Shtetl Links: Lyakhovichi

We will see many kinds of pictures taken in the United States, Canada, Cuba, South Africa, and all of the places in which Lyakhovichi natives settled. The first generation of Lyakhovichi emigrants, preserved pictures of themselves in all of the same kind of poses taken in Lyakhovichi - with their families, at their weddings, at celebrations of all kinds. They also had pictures taken in bathing suits on beaches, at music parks, and in front of their proudly owned businesses. Some were for their own enjoyment, some were to be sent home to the relatives in Lyakhovichi. A graduation picture from a public or private school was a source of pride to several generations and would have been cherished by the young immigrant's parents here and grandparents at home.

To say that the occassions on which pictures were taken were the same as back home in Lyakhovichi, is not to say that you can't see differences in the pictures. A wedding picture taken to be displayed in the homes of three generations (the couple, the parents, and the grandparents back in Lyakhovichi) would most clearly show the differences. Wedding portraits in the United States often showed the women in elaborate gowns and the young men in turn of the century formal wear, in contrast to the wedding pictures of their parents which showed well-dressed young men and women in clothes that could serve other "best-clothing" occassions. Graduation pictures were now made inexpensively enough that the school would get a special price for a group shot, and the chance to get a picture showing the graduate with all of his chums, was an incentive for the picture to be saved by the student whereas previously, single person graduation portraits were most likely to be preserved by parents and grandparents.

We have placed Lyakhovichi natives in 16 different countries, but so far have few pictures of any of them. Can you share your pictures of them in their new homes, concentrating on the first ten or twenty years after their arrival? For my grandmother, Rose Pilnick Kleiman, who arrived in the US in 1904, that would mean that we would emphasize those images of her before World War I and during the 1920s, rather than those she delighted in taking at her grandchildren's weddings in the 1970s. Do you have family memories preserved in albums and shoe boxes that we could post?

As all pages on this website, this is a work in progress, it will change often. And as all pages on this website, it is a collaborative effort where you can make a significant contribution. Add photos to this page by emailing images to the webmaster. Please clearly identify as many parties as possible in the photographs.

We can also create pages to show short videos made from old home movies, and link to shared audio interviews with your elderly family members. The webmaster will edit these submissions prior to posting.

Graduation Evening Standard High, Lower East Side, NYC
Jacob Lipshitz is the boy circled in red in the enlarged picture you can see by clicking on the title. If you know the identities of other people in this picture, please email the webmaster. As described above, this picture was of the type preserved by the graduates themselves. This picture was supplied by the generosity of Arthur Lowell and remains in his ownership. Click on the title to see a larger image.

Jacob Lowell ne Lifschitz/Lipshitz emigrated to the United States in 1902 with his mother and three siblings to join his father and two siblings already in the United States. Four years later his mother, then called Eva Lipshitz, died while Jacob was still a little boy. Before he turned thirteen, he was completely orphaned, his father, A. Samuel Lipshitz, was killed in a motor vehicle accident in September 1911. Jacob remembered that when his father met him at Castle Garden when the family arrived in April 1902 that one of the first things that his father said was "Yankel, you are going to school and learn how to speak English." Jacob told his own son that thanks to the sympathetic New York City schoolteachers, that he learned the language in only a few weeks. Look at the picture above and you will see that Jacob took his father's instruction to learn, to heart. It was taken at the Evening School for Men and Boys in the Lower East Side of New York. He studied, he worked, and was enabled to study, partially by the efforts of his sister Sorka who was ten years older and devoted to him and her other little brothers. She worked as a seamstress and took care of them after their father's death. Around 1915, Jacob decided to become a physician. He took the year of pre-med that was required at Fordham and entered medical school in 1916 at Long Island College Hospital. Because he needed to work to earn money for tuition it took him six years to complete medical school but he persisted. He graduated in 1922 and interned at Cumberland Hospital in Brooklyn and was a resident at Willard Parker Hospital for Contagious Diseases” in Manhattan. He eventually specialized in Pediatrics. He was on the staff of the “NY Postgraduate Medical School and Hospital”. He passed away at the age of 83 in June, 1980. (This information was supplied by his son Arthur Lowell)

The Bogin Family in NYC in 1910
This picture is supplied by the generosity of Carol Bogin and remains in her ownership.

Yotvitzky Family of Lyakhovichi and Cleveland, Ohio
Taken in Cleveland Ohio in the 1920s, the picture shows Mary Sornik of Lyakhovichi (c. 1883-1957) with her husband Leibel aka Louis Yotvitzky and their children Molly, Eva, Julius, and Simon. Leibel Yotvitzky had also been a resident, though not a native, of Lyakhovichi. Picture provided by the grandson of Leib and Mary Yotvitzky -William Yotive.