Roberta <rafarris@gmail.com>
Mon, Jun 1, 2020, 1:16 AM
to me
Hi Anita,
How wonderful to hear from you. I love to share family history. I’ve been doing genealogy for over 35 years. Are you on Ancestry.com? If you are, I can share my family tree there. A little background…I was born and raised in Milwaukee, went to college at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, moved back to Milwaukee for 10 years, went to Minneapolis for 20 years, and have been back in Madison for the last 13 years. My husband and I seem to only live in places that start with the letter M! Plus he’s from Maine!
I have that Rabbi Shimon came to the US around 1904 on a ship possibly named Moltke. Unfortunately I have not been able to find his immigration record. In 1905, I have him in Granville, New York. Yes, in 1910 he was in Waterloo, Iowa. By 1912 Rabbi Shimon was in Tyler, Texas. He also occupied pulpits in Mobile, Alabama and Shreveport, Louisiana. Not sure which years, but before he went to Calgary. By 1917 he was in Calgary. I have that he was born 21 Dec 1882 in Smela, Kiev, Ukraine and died 5 Sept 1964 in Calgary.
Rabbi Shimon’s brother who is listed as Isadore in the 1910 Census in Waterloo, was also called Harry Esser Smolensky. He changed his last name to Solen at some point. Harry arrived in NYC on 28 November 1905 on the ship Amerika from Hamburg, Germany. By 1917 he was living in California. Harry was born 3 Feb 1887 in Smela and died 7 Jan 1982 in Oakland, California. I am in touch with Harry’s grandson Ken Solen who lives in Orem, Utah. He is a retired chemical engineering professor from Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. He also is interested in genealogy.
My grandmother Sarah Tartakovsky arrived in Galveston, Texas on 26 April 1912 on the ship Hannover from Bremen, Germany. She was at sea at the same time as the Titanic. She could not afford to travel on the Titanic. Sarah was met in Galveston by Harry Esser Smolensky Solen who was her half-uncle. From there they went to her other half-uncle Rabbi Shimon in Tyler, Texas and then on to Cedar Rapids, Iowa where within five months she married my grandfather, Jacob Miller. I’m not sure how they met, but they did not know each other back in Russia.
Rabbi Shimon had two other siblings who stayed in Russia. The family that stayed used the name Smelyansky. The oldest sibling was Genessa or Genya born about 1875 in Smela and died 1960 in Moscow. Next was Ari Leib born 1879 in Smela and died 1959 in Moscow. I have been in touch with Ari Leib’s descendants now in Israel and have lots of information about them. Pictures too. Genessa’s descendants stayed in Russia and I have some info about them. I’m supposed to get more info from Genessa’s granddaughter who is in her 80s, but Covid-19 is delaying that.
