Bluma Sandler Sneider

They wrote "none" for "Blume Schneider's" calling or occupation on the Alien Passenger Manifest of the SS Koln that brought her over to Baltimore in August, 1905.

At this point, she was 48 years old, had given birth to seven children (six had survived), and had lost her husband Dovid Velvel, who was probably a butcher. Their town was Kraziai, Lithuania, known as Krozh in Yiddish, their mother tongue. Lithuania wasn't independent in the nineteenth century but part of the Russian empire, so Bluma's nationality was recorded on the ship as "Russian."

Her surviving children--two boys and four girls--all emigrated to the New World. Like her, every one traveled to Bremen, Germany and then boarded a German steamer for Baltimore. Most of them were in their teens.

Meyer, the oldest, born in 1877, was the first to leave--at age 17 in 1895. He was followed by second-born Chaie (Ida) in 1899, also 17. Israel (Buddy) left in 1903, age 15. The boys indicated their occupations as butchers on their ship registers.

Leie (Lena) emigrated together with her husband Louis in December 1904 from the town of Varniai (Vorne or Vorna in Yiddish), 27 miles away from Kraziai.

It's not clear when Rose or Jennie left, but it looks like one of them was on the same ship as Bluma, traveling as Lena under her maiden name Leah Schneider. Judging from the passenger manifest, this daughter kept her distance from Bluma on the ship because their relationship wasn't apparent on their totally separated listings. But they both named as their contact in Baltimore Harry Savetman, Ida's husband on Barre Street. Pauline Rosendorf recently told Jeff Silverman that "Meyer brought Bluma and Rose over"--so the mystery passenger is probably Rose.

All of these passenger manifests are posted here on the geni site.

In 1910, Bluma was living in Baltimore with Rose and Jennie, both still single. It's on this census that we learn she'd given birth to seven children, six of them still alive. In that year, sons Meyer and Israel were running a retail store Meyer had started in McDowell County, in the southern part of West Virginia. This part of Appalachia was the center of a huge coal boom that attracted immigrants from around the world. Ida and her husband Harry were also in the same area and several of their six children were born in the boom towns there between 1905-1912.

Bluma stayed in Baltimore. She was living with Louis and Lena Harris and their children in 1920 and continued living with them until her death in 1949.

On the April 1940 Census, her immigration status shows as "naturalized" for the first time--but this wasn't true. In fact, she was still legally a foreign alien and shortly after this, had to register as such with the Immigration and Naturalization Service. . I obtained a copy of her October 1940 Alien Registration Form from USCIS under a FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) request. In it she attests that she was born in Kross (=Krozh) Lithuania in November 1853, she had never started the citizenship process, and she was still a Lithuanian citizen. Also that she had emigrated to the U.S. at Baltimore in August 1905 on the SS "Kellin" (=SS Koln). No foreign political affiliations.She signed with an "X" and there's a fingerprint of her right index finger.

The Hebrew inscription on Bluma's tombstone in Beth Tfiloh cemetery indicates that she was the daughter of YEHOSHUA NECHEMYA (Joshua Nechemiah). Her maiden name was Sandler, according to Leonard Sandler Sneider, Israel's son. Jeff Silverman and I are trying to find and document an actual Sneider/Sandler connection. (We did find a 1912 Immigration Service letter replying to an Abe Sandler in Baltimore that supplied information that documented "Israel Mendel Sneider's" voyage over--but we don't know who Abe Sandler was.)

Bluma's own birth year sort of floats around on various docs, but it looks like she was born around 1855 and she certainly lived to her mid-nineties. She had 24 grandchildren. She outlived three adult children (Ida, Jennie, and Buddy) but several of her grandchildren lived into their nineties (Mary Foxman, Jeanette Friedel, David William Sneider, Frank Rosendorf, Leonard Sneider, Sidney Rosendorf, and Jennie Koff). Sidney died in Sept 2017 at age 95, and Jennie in Nov 2018 at 92.

Bluma was the matriarch of our family.

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/105085352/bluma-sneider

Ed Friedel & Jeff Silverman, October 2019