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Feature Photo
The photo: The sons of Israel Baer Rosenstein owned and operated a paint and wallpaper supply store in Chicago. At the far right is Jacob Joseph (Jack) Rosenstein. At the far left is Jack's elder son, David. The lady in the picture is Ida Alter, who was Lou Rosenstein's secretary. The man without the hat's last name is Wolf, and he was the truck driver. If you can help identify the other man in this photo, please email me.
The descendants of Wolf Isaacovich ROSENSTEIN's sons Israel Baer ROSENSTEIN and Aron Wolfovich ROSENSTEIN had their first family reunion in two generations in 1996. The reunion was held at Harms Woods near Chicago, IL.
If these names look familiar to you, and you want more information on the ROSENSTEIN family tree, let me know!
Following our family picnic at Harms Woods (Skokie Forest Preserve IL), I submitted an article to Avotaynu, The International Review of Jewish Genealogy. The article was not published, but the contents are available here.
So you haven't had much luck lately in your relentless search for the missing genealogical link to your ancestors? Try heading in the other direction - gather the descendants together; the rewards are well worth the effort.
Israel Baer and Aron Rosenstein were two of the sons of Wolf Isaacovich Rosenstein of Kiev. Both emigrated to the United States early in 1906. Aron, his wife, son and daughter settled in New York; Israel Baer went to Chicago with his wife and eight children. After two years, Aron and his family joined his brother in Chicago where they had two more daughters.
The Rosensteins had a tradition of holding picnics for the extended family, but that tradition had been dormant for many years: since the last one in 1939. On August 24, 1996, some of their descendants renewed the tradition in suburban Chicago.
Work on the picnic had begun approximately 18 months earlier, gathering current addresses and brainstorming ideas. Park space was reserved at the beginning of the year. Three subsequent mailings ensued: first a postcard to announce the date and place of the picnic; secondly, a more informative letter asking for tentative reservations in order to estimate the number of attendees; lastly, a final reservation letter with the cost information.
We charged $16 for adults and $12 for children ages 5-12, and $8 for children under 5. The money covered the costs of a caterer, rental of extra tables and chairs, and a tent. One family member arranged games and prizes for the children. Each attendee was given a covered plastic cup as a souvenir, and each family got a dubbed videotape of a family picnic circa 1938.
A special highlight were the name tags that showed each person's line of descent from either Israel Baer or Aron. Each generation had its own color. The two brothers names were shown on the name tags using scanned signatures in black. Representatives of the next five generations were listed in red, orange, green, blue and violet ink. Name tags were printed on an HP Deskjet printer on square floppy disk labels. One child, Kailey Martin is a great-great-great-granddaughter of Israel Baer and was, at the time of the picnic, the sole representative of the sixth generation.
Of the roughly 230 living descendants of Israel Baer and Aron, about 150 attended the picnic. It was uncommonly glorious for an August day in Chicago - 80°F with low humidity and a slight breeze. A wonderful day was capped by a (completely fortuitous) direct overhead fly-by of the Blue Angels in formation.
Larry Rose's genealogical studies started with a grade school family tree project. Larry is the great-grandson of Israel Baer ROSENSTEIN. He is currently searching for more ROSENSTEINs, OZERANSKYs, EISENBERGs, BUZHINs, KLEINs, HOLDs, YUNGERs, RUPs, EBERSMANs, FRIEDMANs, LEVYs, CUBLINSKYs, BARONs, BINDERs, GROBMANs and HYBERs. Larry can be reached via the Internet at lrose@dragon.net.
Following the picnic, I created a lessons learned document, to make things easier for future organizers. Here it is...