Morris Gilbert

GEDCOM Note

Bio notes: While we were talking about the Scranton Koslovskys, we got on to the topic of Morris Gilbert. For the record, as Grandma recalls, PopPop's mother had only one sister living with her while both her parents were alive. The sister was married to a man named something like Gilbert and they had a son, Morris. Then, the sister died, and her husband re-married. That second marriage produced at least two daughters, one of whom, of course, was Esther Rosenzweig, our "cousin" in Tel Aviv. Another daughter -- Esther's sister -- also moved to Israel and lived in Bnei Brak. Thus, Esther was Morris' half-sister. Meanwhile, PopPop's mother and father were married in or near Ashminiov, near Vilna, and sort of adopted Morris Gilbert. When PopPop's mother and father moved to the U.S., they brought Morris with them, although they themselves did not yet have children of their own. Morris was very young, and grew up in PopPop's house with all PopPop's siblings. He later served in the army in World War II and then settled somewhere in New Jersey (where is that?). There's a picture taken at my Bar-Mitzvah with my maternal cousins, uncles, and aunts, that, for some reason, includes Morris Gilbert. We were unable to solve the other mystery of whether PopPop's mother's father, who we think was named Chaim Shapiro, came to the U.S., as Lowell Pancer's great aunt believed. However, Grandma does have a memory of PopPop saying that, when he was young, he went with his mother to some cemetery, perhaps in Brooklyn or on Long Island, looking for a matzevah, but never finding it. Grandma doesn't know whose matzevah they were looking for, but it could have been that of PopPop's mother's father Chaim, after whom it is conceivable that Kenny was named.

GEDCOM Note