Grandmother Sadie Cemnic Lazovick, by 2 cousins
Memories of Barbara Ruvin:
Sadie Cemnik Lazovick with her granddaughter Barbara Lichtman Ruvin
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Sadie came to America in 1913. She came to visit her sister Rose. She worked as a seamstress. She was a very hard worker. She teamed up with another woman and they worked together. They were such a good team they received several raises and made more than the other workers. I have her sewing machine (c1920) and pieces of her furniture in my living room. She told us stories about the “old Country” and her older brother Zeidal. She would hide in the back of the sleigh under blankets to be on his dates. She adored him and could hardly ever talk about him without getting emotional.
She loved her family and she had a happy childhood. She lived in Bialystok when she was young and later moved to Jalowka. They had to move because life for the Jews became difficult. The gentiles did not treat them well. Her father Abraham Cemnic was a weaver. She used to talk about the beautiful countryside and her garden.
She wanted to visit her sister Rose although her father did not want her to go. She was supposed to go for a visit and return. She came alone. She did not know any English. When she arrived in America she was disappointed in the way people were living there. She saw underwear and clothing hung on lines. She saw people wearing very little clothing on their terraces in the hot weather.
She did not plan on staying in America but she met and fell in love with her husband Sam in a park and they married within a year at age 16. By the time she wanted to visit her family her brother wrote telling her it was too dangerous. He told her to stay in America.
Her family was murdered. Her brother's daughter was in the resistance. She was also killed.
She had a wonderful life in Philadelphia and lived till she was 95. She battled cancer for decades and had many operations. She never complained and always kept her sense of humor.
She had 3 children all born in her home. She was at the opera when she went into labor with my mother Sylvia.. She called the doctor from the theater and said she would come home after the opera ended. The doctor was there waiting for her.
Sadie was a bright, strong, determined and classy woman with a great sense of humor.
Sam her husband was an upholster and they were very well off until the depression. Sadie and Sam were strict and loving parents. Family and family traditions were very important to them.
More memories of Sadie
Sitting on the rug with my cousins playing games rolling walnuts in shells It may have been a game from her childhood.
Going to playgrounds and people thinking she was my mother because she was so young and energetic
She and my grandfather came to every important family event. They loved being included in everything no matter how far away it was. They always looked regal at events.
Cooking with my cousin Larry in her home. We wish she had written down the recipes for her wonderful popovers and blintzes.
Traveling with her and my mom when she visited us in New York. We would go on ladies only trips. She went up to the hotel room ahead of us and hid behind the drapes. She jumped out yelling and laughing. She loved being mischievous.
We never remember her raising her voice or fighting with my grandfather.
When her husband passed away she wrote notes to him every day in Yiddish.
She promised me her wedding ring that she let me put on as a little girl. It was a special gift that I cherish.
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She loved being called Bubbie Bubbie by my son Jason. He would sneak up behind her and hug her making her laugh. When she was 90 she was still sitting on the floor playing with him like she did with me as a child.
So many wonderful memories of a special woman that endured losses and illness yet remained strong and rose above it all with grace.
When we used to ask our Bubbie how she was she would say "I’m vertical so it is a good day."
Memories of Lawrence Grossman:
Sadie Lazovick with grandson Larry Grossman, 1981
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Sadie Lazovick was born as Sima Cemnic on June 1, 1900. (The Russian census of 1910 listed Sima’s age as being 14, but Sadie was firm that her birth year was 1900.) Her parents were Abraham Cemnic (born 1845 and died 1919) and Sarah Malka Voronovsky (born 1865 and died before 1921). She had two siblings, Frushe (later named Rose, who was Gary Mokotoff’s grandmother), born 1887, and Meir (whom Sadie called “Zaedal”), born 1893. Her mother also gave birth to four other children, but they died very young.
Sadie was born in Bialystok, but her family moved to Jałówka, likely around 1906 in response to the Bialystok pogrom, which she referred to as the “problems with the gentiles.”
Her father was a weaver. He was married previously, but his first wife did not bear any children so he divorced her and married Sarah Malka. Sadie recalls her father being very religious, spending a lot of time in the synagogue.
She described her family as being very loving. Her brother loved to work in their garden. Sadie recalls going into the family garden, pulling carrots out of the ground, wiping the soil off her dress, and then eating the carrots right on the spot.
Her family house was located on the top of a hill, where their family property had 80 trees. She recalled that she always touched the mezuzah on the house doorpost for good luck whenever leaving her house
As Gary Mokotoff mentioned in his report, his grandmother Frushe had married Abraham Friedberg, and they later moved to New York City. Sadie’s brother Zaedal, who was not physically suitable for draft into the Czar’s army, later married as well. He had a daughter. Both were killed by the Nazis. Sadie was especially proud about Zaedal’s daughter because she was a leader in the resistance against the Nazis.
Sadie decided to visit her sister in New York City and took passage on the S.S. Gothland from Antwerp on June 19, 1913. Her name was listed on the ship’s manifest as being “Sime Czemnink.” The manifest lists her brother-in-law (Rose’s husband) as paying for the passage and also Sadie planning to stay at his residence in New York City.
She was initially disappointed upon arriving in New York City, surprised at how dirty the city appeared.
Sadie was planning to return home, but in a letter, her brother advised her not to return because of the outbreak of what is now known as World War One.
When she came to New York, she changed her first name from Sima to Sadie and adopted “Solomon” as her last name. She found work as a seamstress.
In New York City, Sadie met her future husband Samuel Lazovik while attending a concert in a park. Samuel Lazovik was born in Zeludok, Vilna, in Russia in 1890 and was trained there as a harness maker. He served in the cavalry in the Czar’s army, working on horses dragging canons. When the Czar’s army gave the Jews time off during Yom Kippur, he did not return to his unit, hiding in a farm. He escaped and travelled to New York City in 1910. From the start, he worked in the United States as an upholsterer. He met Sadie in 1915, but then he had to leave New York City because he was blacklisted due to his efforts as a union organizer. As a result, he moved to Philadelphia and subsequently married Sadie on May 20 1916.
Resident in Philadelphia, Sadie and Samuel had three children, Florence (1917), Sylvia (1921), and David (1928). Sadie and Samuel had a loving relationship and family life. Her grandchildren do not recall ever hearing them argue.
In the early days of their marriage, they were financially well off, but their prosperity declined markedly with the Depression as Samuel was heavily invested in the stock market.
Sometime in the 1930s, Samuel changed his last name from Lazovik to Lazovick. Neither I nor his living Lazovik relatives could ever discover the reason for the change.
Sadie was a truly warm and exceptional person with a great sense of humor. She was also a great cook, with my favorites being her blintzes and chopped liver. My grandparents accompanied my family on almost all of our trips. I was very fortunate to live around the corner from their house, so I was able to see them almost every day. Sadie was especially close to my mother, Florence; they talked to each other on the telephone three or four times a day as well.
Despite suffering through cancer in her later years, she felt that her healthy life growing up in Poland helped her endure. She used to laugh that a number of her doctors told her that she had just a few years to live, but she then went on to attend a number of their funerals as she outlasted them.
Samuel passed away in Philadelphia in 1979 and Sadie died in Pompano Beach, Florida, in 1995.
Their first daughter Florence married Herman Grossman in 1941 and they had two sons. Florence passed away in Boca Raton, Florida, in 2008. Their second daughter, Sylvia, married Murray Lichtman in 1946 and had one daughter, BARBARA, and a son. Sylvia passed away in Delray Beach, Florida, in 2005. Their son David married Maxine Benjamin in 1951 and also had one son Bruce (1955-1981) and one daughter. David & Maxine both passed away in Florida in 2013.
Recollections of Lawrence Grossman, 2021
