Ethel Heinrich-Schwartz Biography: Although Ethel's father was a prosperous tavern keeper and Chaim Schwartz was just an impoverished young student destined to follow his family's trade as a furrier, Ethel was a young woman with a strong will who knew what she wanted, and Chaim was her choice for a husband. It seems she told her father the 19thcentury Romanian-Jewish equivalent of "Daddy, I want that one."
In that time of mass emigration of Eastern European Jews to the New World, the steamship companies actively competed for passengers. One of them sent a representative to Piatra Neamt and announced that he was looking for the best salesperson in town to sell steamship tickets. That person was Ethel. Her reward was passage for her family of six. (Out of 14 pregnancies, only four of their children survived infancy.) It was just chance that the family ended up in Montreal, Quebec, in 1904, rather than some other North American city.
Beginning in about 1909 and through the '20s, the family gradually migrated to Toledo, Ohio. Ethel made a living by selling housedresses door to door. During Prohibition both she and her sister Rachel sold wine, made from their own grapevines, out of their kitchens. They also served as the neighborhood midwives. There was nothing that Ethel wouldn't attempt.
Ethel and Chaim spent their last years living with their daughter Anna at 215 Palmer Street in Toledo. Originally the house was a two-family with an outside staircase. When it was a single-family residence, Ethel would not allow the upstairs rooms to be electrified nor was there central heating, just a parlor stove downstairs. To go to bed at night those who slept upstairs carried a candle with them. In all seasons the backdoor to the upstairs was left open, letting snow blow in in the wintertime. After her death, when the upstairs was remodeled, it was found that she had slapped wallpaper across the ceiling any which way just to get the job done. Anna said she sewed that way too and was ashamed to wear her homemade clothing.
Ethel was not known to be an affectionate, let alone doting grandmother. It's impossible to say what kind of a mother she was; however, she was a woman wise about human relationships. Her aphorisms, as they were intended to, have come down through the family. For example: "One heart is a mirror to another." Her instruction as to how a young maiden should conduct herself: "Dance and laugh but protect yourself; carry a hatpin." And marital relations: "All your husband wants to know when he comes home from work is that the food is ready and you are ready."
Whatever the extent of her education, Ethel was one of the women who could read from the prayer book (Hebrew/ Yiddish) for those in the synagogue who could not.
Unlike Chaim who went peacefully, Ethel fought to stay alive. She was furious when she could no longer jump out of bed in the morning. Just weeks before her death, Anna was finally persuaded to let her go to a convalescent home, and when her mother died soon after that, Anna could not forgive herself.
Ethel was the daughter of Abraham Heinrich, born in Romania about 1830 and died in Romania about 1892.
Contributor: David Foster (48699366) • [email protected]
In that time of mass emigration of Eastern European Jews to the New World, the steamship companies actively competed for passengers. One of them sent a representative to Piatra Neamt and announced that he was looking for the best salesperson in town to sell steamship tickets. That person was Ethel. Her reward was passage for her family of six. (Out of 14 pregnancies, only four of their children survived infancy.) It was just chance that the family ended up in Montreal, Quebec, in 1904, rather than some other North American city.
Beginning in about 1909 and through the '20s, the family gradually migrated to Toledo, Ohio. Ethel made a living by selling housedresses door to door. During Prohibition both she and her sister Rachel sold wine, made from their own grapevines, out of their kitchens. They also served as the neighborhood midwives. There was nothing that Ethel wouldn't attempt.
Ethel and Chaim spent their last years living with their daughter Anna at 215 Palmer Street in Toledo. Originally the house was a two-family with an outside staircase. When it was a single-family residence, Ethel would not allow the upstairs rooms to be electrified nor was there central heating, just a parlor stove downstairs. To go to bed at night those who slept upstairs carried a candle with them. In all seasons the backdoor to the upstairs was left open, letting snow blow in in the wintertime. After her death, when the upstairs was remodeled, it was found that she had slapped wallpaper across the ceiling any which way just to get the job done. Anna said she sewed that way too and was ashamed to wear her homemade clothing.
Ethel was not known to be an affectionate, let alone doting grandmother. It's impossible to say what kind of a mother she was; however, she was a woman wise about human relationships. Her aphorisms, as they were intended to, have come down through the family. For example: "One heart is a mirror to another." Her instruction as to how a young maiden should conduct herself: "Dance and laugh but protect yourself; carry a hatpin." And marital relations: "All your husband wants to know when he comes home from work is that the food is ready and you are ready."
Whatever the extent of her education, Ethel was one of the women who could read from the prayer book (Hebrew/ Yiddish) for those in the synagogue who could not.
Unlike Chaim who went peacefully, Ethel fought to stay alive. She was furious when she could no longer jump out of bed in the morning. Just weeks before her death, Anna was finally persuaded to let her go to a convalescent home, and when her mother died soon after that, Anna could not forgive herself.
Ethel was the daughter of Abraham Heinrich, born in Romania about 1830 and died in Romania about 1892.
Contributor: David Foster (48699366) • [email protected]
Ethel Heinrich-Schwartz Biography: Although Ethel's father was a prosperous tavern keeper and Chaim Schwartz was just an impoverished young student destined to follow his family's trade as a furrier, Ethel was a young woman with a strong will who knew what she wanted, and Chaim was her choice for a husband. It seems she told her father the 19thcentury Romanian-Jewish equivalent of "Daddy, I want that one."
In that time of mass emigration of Eastern European Jews to the New World, the steamship companies actively competed for passengers. One of them sent a representative to Piatra Neamt and announced that he was looking for the best salesperson in town to sell steamship tickets. That person was Ethel. Her reward was passage for her family of six. (Out of 14 pregnancies, only four of their children survived infancy.) It was just chance that the family ended up in Montreal, Quebec, in 1904, rather than some other North American city.
Beginning in about 1909 and through the '20s, the family gradually migrated to Toledo, Ohio. Ethel made a living by selling housedresses door to door. During Prohibition both she and her sister Rachel sold wine, made from their own grapevines, out of their kitchens. They also served as the neighborhood midwives. There was nothing that Ethel wouldn't attempt.
Ethel and Chaim spent their last years living with their daughter Anna at 215 Palmer Street in Toledo. Originally the house was a two-family with an outside staircase. When it was a single-family residence, Ethel would not allow the upstairs rooms to be electrified nor was there central heating, just a parlor stove downstairs. To go to bed at night those who slept upstairs carried a candle with them. In all seasons the backdoor to the upstairs was left open, letting snow blow in in the wintertime. After her death, when the upstairs was remodeled, it was found that she had slapped wallpaper across the ceiling any which way just to get the job done. Anna said she sewed that way too and was ashamed to wear her homemade clothing.
Ethel was not known to be an affectionate, let alone doting grandmother. It's impossible to say what kind of a mother she was; however, she was a woman wise about human relationships. Her aphorisms, as they were intended to, have come down through the family. For example: "One heart is a mirror to another." Her instruction as to how a young maiden should conduct herself: "Dance and laugh but protect yourself; carry a hatpin." And marital relations: "All your husband wants to know when he comes home from work is that the food is ready and you are ready."
Whatever the extent of her education, Ethel was one of the women who could read from the prayer book (Hebrew/ Yiddish) for those in the synagogue who could not.
Unlike Chaim who went peacefully, Ethel fought to stay alive. She was furious when she could no longer jump out of bed in the morning. Just weeks before her death, Anna was finally persuaded to let her go to a convalescent home, and when her mother died soon after that, Anna could not forgive herself.
Ethel was the daughter of Abraham Heinrich, born in Romania about 1830 and died in Romania about 1892.
Contributor: David Foster (48699366) • [email protected]
In that time of mass emigration of Eastern European Jews to the New World, the steamship companies actively competed for passengers. One of them sent a representative to Piatra Neamt and announced that he was looking for the best salesperson in town to sell steamship tickets. That person was Ethel. Her reward was passage for her family of six. (Out of 14 pregnancies, only four of their children survived infancy.) It was just chance that the family ended up in Montreal, Quebec, in 1904, rather than some other North American city.
Beginning in about 1909 and through the '20s, the family gradually migrated to Toledo, Ohio. Ethel made a living by selling housedresses door to door. During Prohibition both she and her sister Rachel sold wine, made from their own grapevines, out of their kitchens. They also served as the neighborhood midwives. There was nothing that Ethel wouldn't attempt.
Ethel and Chaim spent their last years living with their daughter Anna at 215 Palmer Street in Toledo. Originally the house was a two-family with an outside staircase. When it was a single-family residence, Ethel would not allow the upstairs rooms to be electrified nor was there central heating, just a parlor stove downstairs. To go to bed at night those who slept upstairs carried a candle with them. In all seasons the backdoor to the upstairs was left open, letting snow blow in in the wintertime. After her death, when the upstairs was remodeled, it was found that she had slapped wallpaper across the ceiling any which way just to get the job done. Anna said she sewed that way too and was ashamed to wear her homemade clothing.
Ethel was not known to be an affectionate, let alone doting grandmother. It's impossible to say what kind of a mother she was; however, she was a woman wise about human relationships. Her aphorisms, as they were intended to, have come down through the family. For example: "One heart is a mirror to another." Her instruction as to how a young maiden should conduct herself: "Dance and laugh but protect yourself; carry a hatpin." And marital relations: "All your husband wants to know when he comes home from work is that the food is ready and you are ready."
Whatever the extent of her education, Ethel was one of the women who could read from the prayer book (Hebrew/ Yiddish) for those in the synagogue who could not.
Unlike Chaim who went peacefully, Ethel fought to stay alive. She was furious when she could no longer jump out of bed in the morning. Just weeks before her death, Anna was finally persuaded to let her go to a convalescent home, and when her mother died soon after that, Anna could not forgive herself.
Ethel was the daughter of Abraham Heinrich, born in Romania about 1830 and died in Romania about 1892.
Contributor: David Foster (48699366) • [email protected]
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