Wise (guy), the grand prince of Kiev and prince (ruler) of Kievan Rus, in honor of his grandson Davyd (surprise) about AD 1020 on the banks of the Horin (Horyn) River. Yaroslav was the son of Vladimir the Great. An alternative but as yet unsubstantiated explanation of its founding could have been the large numbers of ducks indigenous to the area on the banks of the Horin (whore in) River. As Catsman legend has it, Whore-a-duck? Why not a goose? I never really appreciated the joke(?) until recently.

The local Horodokers made a living with timbering, boatbuilding, river trade, and agriculture. The Horin merged with the Pripyat and ultimately the Dnieper River, giving the town direct water access to Kyiv (Kiev) a thriving community. Davyd Horodok (hereinafter DH) is only about twenty-five miles north of the Ukrainian border and about two hundred miles northwest of Kyiv.

We can’t really say the town thrived through the centuries, but by the late Middle Ages, there were a few thousand inhabitants. At that time, they were transporting mostly agricultural products as well as thigh-high calfskin boots not only to Kyiv but also north through the Oginski Canal to the Neman River and, subsequently, Warsaw and the Baltic region. There were very few Jews in Russia at that time.

Polish Lithuania in the Charter of Privileges (1388 by Grand Duke Withold, aka Alexander [huh?]), abolished most, if not all, of the severely repressive laws on the Jewish population. This created immigration incentives to Jews living in Germany, Austria, and elsewhere in Eastern Europe. The Charter was issued, as far as I can tell, to help develop and evolve the economy from an agricultural and forest exploitation base to mining, timber products, and manufacturing.

It worked. Large numbers of Jews migrated north and, subsequently, east, ultimately settling in Lithuania, Latvia, Belarus, the Ukraine, and elsewhere in the western Russian Empire. The economies of most areas improved and rapidly developed. However, the Charter of Privileges slowly evaporated over the next few hundred years due in part to the alleged practices of Jewish tax farmers not completely remitting tariffs and taxes to the respective grand dukes, kings, and other rulers. The Spanish Inquisition also played a significant part in the return of Jewish persecution in Poland, Lithuania, and Russia, as well as throughout Europe.

By the time of Catherine the Great (Catherine II), DH had been absorbed into the Polish Kingdom (1386–1777), which was closely aligned with the Lithuanian Grand Duchy. Catherine, along with her counterparts in Prussia and Austria, divided the Kingdom of Poland, including Lithuania, among the three countries during the Three Partitions of Poland from 1772–1777. Officially, DH became part of the Russian Empire in 1775. Poland then ceased to exist until the Treaty of Versailles and was formally recreated as the New Polish Republic in 1921. DH and the rest of Belarus were then given to Poland for only a couple of years until Soviet Russia annexed it. Belarus is now (2021) an independent country closely aligned with Russia.

Interestingly, in the US census records for 1910, 1920, and 1930, Phil, Anna, Pearl, Ethel, and Sam listed their birthplace as Russia. In the 1940 census, they listed their birthplace as Poland. I suspect they (at least Grampa) were more inclined to be Polish rather than Russian. There is confusion here because Poland was part of Nazi Germany in 1940. I don’t know why Phil would have changed his country of birth in 1940. He should have changed it in 1930. One possible explanation could have been that Phil felt solidarity with the Polish people due to their horrific suffering at the hands of the Nazis.

There was a large Jewish community in the area known as Belarus by the time of the Third Partition of Poland, which included far western Russia, between the Baltic and Black Seas. Prior to the Jewish migration of the Middle Ages, there were few Jews living in modern Belarus and Russia. There were large numbers of Jews in Germany, Austria, and Eastern Europe as a whole. Due to the anti-Semitic nature of their host countries, the Jews were, for the most part, peasants and serfs and restricted from land ownership.

Shortly after the Third Partition, Catherine enacted several residency restrictions on the Jewish population forcing them to remain in far western Russia. There was also noncorroborated royal encouragement of the Cossacks to attack Jewish settlements or shtetls. This was the beginning of the Jewish Pale of Settlement.

The history of Pale of Settlement (the word pale meaning stake as in surveyor’s stake) began in the 1100s when England first coined the term and sent numerous English subjects to control the wild Irish in Northern Ireland. That worked quite well for the English, don’t you think?

In 1825, Czar Nicholas I formally initiated the Jewish Pale of Settlement which forbade any Jew from migrating beyond the area defined as western Russia between the Baltic and Black Seas. Within their shtetls, the Jews were allowed to own businesses and prosper, provided they paid exorbitant taxes. For the most part, two or three Jewish families would rise in power within their shtetl and control the local Jewish economy. Subsist is probably a better word than prosper unless one belonged to a controlling family.

It should be noted that in almost all cases, Jews were in the minority in these villages. However, Jews frequently made up a significant percentage of the population, sometimes approaching 50 percent of the total. For the most part, they lived in the central area of the village; the Gentiles typically lived on the outskirts. There was obviously significant trading between the Jews and the Gentiles due to the freedom of movement accorded to the Gentile population.

The rise of Hasidic Judaism

Hasidism began in Western Ukraine during the mid-1700s and is credited to Rabbi Israel ben Eliezer. As the Jewish Pale of Settlement evolved with greater restrictions, the Hasidic movement grew in popularity. Most people know male Hasidic Jews by their dress and coiffure: black overcoats, hats, long beards, and payots. These obvious distinctions created more and more anti-Semitism among the Gentiles which spread as rapidly as the Hasidic movement, effectively polarizing communities. Jewish residents of a few towns within the pale resisted the Hasidic movement; DH was one such town. I suspect this was partly because of the Horin River and the trade-based economy which required a strong working relationship with Russian Gentiles. The Rationalists or Reformist Jews in DH were also influenced by Lithuanian Rabbi Elijah ben Solomon Zalman, a fervent anti-Hasidic.

It is significant that our grandfather told me on several occasions: I am an American first and a Jew second. He was against the Zionist movement and also rejected Orthodox Judaism. He started Reform temples in Flint and Miami whenever a new rabbi would impose conservative ideals.

Life continued, and the polarization of the communities grew throughout the 1800s. During the middle 1800s, Jewish males eighteen years and older suffered forced conscription for a period of twenty-five years. This was not on active duty for the full time, but after an initial period of about 5–10 years, they were allowed back into the pale and considered reservists.

Anti-Semitism had increased to a significant degree during Czar Alexander II’s reign (1855–1881), and many of his military leaders wanted to purge the military of Jews. The Jews were considered cowards and thieves by many of those leaders.

The czar’s most famous general was Dmitry Milyukin who had suffered a serious and debilitating injury during the Caucasian War. Milyukin, after recovering, was chosen by Alexander to be his minister of war and effectively led the Russian military until he retired shortly after Alexander’s assassination in 1881.

He instituted what is known as the Milyukin Reforms (1874). This proclamation raised the age of conscription from eighteen to twenty-one, reduced the twenty-five-year enlistment requirement to six years, exempted families with only one son from military service, allowed advancement of Jewish soldiers to the officers’ ranks. In short, it served to modernize the military. Obviously, the old guard was totally against this liberalization of the military and protested. Milyukin had the czar’s ear, and little could be done as long as Alexander II was alive. The Milyukin Reforms lasted through and beyond the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and were abolished around the end of the twentieth century. I do not know what replaced them, but that is not part of this story. These reforms impacted our history in one and possibly two ways: Pesach, or Phil, was exempted from military service as an only son, and through this exemption, he could not be drafted to serve during the Russo-Japanese war. Had he served during this war and been captured by the Japanese, we all would be speaking a different language and eating more sushi!

Alexander II was historically a reform-minded autocrat (an oxymoron?). He understood the wide chasm between the nobles and the peasants and serfs and in fact emancipated these two social groups in 1861. The reforms did little to help Jews living in the pale because the generational anti-Semitism had actually created more restrictions. His reign came to a violent end in Saint Petersburg on March 1, 1881, when assassins threw a bomb at his feet. The Russian nobles blamed Jewish Socialists for his death, and the first wave of pogroms began. Some historians propose the military old guard was behind the assassination; in any event, the Jews again suffered.

Pogrom means riot. After Alexander’s death, numerous gangs appeared with the singular purpose of terrorizing Jews. The first wave of pogroms lasted from 1881 until 1884. There were thousands of Jewish casualties, not to mention destroyed homes, displaced families, etc. Eventually, the Jews formed groups to defend themselves, which ultimately ended the pogroms. Police were ineffective, the nobility encouraged the actions, and the military was sparingly used; in short, the Jews were responsible for their own survival.

Pesach (Philip) Katzman and Channa Gittleman were both born during this period: Philip on May 28, 1881, and Anna on October 29, either in 1880, 1881, or 1882. Pesach’s father, Aharon Baruch ben Hirsch Katzman, and his mother, Besiel, were members of the small Hasidic population in DH. As such, Pesach was enrolled in Hebrew school at an early age.

Phil had two sisters: Sofegele and Elka. I don’t know their dates of birth. Sofegele must have been about ten years older than Pesach because she had five sons. The youngest, Max, was born in 1903.

Anna had three half sisters: Yentle (changed to Edith in America), Bessie, and Berniece. I don’t know their dates of birth either. They were from Anna’s father’s second marriage; Yentle was the eldest but about ten years younger than Anna. Anna’s mother died, possibly during Anna’s birth.

Czar Alexander III (1881–1894) succeeded his father and was thought to give tacit support to the pogroms during 1881–1884. He enacted the May Laws in May 1882, which blamed the Jews for the pogroms and placed harsher restrictions on Jews in the pale and were largely interpreted by the military, quasi-military, many intelligentsia, illiterate Gentiles, and Cossacks as encouragement to continue the riots.

The ensuing remainder of the nineteenth century continued to make life even more difficult for the Jewish population. Zionism entered the pale in the mid-1880s and was rapidly embraced due to the nearly impossible living conditions. Jewish emigration was a reaction to these conditions, and subsequently, there were seven Zionist localities established in Palestine by Belarusian Jews making aliyah through 1897.

Educated Jews started joining the Social Democrats (Marxists) in large numbers during this period. Poorly educated Jews from the shtetls then followed after learning life might be better with change. The growth of the Social Democrats in the shtetls served to further polarize the Jews and the Gentiles.

By the beginning of the Russo-Japanese War in 1904, half of the world’s Jewish population (about 5,000,000) lived in Russia with the vast majority in the pale. This war created a desperate need for Jewish doctors, nurses, and other medical experts, and the majority of volunteers and conscripts came from the medical fields. Certainly, there were many combatants of the approximately thirty-three thousand Jews sent east from Russian Poland, Lithuania, and the pale. These fighting soldiers were reported to perform their duties as well as the Gentiles. About 10 percent of the total perished, which was a higher percentage than the Gentiles. After the war, many captured Jewish soldiers elected to remain in Nagasaki, where the prison camp was located. They were welcomed by the one hundred or so Jewish families living there and assimilated.

The war was a disastrous defeat for Czar Nicholas II (1894–1918). Nicholas was trying to consolidate his power throughout the empire due to considerable unrest resulting from the Marxists, military, educated, peasants, and so forth. The defeat destroyed Russia’s navy and severely curtailed Russia’s influence throughout Europe. The victory was equally devastating for Japan because of the cost in money and lives lost. Japan, however, was a much smaller country and more easily recovered.

This unrest seemingly boiled over in the Bloody Sunday revolt in Saint Petersburg in January 1905. At the time, the war was going poorly, there had been numerous strikes by the peasant workers, there were mutinies in the military, czarist supporters had formed legal unions in support of the status quo, the Communists / Social Democrats were increasing their numbers as well as their influence, and the Russian coffers were almost empty.

A march was planned by Georgy Gapon, a priest, to mobilize peasants in a peaceful march to the Winter Palace to present a list of demands to the czar. Nicholas was not in residence but asked his uncle, Grand Duke Vladimir (head of security police) to control the situation. Vladimir ordered the police to fire on the marchers and unleashed Cossacks to attack as well. More than two hundred were killed.

This was considered the start of the 1905 Russian Revolution. Many more strikes ensued. The Russian army was defeated by the Japanese in several major battles. In short, the empire was in disarray, threatened both from within and without. On October 17, Nicholas issued his manifesto authorizing an elected legislature (Duma), hoping the unrest would end. It didn’t. Groups/gangs calling themselves the Black Hundreds or Hundredists propagated and started the second wave of pogroms. They were frequently accompanied by Cossacks.

The pogroms were again blamed on the Jews. Czarist supporters of the pogroms claimed shtetls in the pale started these riots, an historical inaccuracy. The pogroms actually started in the larger towns where the Jewish populations were a small minority, then spread to the villages. These riots lasted until 1906 but continued intermittently until the successful Russian Revolution of 1917–18. DH, as well as most of the shtetls in the western pale, never suffered a significant riot mostly because of the large and subsequently prepared and defense-minded Jewish populations. In fact, Minsk was the only city to have pogroms in the entire Belarusian province. As stated earlier, the riots in Minsk were as a result of a much smaller Jewish minority less able to defend itself.

The intermittent riots in the years following 1906 were more spontaneous than the well-organized pogroms in 1904–06. Cossacks and Black Hundredists would gather in drinking groups and, after enough were sufficiently inebriated, ride out and attack a few families and then disappear after a few hours.

It’s noteworthy to recognize how recent actions here in the United States mirrored these riots. There was a desire to Make Russia Great Again and support the autocratic leader. Human nature just doesn’t seem to evolve.

The Russian Revolution of 1905 failed in part because of a rift between the Mensheviks (means minority) and Bolsheviks (means majority). Trotsky and Lenin were leading the Bolsheviks and wanted forced change; the Mensheviks, on the other hand, wanted a legislative revolution. The use of double agents by the security police furthered the end of the unrest by locating and arresting many of the leaders of the revolution.

Introduction

The Catsmans

This is the story of an American family whose roots were laid down in late nineteenth-century Russia. It progresses from a hopeless beginning through emigration to the United States and wonderful financial, social, and familial achievements. It is the true story of how disadvantaged people living within the confines of a severely restricted society don’t have to give up but can achieve personal goals through hard work, ambition, and applied intelligence.

In addition to writing down a family’s history, it is equally important, at least to me, to try to understand how a family evolves from a psychological perspective, what influences personality characteristics, and how they change over the generations. Really, it becomes what is important in anyone’s life or any related group’s collective values. At this time, the Catsman family has greatly diverged from the moral, ethical, and goal-oriented standards of Philip (Pesach) Katzman. That’s not a criticism but merely an observation. Change is, of course, inevitable and is sometimes acceptable and, at other times, regrettable. The observations by others of changes in relatives can and should be more objective, but then a group is always made up of individuals with their own nuances and idiosyncrasies, and sometimes objectivity becomes a relative term.

I’ve tried to understand how, as an extended family, certain characteristics are common ground and those that aren’t. To summarize these vague thoughts, my efforts have been directed and diverted (with tongue in cheek) to try and understand, as the Monte Python troupe put it, The Meaning of Life.

The following is a narrative of a chronology of five and a half generations of this Katzman (Russia)—changed to Catsman (United States)—family from 1880 up to the present day. The preface is focused on my research of what is presently called Belarus from the inception of Davyd Horodok up to the birth of Pesach Katzman and Channah Gittleman.

An explanation of why I differentiate between the second and the second and a half generation is as follows: Pearl, Elka/Ethel, and Sam were born in a shtetl in Russia. Their parents suffered from generational living restrictions, anti-Semitism, systemic poverty, and utter hopelessness. On the other hand, Dave, Bess, and Ray were born in the United States and into a financially successful, secure, and relatively luxurious life, enjoying all the benefits of an open and unrestricted society. The hopelessness was long gone. The contrast must have been quite striking for Philip and Anna and, to a lesser degree, for Pearl and Ethel, with Sam being too young for any memories of Russia.

The history of Pesach/Philip Catsman and his descendants is unique due to the wide diversity of entrepreneurial pursuits, adventurous travels, and the personalities involved. Similar stories were repeated many times over by previous and subsequent immigrants, not only from the Jewish Pale but from many European countries. The major and contrasting difference between the similar stories and the one contained herein is the adaptive and creative nature of ensuing Catsman generations. The results of this mass migration of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries have, of course, greatly helped shape and build the country we call home as well as further the survival and somewhat selective prosperity of the individuals and their families. To my knowledge, it was largely unprecedented in world history.

As the story progresses and earlier generations age, my own life begins to take center stage. This is not out of arrogance or self-aggrandizement; Lord knows I’ve been most foolhardy in many of my pursuits. The achievement of financial success in my own life has also been much of a roller-coaster ride. Accordingly, I measure personal success in terms of life experiences, a blatant rationalization of my own failures. The successes and failures have, in contrast, served to enhance my adventures beyond the obvious international and local business and natural endeavors. I thank the powers that be for my wife and three wonderful sons above all else. With that said, let’s get on with it.

Book 1

Chapter 1

The Life of Phil and Anna from 1880 through 1907

As previously stated, Pesach Katzman was born on May 28, 1881, and Channa Gittleman was born on October 29, either 1880, 1881, or 1882. Tante Elka’s immigration records state 1882, while family lore says 1880; the US census from 1930 says 1881. Additionally, Grampa Phil gave me a $10 gold piece with a date of 1880 when I was about five years old. I remember he told me he was born in 1880. I’ll defer to Catsman tradition and agree he was born in 1881, though.

It is well documented from numerous sources that Phil was born in Davyd Horodok. On the other hand, Anna was born in either Stolin (about twenty-five miles distant from DH) or Ol’shany, about 1–2 miles distant from DH. For anecdotal reasons, I believe she was born in Ol’shany. Both DH and Ol’shany were located in the Stolin district of Minsk. I don’t know why it wasn’t the Pinsk district as Pinsk was much larger than Stolin.

Also in Ethel’s immigration records, Olshan is listed as her birthplace. There are numerous Olshans in Belarus, but the only logical one is called Ol’shany today, the neighboring village of DH. Possibly Phil and Anna were living in Ol’shany and not in DH when Pearl, Ethel, and Sam were born.

Location map of Davyd Horodok and Ol’shany

Relative location of Davyd Gorodok

Note the onion domes of Davyd square in this early 1900s photo. Grampa is the third man from the left at far right (naw, just kidding).

Early photograph of Davyd Horodok and Horin River

Phil’s father, Aharon, and mother, Beisel, were Hasidic; Phil was accordingly sent to Hebrew school at an early age. This education gave, in addition to fluency in Hebrew, intensive study of the Torah and Talmud which prepared him for his bar mitzvah in 1894. He became a cantor shortly after his bar mitzvah. This intensive religious training most likely shaped his opinions of Orthodox Judaism and Zionism.

After graduating from Hebrew school, Phil became an apprentice blacksmith and woodworker making parts for the boatbuilding and agriculture industries in DH.

He was either the second born or the youngest in the family. Sofegele must have been the eldest because her first son, Sam, was born in 1893 when Phil was only twelve. By way of contrast, Pearl was born nine years later in 1902. Little is known of Elka and her approximate age other than she was Aunt Ethel’s namesake.

As the story goes, Phil was looking for a wife just before the turn of the century, and a friend told him there was a girl in a neighboring village with a waist like this, holding up his index finger. Twenty-five miles to Stolin was a much greater distance in the late 1800s, and I believe it is much more likely Ol’shany was Anna’s birthplace.

So Phil went to Ol’shany (tempted to call it old shantytown, but I shan’t) on a market day and met Channah Gittleman. At the time, Anna was betrothed to another man by her father. Again Anna was the eldest daughter possibly by ten years; apparently, her father waited a long time to remarry. We do know Yentle, Berniece, and Bessie were born in that succession. Anna’s mother had died, and her father, a miller, remarried a younger woman.

It must have been shortly after their initial meeting that a group of drunken Cossacks came looking for the four Gittleman girls they had heard about, their motives obvious. Anna’s father got wind of the impending attack and sent his girls into the woods or in a culvert to hide. I suspect he sent his wife along with the girls as well.

The Cossacks, being barbarians, hanged Anna’s father for this, but the mother and the girls survived.

This tragic event had one bright spot: it freed Anna from her betrothal. Accordingly, Phil and Anna were married in 1901. Unfortunately, Anna’s stepmother lacked the fifty-ruble dowry, and this became a sore spot for fifty years afterward.

Dave solved this problem on their fiftieth wedding anniversary by giving Phil a fifty-ruble note.

Life was tough, to say the least, but Pearl was conceived and born in 1902. Elka/Ethel followed in 1904 and Sam in 1906. It is assumed Phil continued as a blacksmith during this time, considering he was only twenty-five when Sam was born.

Elka and Sam shortly before emigrating (courtesy of Maxine)

Photo of Elka and Sam pre-emigration

Phil had established a reputation as a kind and generous young man; some called him a prince according to Ethel and Pearl. In any event, knowing his later history, he most likely was a well-liked and respected man in DH and Ol’shany. He did develop a hard side to his personality later in life, at least when it came to business. More on that to follow.

The mass migration of Jews from the pale had now started, with most going to the United States. The DH Jews were, for the most part, ending in Detroit if their destination was not Palestine. I think it is logical to assume Phil knew several émigrés and must have communicated with them from time to time.

He no doubt received numerous incentivizing reports about relative rags to riches from his lantzmen. There were thriving metalworking industries making cast-iron stoves, locomotives, and wagons and an automobile industry just beginning in Detroit. These stories would have clearly painted a rosy picture, and indeed it was, for a young man with two and then three children living in the Jewish Pale with severe religious and ethnic discrimination, economic restrictions, and a future subject to unpredictable attacks by Cossacks and Black Hundredists. It would have been a simple decision. The execution of this decision was the difficult part.

Phil and Anna certainly must have had many discussions about the emigration. I can imagine Anna saying We must leave as a family and Phil saying I must go first, save enough money, and send it to you so you can follow. Adding fuel to Anna’s arguments were the plans Phil’s sister Sofegele was making to emigrate to Detroit with her husband and five sons. I suspect Sofegele had chosen her husband, Michael (probably Mikhail) Borin, because he was in one of the wealthy families. We know who prevailed in the discussions between Phil and Anna, though.

The distress this must have caused Anna in 1907, when her husband and provider abandoned her with an infant, a toddler, and a young daughter, would have been overwhelming. I am sure there were other abandoned wives Anna could share her emotions with, which would help a little. Some of her concerns would have been: Would her husband even survive the trip and voyage? Would he find Detroit to be full of the opportunities he expected? Would he be successful and send for them? When would he send for them? Would she ever hear from him again? It is almost impossible to imagine what she went through.

According to Maxine’s recollections of a story her mother told her, Elka was walking home from visiting a friend during this period of separation when she noticed a bull in her path. The bull charged, and she somehow escaped. Again imagine Elka’s fear of the bull and Anna’s fear for her daughter when hearing about it. Where was her husband, Elka’s father? There must have been many more stressful experiences during this time as well. Ethel was afraid of large animals for the remainder of her life.

It is a logical conjecture that Anna moved in with her stepmother and sisters for survival. We don’t know when her stepmother died, but she never emigrated. Hopefully, she was alive in 1907. We do know her half sisters were living because Phil brought them all over later.

Another unknown is Phil’s relationship with his father, Aharon, and his mother, Beisel. The DH Yizkor and Holocaust records state they died during the Nazi invasion in August 1941. I find this hard to believe because they would have been in their mid to late eighties at that time. It makes more sense to picture their demise during the German invasion in World War I.

We know that Phil was anti-Hasidic and anti-Zionist; we don’t know if these beliefs originated in Russia or in the United States of America. If they had originated in Russia, it certainly would have caused significant difficulty between him and his parents. I am leaning toward this explanation because he never spoke about them to any of us.

I believe Phil took the train from Pinsk to Libau, Latvia, where he boarded the ship for America. Anna’s route, according to Ethel’s immigration documents, followed the same course three years later, and it would be safe to assume Phil would have arranged the same itinerary for his wife and children.

Chapter 2

The Philip Catsman Legacy-America

Phil arrived in the United States on February 21, 1907. Note this was only two and a half months after Sam was born; it’s possible Phil had left prior to Sam’s birth. There are discrepancies in exactly where Phil landed in the western hemisphere. The ships from Libau in 1907 stopped in Halifax, Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. Debbie Deutsch has proposed Providence, Rhode Island, as the landing place. I cannot corroborate this as there was not an immigration center in Providence, and it did not appear in any schedule I found. However, I cannot dispute it either. It would make more sense to land in a less busy town where immigration officers were not used to Jewish surnames, hence the spelling: Catsman. If it were Ellis Island, you would think our name would have been spelled Katzman, as it was in Russia.

One thing I am certain of, wherever he landed, he did not go to or stay in New York. Phil arrived in 1907, and by 1908, the Catsman Coal Company had been founded in Flint. I believe he caught the first train to Detroit, where his lantzmen were. There are stories of him working in the factories, but he could not stand the noise. As an experienced blacksmith, he would have found immediate employment in the metalworking industries. A metal stamping shop can be horribly loud and unnerving, especially to a blacksmith only experienced with cottage-type metalworking. Whether it was a stamping shop, forging operation, or a foundry, it would have been shocking to a young man from the shtetl.

So we now have Phil recently arrived in Detroit and unable to work as planned and ignorant of English. What goes through a young man’s mind when he is separated from his family by roughly ten thousand miles in 1907? The stories he had heard wouldn’t work for him. He had little, if any, money; couldn’t communicate with the local population; and was now desperate to make his dream a reality.

What did he do? He went to Flint for a drink of water (inappropriate but relative to Sam’s efforts to control the Flint water supply in the 1960s)! Somehow, he decided to go to the smaller town of Flint, maybe thinking the stamping plants will be smaller and quieter? His occupation was listed as Junk dealer / Rag Salesman in the 1910 US census.

My conjecture is that he went to a few factories in Flint and noticed they were smaller but not any quieter. Maybe he observed products, such as burlap bags, being discarded. Through sign language or an interpreter, he arranged to pick up and dispose of potentially valuable items. Remember, Phil was a simpleminded man from the shtetl where there was no waste: everything was consumed or used. The rich Americans were carelessly throwing items away that were valuable.

Also, in those days, there were numerous underground coal mines from Flint to Bay City and west to Midland. The largest mine in Flint was the What Cheer Number 2. Mining, screening, and transportation methods were primitive, which would cause a lot of coal to be lost during transportation.

I noticed many poor people in Kentucky during the 1970s and 1980s walking road shoulders near my mines and the railroad near my tipple scavenging coal that had fallen by the wayside. Invariably, they had burlap bags to carry the coal.

I think you can see where I am going with this.

So along comes this young man on his horse loaded with burlap bags; he stops and communicates somehow with an older woman or man picking up coal from the roadside and carrying it in her/his apron. She understands for a penny or two or maybe for free, this nice young man will give her a couple of burlap bags and buy them back from her at a nice profit when filled with lump coal. If she, or he, wants to keep some of the coal, they can have another bag.

While this business is starting, Phil continues selling junk and other waste goods.

It wouldn’t take long, however, for this venture to blossom. Flint was growing at a rate faster than Detroit, albeit on a smaller scale. In fact, Flint had a population of just 38,550 in 1910, which grew to more than 156,000 by 1930. Sadly or justifiably, Flint’s population in 2020 was just under 95,000.

Now Phil has a nominal cost product and a ready-made residential customer base; all he needs is a storage area with a weighing apparatus. His storage area became the backyard at his first house on Baker Street. Accordingly, he had very low overhead and provided customer service: Phil personally delivered for free (large coal yards either didn’t deliver or charged). I don’t see how anyone could compete.

That’s how I propose the Catsman Coal Company was started. In as much as there were only a few months between when he arrived in Detroit and started his business in Flint, it must have been a scheme similar to this.

The year 1907 was the peak year for coal production from Michigan mines with more than two million tons extracted. Production decreased rapidly until the United States entered World War I when it increased for a few years before dwindling again. Ultimately, the Michigan coal mining industry ceased to exist during the late 1940s, with the last mine closing in 1950.

There was certainly enough demand from residential, governmental, and industrial sources, but the geological nature of the Michigan Coal Basin made the coal reserves difficult to extract. The mines were shallow, with minimal shale covering the coal and glacial till (sand and clay) above that. The glacial till served as an aquifer, making the mines very wet. The coal was also high in sulfur. The combination of high sulfur and wet mines contributed to dangerous levels of explosive methane gas as well as very difficult working conditions.

The growth of the industrial base in Southeast Michigan also put great demands on the labor force. It was easier to work in a factory, and factory work paid more money than working underground.

There was renewed activity in the 1960s when the large mid-Michigan utility Consumers Power purchased six hundred acres with proven reserves of more than one hundred million tons ostensibly to supply a new coal-fired power plant they were planning. Plans changed, and they built a nuclear plant instead. They sold the property.

I purchased the mineral (coal) rights for that and another contiguous four hundred acres in 1980. More on this much later.

Phil’s business was booming; he soon purchased a wagon and two horses. He had more customers than he did coal from the pickers, so he started buying from the mines. The What Cheer mine supplied wet coal that did not have enough lump in it, so Phil started buying coal from a mine in Saint Charles, about twenty miles north, as well as other mines in Saginaw County.

Catsman

Catsman Coal Co., about 1911

It was on one of these trips in about 1909 when one of his horses died. It was a very cold winter day, and he was well out in the country. He noticed a farmhouse not too distant and walked to it. The dead horse was in its harness, and he couldn’t get the harness off by himself, so he was stuck without some help.

Additionally frustrating was his inability to speak English except for a few words.