II-The Salzman Family

The Salzman family emigrated to Argentina from Kamenetz-Podolsk, in the region of Podolia, then a part of the Russian Empire.

They were assisted by the Jewish Colonization Association and were settled in the Province of Entre Rios, in a colony called Las Moscas, in de department of Gualeguay, probably in 1895.

The father, David Salzman (born in 1850) , and the mother, Mince (Minza) Lipavtsky (born in 1851), came with four of their five children. The oldest daughter, Zeme, had previously emigrated to the United States and was married, living in Boston (the Thorner family).

The other children were, Benjamin, born in 1872, Jume, Fanny (Feiga) (b. 1882) and Jenny (Slata) (b.1884). Another son,older than Benjamin, Daniel, had been murdered in Russia by an antijewish mob.

David Salzman, became a farmer (he had been a shopkeeper in Russia). In 1900 David Salzman decided to move with his two younger daughters (Fany and Jenny) to the USA to join the Thorner daughter, Zeme, in Boston. This is recorded in the Ellis Island computer files available through the internet.

The USA Salzmans

From Ellis Island records; David Salzman arrived in New York with his family on July 24, 1900 in the ship Helvetius. He gave as origin Entre Rios, which is the province in Argentina where he had settled. The ship had left from Rio de Janeiro. With him was his wife, Mince age 49, Feiga (age 18, I supposed she was Fany) and Slata (age 16, I supposed she was Jenny). I can add the following regarding the Salzman family in the U.S.A. This is from my personal experience. I arrived in the US on October 1953.

The first of the Salzmans to immigrate to the US were the Thorners (Zeme). The Thorners settled in Boston. By 1953 the original couple was dead. I met two of the Thorner daughters Rose and Frances. There were two or three sons. One was a Los Angeles lawyer, the others I believe, were dead. I did not meet any of the male Thorner brothers.

The older of the daughters, Rose, was not necessarily the oldest in the family. I understood that the men were older. She was born in 1894. She looked younger than her age. It appears that in her youth she had been very attractive. She was very elegant. She had married, but divorced soon after. She had no children. Rose had a very good position. She was a buyer of the department of dresses of Saks, 34th. St. She managed the department, decided what the store was going to sell each season, and was responsible for the purchases and sales. She lived in a nice apartment, furnished with very good taste, in West 23th in Manhattan. She was at our wedding in 1957. When we were in Puerto Rico (1960 to 1963), she traveled there, she called us and we went together for dinner and to the beach. She retired and moved to Los Angeles where she bought a house and a car. The reason was that her younger sister, Frances, lived there. Since in Los Angeles, it is not possible to live without a car, she had to learn to drive. She had emphysema, she was a heavy smoker. In 1964 she had an emphysema attack at her home and died.

Rose’s younger sister, Frances, was born in 1900 and died in 1974. I once met Frances at Rose’s. She had married twice and had a daughter (Ralyn ) from her first marriage. She divorced her first husband and later married another man (Stein) who was still living. He was retired and his occupation at the time was to play golf. Ralyn was married to a man whose family (Wolfson) owned a large pharmaceutical store chain, and had children.

I never met the California Thorner brother that was lawyer and had children who already had finished the University. I understood that he was very wealthy.

Soon after my arrival in the U.S.A, I was invited to the wedding, in Boston, of a Thorner (man) who was the son of a brother of Rose and who was marrying for a second time. At the wedding I met a woman Josephine Thorner, daughter of a deceased brother of Rose. She was a cousin of the broom. Josephine was married to an engineer, graduated from MIT, that was the manager of the company that made the film cameras Keystone. They lived in a suburb of Boston and invited several times to their home while I was leaving in Concord, NH. They had a daughter, about 10 years old at the time.

Josephine had a sister who lived in Long Island and whom I met, through Josephine, when I moved to New York. She was married to a lawyer, graduated from Harvard. He worked for one of the main financial companies of New York, Solomon brothers. They had several children.

Another sister of our grandfather Benjamin Salzman was aunt Fanny. When I met her, she was, apparently in her seventies. She was married to Sborowsky. The Sborowskys s changed the name by Borows. The husband had died and she lived in an apartment with her son David, who at that time was about forty years old. David was a furniture salesman. He was still unmarried but apparently he was having a good time. He introduced me to several of his very attractive girl friends. Eventuallly he married a divorced woman with a daughter. He ended with Alzeimer’s disease the same a his mother and aunt Jenny.

The Sborowskys had four children:David and three sisters: Ann, Leah, and Sylvia. All of them live in the Boston Metropolitan area.

Ann was married to Harry Grayson, who was in the shoe wholesale business.

Leah was married to Edward Davidoff, who had a factory of golf equipment.

Sylvia was married to Harold Singer, an accountant and WW2 veteran. None of them had children. Upon Edward’s retirement the Davidoff moved to St Petersburg, FA, where both died.

Aunt Jenny was married to Hyman Goodman, who was in the real estate business. They had a daughter, Dorothy, and a son, Sonny.

Dorothy was married to an attorney, George Broomfield. They had a son, Michael Broomfield. Probably he was born in 1944. He graduated from the Harvard Law School.

Sonny was married with two children. He worked in construction.

In summary, of the Salzmans in the US there are descendents from the branch of the Thorners, none from the Sborowskys, and few from the Goodmans.

The Salzmans in Argentina

When in 1900, David Salzman, his wife Mince, and daughters, Fanny and Jenny moved to the states, only two of the children were left in Argentina: Benjamin(son) and Jume (daughter).

Descendents of Jume Salzman

Jume married Mauricio Huberman, had four daughters and two sons, and eventually moved to the city of Cordoba.

The oldest daughter, Ana, a school teacher, married a fellow school teacher, Godoy. He was catholic but converted to Judaism to please Jume, who was deeply religious. However, later, their two daughters, Blanca and Esther (became catholics), They ended up living in the city of Santa Fe. Blanca married a man name Viñas and Esther married an Ayerza.

The second daughter, Juanita, married a railroad employee, Adolfo Slullitel, had a daughter (Hilda) and a son (Mario), lived initially in the city of Cruz del Eje, Province of Cordoba, but eventually Adolfo was transferred to the city of Cordoba and the family moved there. Mario became a civil engineer. Hilda married a merchant called Bercovich.

The third daughter, Dora, married a physician, Dr. Paluc, and moved to the city of Mendoza. The youngest daughter, Sara, became a pharmacist, married another pharmacist, Roisen, and moved to Buenos Aires where they had a pharmacy.

Of the sons, Horacio moved to the city of Santa Fe and committed suicide after he gambled funds from his employer and lost. Abraham worked for a store that sold bicycles and was in the board of the Commerce Employee’s Union. He married late to a Feigin woman.

Descendents of Benjamin Salzman

Benjamin had attended a Yeshiva in Podolia where he adquired a very good education. Although his family was deeply religious he was not, but had extensive knowledge of the Old Testament and the Talmud.

He came to Argentina to be a school teacher in the jewish colonies. Before going to colonia Las Moscas, he had some training in Buenos Aires.

In Colonia Las Moscas, Benjamín Salzman married Rosa Gueler daughter of Simon Gueler and Tauba Hofman (or Tuba Ofman). Soon they had two sons in Las Moscas: Tomas (born in 1898) and Leon, in 1900.

In around 1902, Benjamin gave up teaching and moved to the Province of Buenos Aires. First to San Nicolas, where he became a shopkeeper. In 1903, a daughter was born, Sara Salzman, my mother. Later the family moved to another town in the Province of Buenos Aires (Zarate) where the second daughter, Ana, was born in 1905. After about a year, the family moved again, this time to the Province of Cordoba, to a town called Bellville. This was located in the agricultural region of Argentina. Benjamin had a general store there. When the harvests were good the family enjoyed certain affluence, but when the harvests were bad they had to tighten their budget. There were very few jewish families in Bellville. Benjamin joined a Masonic lodge. Other daughters were born in Bellville. Catalina (1907), another that died in infancy and the last, Fany, was born in 1911. As the children grew older and for them to be able to have a good education, the family moved to the city of Cordoba (1917). There, as the sons and daughters finished elementary school, they were sent to a Normal School, where they were trained a school teachers. All of them received their degrees from the “Escuela Normal Superior Alejandro Carbo”. Tomas and Leon continued further, each earning an advanced degree that qualified them to teach in secondary schools. The women did not go further after receiving the first degree.

Sara received her diploma in 1921. She had also studied music in a conservatory and finished the complete studies of piano.

Tomas decided to continue with his studies and went to the school of Dentistry of Cordoba University, from which he received his degree of Doctor of Odontology. Leon went to Medical School, but he dropped out to went into business.

In 1919, Benjamin and Rosa had their last child, Benjamin David. He was mildly retarded and did not go beyond elementary school. He then helped in the furniture store owned by his father.

Tomas married a woman from Buenos Aires, Maria Antonieta Raba, of French origin, and they moved to Buenos Aires. Maria Antonieta was catholic and the family became catholic. They had a daughter, Marta Alicia, and a son, Eduardo. In Buenos Aires, Tomas had a dental office and practiced until his death at age 79.

Leon never succeeded in what he did. He was good looking, intelligent, had a nice personality, and influential friends, but there was something in him that made him fail. Fortunately he never married. At one time he worked as construction superindendent for my father’s company, Barros & Sigal, and, although he was technically very competent, my father was dissatisfied because he did not keep the records properly and he had to leave. He also at one time had mica and talc quarries. After my father died, he gave good advice to my mother in several businesses she was involved. He died in 1979.

My mother Sara Salzman, married my father, Moises Sigal in 1926 (see Sigal family). Neither of them was religious and they had only a civil marriage.

Ana was married in 1930 to a young physician, Luis Glombovsky, who had studied in the University of Cordoba. He was from the same colony, Moisesville, as my father, and both, the Sigal and the Glombovsky families were friends. Luis had just finished medical school and had started his practice in a small town called Tostado in the province of Santa Fe. After the wedding, Luis and Ana moved to Tostado. There, in October 1931, a daughter, Laura Elisa Glombovsky was born. Few months later, in February 1932, Luis was murdered by a patient.

The family he left, Ana and Laura, isolated in the small town, had to be helped by both families. The economy of the country was in bad shape because of the world depression. My father, through a friend that was the minister of education in Santa Fe province, was able to get a job for Ana as a school teacher in the city of Santa Fe. So Ana and Laura moved there and lived in a boarding house. They were soon joined by Catalina Salzman. She moved to Santa Fe to be with her sister. My father through his friend this time could not get Catalina a job as a school teacher because there were no vacancies, but she got a civil service job in the provincial administration. In Santa Fe, Catalina met Isaac Werbin a notary and in 1936 they were married. A notary in latin countries is like a lawyer with a practice limited to real estate and contracts. Isaac, like Moises Sigal and Luis Glombovsky, was from Moisesville. From there on, Ana lived in the home of the Werbins, who in 1937 had their only son, Luis.

Since about 1933, during the four month summer school vacation, Ana and Laura would come to Cordoba and stay at our home. This continued until Ana remarried in about 1943 to Jacobo Rabinovich, a pharmacist. He opened a pharmacy in Santa Fe and they lived in premises. The family consisted of Jacobo, Silvia his daughter from a previous marriage, Laura and Ana. Ana continued teaching until she retired in 1953.

Fany married Moises Imas in 1937. Fany worked as a school teacher in Cordoba until she had her first child in l938, Liliana. A son, Gustavo, was born about two years later. Moises Imas was an accountant. He died after he retired.

Note on the relationship between the US and argentinian Salzmans

After the death of Benjamin Salzman in 1937, the contact between the two branches of the family was interrupted.

In 1953, when I was preparing to inmigrate to the US, my grandmother, Rosa, who lived also in Cordoba, received a telephone call. This was from an argentinian jew who had visited Boston and by chance had met the Borrows. Sylvia Singer asked him that if he happened to visit Cordoba, to please try to locate the Salzmans and give them her name and address. The call was followed by a letter from Laura Glombovsky to Sylvia, and the relationship was renewed.

When I arrived in the US I was invited to stay with the Singers, but after few days, the Davidoffs invited me to stay with them and so I did. I looked for a job in Boston but a employment agency referred me to the New Hampshire State Highway Department. I had an interview and was offered a job as a bridge designer, which I accepted. Three weeks after my arrival, by the middle of November, 1953 I started to work and since then until my retirement in May 2000, I was never without a job.