Boots Brin
Boots Brin comes from a family that has lived in the United States for six or seven generations, with roots in East Texas and New Orleans. Her father came to this country around 1867, and her grandfather arrived a few years earlier, while her maternal grandfather settled in New Orleans, where her mother was born. Her maternal grandmother's family came from Alsace-Lorraine, and her grandfather, born in Poland, was a well-educated man who wrote beautifully in English. Boots recalls that her family, part of the Bat family, lived in a small East Texas town, likely one of only a few Jewish families in the area.
Boots credits several people with sparking her genealogical work, including her brother Sig, who has a strong memory of family stories, and especially her great granddaughter, who knows every relative by name and speaks of Granny Bat. She began her research in earnest, meeting Bernard Wax at the American Jewish Historical Society in Waltham, who directed her to various resources. A helpful woman in California, described as the sister of a genealogist named Corn, opened many doors, including locating a relative in Israel through a telephone directory who provided information about Boots's family and her brother, a Jewish captain and Commodore in the U.S. Navy.
At the time of the interview, Boots was planning trips to New Orleans, to search library, courthouse, cemetery, and vital statistics records where her grandparents are buried, and to Israel for an international genealogy meeting. She discussed research options with the group, including the Jewish Theological Seminary Library, Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, and the New York Jewish Genealogical Society. The conversation also touched on the value of donating family materials to the Dallas Jewish archives, the possibility of documenting Jewish life in East Texas, and an invitation to visit a renovated Texas temple as a group outing.
Full Transcript
. Who lived in Mount Pleasant, Texas, and you had two sets of families before you were done. There were a great number of children, and if you would first tell us what generated your interest in doing this. I know you've had a great deal of pleasure out of investigating this. You've been up to the American Jewish Historical Society in Waltham. Are you still planning to go to Israel for the international meeting? So tell us what... Yes. So if anyone is going to be there or wants to go, be sure and read the bulletin board. But what suddenly generated the germ in you to have that interest?
Well, I guess my brother, Sig, and I walk every Sunday over at North Park. And I'm always asking him, do you remember what he remembers about the family? And he has, I have no recall, but Sig has a wonderful memory. and being a year and a half older than I he had the advantage of hearing some of the stories but I think maybe this group has been an incentive to me and I started really it was only October a year ago when I went up to first met Bernard Wax and then I went and he started me, he sent me to various places and just one thing, I don't know, I think really my little great granddaughter was the one who started me on it because she is she knows every member of the family by name and she talks about Granny Bat who is her great great grandmother and the things that are in their home from Granny Bat's house and she can tell you and she just knows all the family all of her great uncles on both sides.
And I think maybe she's the one who... Someone caught her Huh Someone caught her Well I don know But anyway I think she the one that I doing it for because of her interest And I came to you before, you know, just dead end. I had just hit, I just couldn't, well, just suddenly things were open up. Were your parents the first generation in Texas or America? Yes, my daddy came in, oh, 18, came to this country in Raymond. I can't, Civil War was 1861, in 1867, I believe, and that was, he was the first of his family. And my grandfather came just a few years earlier.
So then you have two generations prior No, that's on the other side on my mother's side on my maternal side my grandfather In your total family there have been seven generations that have been in the United States Yes, my grandfather my mother me I mean my family and my daughter and my granddaughter Now, I have a little one. We have six generations who've been here. And that kind of... Now, you were having difficulty with finding names and so forth. There were differences in the European name and the American name. But tell us, what is it that sort of suddenly had you hit gold? There is a lady in California whose name I was given.
This correspondence, there's no end to it. One person tells another. And someone gave me her name. And she is the sister of Bertram Corn, the genealogist. And she is the most incredible person for searching out sources. and she just she just opens up has opened up everything to me well she found a let me see she found a man in Israel through a telephone directory You would ask me questions I under talk Well you just answering my question Found this man in Israel, and she wrote to him, and he wrote in return, that he was sorry he wasn't related to her. He couldn't give her any information on her family.
The only relative he had, he knew of, was an uncle of his father who came to the States, who had a son who was Captain Harry Bath in the United States Navy, and proceeded to give the history of my brother. and this I haven't had an answer yet I've written to him and she sent me a copy of the letter but and then I found I've heard about people finding things in addicts but I really found in an old book I was putting away the other day and flipped through it and I found a piece of paper I had written on I don't know where I got the information that has my grandfather's father and grandfather's name and his wife's name on this little piece of paper that I have found and it just And with this, there is one thing that she wrote me to tell you all that I wrote it down.
The, let me see where I'm going. In New York, go ahead, Bob, you can think of something while I look. While Boots is looking for that, the book that was passing around, and you may have noticed a beautiful painting of Commodore Levy, Uriah Levy, the first Jew who reached that rank in the Navy and was important in getting whipping stocked in the Navy was one of his famous things But your brother also became a Commodore if I was a Commodore man He was the second Jewish captain Captain Levy was first and my brother was the second Jewish captain I think he was beyond Captain Commodore.
Yes, Commodore. It's a special rank. Commodore used to be a rank that was succeeded by... At that time, that was the most senior rank in the U.S. Navy. But it was cut out. at the beginning of the Civil War. He was the single officer in the U.S. Navy at the beginning of the Civil War. I presume Armador had a ranking role, not expert on it, between admiral and captain. That was introduced during the war so there wouldn't be too many admirals, too many, you know, what did he say about that? Too many chiefs and not enough Indians. Always been a problem. That's right, too many chiefs and not enough Indians.
So they introduced Commodore. For anyone who's interested in the New York, you might know this, Jewish Genealogical Society has a computer input deal going on and it does extend it to other Jewish genealogical societies. You know that? I want to make a record in that world and have a new source. The New York Jewish Genealogical Society. And then there is a Jewish Theological Seminary Library. You know about that? That has wonderful resources. They say, I don't know, I haven't written them yet. I just got misled. It's the fountain of Sherry of Israel. That's the seminary training. The GTS library is a very special library, and it was damaged in a fire about 15 years ago.
Yes. And the techniques of saving the manuscripts then also helped, I think, save the ones in Florence during the flood. But if so many were destroyed... I think you've got another one. Now, what are you anticipating in Israel that you're going to do? Well, first of all, you're going to look up this land. Of our realities, sure. He, of course, came up with Henry, and there's a whole mine of information there as to his brother, because that ties into his father's grandpa. But what amazes me is how these people knew. Where did they get this information from? Wood and mouse, probably, a thing like that.
In Israel? Well, fortunately, you weren't a cone or a levy, like a smith or a joan. You don't have that many back. Now, if you go to Israel, and you look for beers, you see Baher all over the place. Because it means well over there. Baher, I said, well, Baher, Yaakov, Uwella, Jacob, Abraham, and so forth. So it looked like we're very well set in Israel, but you have to be careful about things that are obvious. They may not be as real as obvious. Well, I think I might find something on my maternal side, my grandmother, my mother's mother, because they were from Alsace-Lorraine. And I can't find any sources for Alsace-Lorraine.
Does anyone know of any? The Ruth Cairns and... In Vienna, I understand. The Cairns were the Lawrence. I'll give it to somebody that would come to the hospital. I just heard that my grandson is going to attend a seminar, or I don't know, it's more than a seminar, I guess, on international law at Salzburg in July. So you get up what you want to know, and I'll have him research it for you. I've only spent one day in Salzburg, but if you never have a chance to go to Salzburg. Oh, I was there for about three or four days, about five days. That's one of the most delightful experiences.
The whole world holds on, and wonderful good food, beautiful scenery. Do we have any other questions from you that you might want to ask of Boots? Boots, your brother has written up in the, was it the Jewish Encyclopedia? Yeah, the Universal Jewish Encyclopedia, yeah. and Rose was good enough to send me... Well it was an interesting article about your brother Boots one thing you know we talked a little bit about to what degree can our Dallas Jewish archives engage in genealogy And certainly this is a very specific specialty, as Rose pointed out. Nevertheless, as we fill our folders relating to people, articles like about your brother or information that you come up, when that is donated or duplicated and given to us, it begins to flesh out our history to the degree that you all have lived in Texas and the things your people have accomplished.
And that is really what we're all about, is trying to gather that information and process it through here. So if someone said, I'd like to write a story about the history of Jews in East Texas, certainly the Bat family, going back several generations in a small town, life in that town. And I think it would be wonderful if you could get down on paper to recollect, we talked about your childhood, I think, on another evening, what life was like for a Jewish family, maybe the only one or one of two or three in the entire area, and how the holidays were handled and what Jewish education, if any, there was, how dietary things were handled.
Of course, your brother Sigg's favorite joke is how his mama made the finest catfish, the filter fish, in the entire country. The filter fish, the catfish, in case you could guess there. It is a perfect fish. It's so tender and juicy. That was orthodox, of course, if not tasted it, I want to share the experience of those who have committed to. I'd like to ask you, when you went back to your generations, forefathers, how were you able to get the information in actual terms? I have not been able. I'm going to New Orleans as soon as the weather clears. and see what I can get there because my grandfather settled in New Orleans My mother who would have been gosh my mom would have been well over 100 was born in New Orleans And I'm going to see what records I can get from New Orleans.
I can't get them by correspondence. They want to know what year. What they ask of me in forms is what I want to know. so I have only the thing that only this piece of paper that turned up is the first information I have had and this man who has appeared in Israel it's the first door that's been opened to me now when you go to New Orleans what would you do in terms of research what steps would you what procedure would you take well I understand that's a library New Orleans Library has wonderful records there. And I'll go there first, and then I'll go to the courthouse there and see what I can find there.
The old Jewish cemetery, any of them are buried there. Oh, yeah, my family is buried there. My grandmother is buried there. My grandfather is buried there. than any scent dogs that would go back ahead of 1890. I've been to the cemetery. I'm taking both my grandchildren there and I've taken them both to the cemetery. But I'll go there. But I don't think there'll be any records on that other than where they were born. Some of the stones that dates the birth of those. Oh, I know the dates. I've been there. Where they were born. I know they were born. I know where they were born.
But that's as far as I've gotten. I know where my grandparents were born on my mother's side. It's on the birth... You must know some more about it. Yeah, but I don't know anything about who were their parents or when did they come. Or was my grandmother married in Europe or was she married in New Orleans? Have you been able to get siblings, names of your uncles, aunts? No. No. City directories? No I had no one to get any information from What about schools They may have some names in schools They have attendance records I wouldn't even know what schools. There weren't very many. I don't know where my mother went to school.
She had to go to college. She was very well educated. But where did she go? That could have been self-educated. I mean, you're reading rather than knowledge. No, no, my grandfather. We had a letter from my grandfather, beautifully written in English. And he was born in Poland. What about the vital statistics department? We got four back in those in New Orleans. I'm going to go there. That would give a parent maybe where they were born. And I'll go there. I'm just waiting for the weather to break so I'll have some information. Was your mother born in New Orleans? She really wants to be in the Mardi Gras.
I'm going to go before Mardi Gras. You can believe it. No, I'm not. I've been to one Mardi Gras. Mardi Gras started, ma'am. Oh, I've been to one. When's Mardi Gras start? March? Ma'am. No, no. Yeah. Starts in March. There was a picture in the paper. It just started. Oh, my God. I'll be in club at a Mardi Gras party. Well, I'll have to wait the Mardi Gras over then. I can't. I'm not coaching. I didn't know they already started. I think the last couple of days, it's a big event. But isn't Jim doing some research? Aren't you doing some research on your genealogy? I gave up.
I hit dead end very quickly. Well, all right, maybe something opened up like opened up for me. I did, too. Jim is not only a devoted archivist, he comes up with all these wonderful articles. because he reads a great deal, and around the state, and back in Cleveland, he still keeps in touch. At least the place that Gene Korn told me to write, does anyone know about that? Your Theological Seminary Library? New York. New York? New York, yeah. They would have an extensive... The Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati would have an extensive library. I don't know why I've been to the archives. You mean at the Cincinnati?
Jacob Marcus. Well, you know, Dr. Stern gave that list of all the different... I have that. I have that. The Mormons have a good deal of that information in the mail. No, they haven't anything. I've talked with them and I've written them and sent a contribution and said thank you for nothing. I was also saying that... Marie was going to say something. No. Yeah, go ahead. You were going to say about Cacho? She was talking about our face. I can't hear you. I say Slurraine. No, go ahead. I just wanted to tell you all that I would like to inform you when the temple in Carson County has been renovated and is ready to be seen and take any of you that would like to go down.
Wonderful. I think we should all know. It would be a lovely outing. If you will let us know They working on it now Okay if you will let us know then perhaps we can arrange an outing and we will go as a group That will be a great one Oh, take a box one. Oh, yes. Get a bus. Get a bus and take a box one. Well, this is not me. What were you going to say? I mean, was that actually a lot of... Do you remember doing that? Sure. Sure, when I was a farmer. And they would have these auctions, just an auction. They'd auction off.
Everybody would bring a lot, but you never knew what they had. Nobody knew which was which. They would just hold them up, put them up for this one. You'd take your chances. Wait a minute, someone get them over there. Wait a minute. I don't know. Well, maybe we'll do that. Marie had something to say. I was just back in the 30s when my brother got to the town He went to visit some cousins that lived where my grandfather came from on my mother side And they were from Ingleville in Alcey And he asked about the town where the other side of the family, my grandfather came from, Hirsch.
And they wanted to take Gottschow there. He says, no, I'm in too big a rush on this trip. Next time I come over, I'd love to go there. And they were very insistent. And finally, he said, I just don't have the time. They said, but it's only nine miles. I just, the two families, I don't know that they ever knew each other. And back at that time. People didn't get very far from home unless you were at a certain family. No, that's a long walk. You would have owned those records in Vienna. Unless you were right on the river, both towns. I've been to every one of the places.
Take the boat up and down. Every place I found a cousin in Germany and been corresponding with her Our grandfathers were brothers We went from Germany down the Rhine We had a car for the days we traveled through Germany. I wasn't interested in this. Madam Chairman, we turn our program back to you. well we thank you very much does anybody else have any other comments or anybody have any other comments we'll be anxious to hear what you think yes this recording was made at the February 1984 meeting of the Dallas Jewish Archives, Bob Beer and Boots Brynn with Ginger Jacobs presiding.