For unknown reasons, sometime thereafter Oyzer/Abe MANSBACH began to refer to himself as Isidore and then Irving.
He worked as a conductor on a railway in New York, and as a dairy delivery man. He and Bertha raised two children, Sol and Raymond, and lived happily ever after in an apartment at 506 E. 176 Street in the Bronx. The apartment was a strange place to their grandchildren. My father said that for Passover they used to keep live carp in the bathtub—or maybe it was homemade hooch. There were tons of locks on the door, one a large, maybe four foot piece of steel pipe, fit between the door and a hole in the floor. We were frightened to death of going up to their apartment in the elevator. For Passover, my grandmother Bertha plucked a goose, the family always had a little box for charity and whenever we left the apartment, she would give the grandchildren some change. I don’t know if Bertha could read English or whether she even went to school in Russia. he had bright blue eyes and looked very Slavic to me.
Pearl, Sol, Robert and Bertha c.1954
Oyzer (then Irving) & Bertha c. 1962
Oyzer and Bertha raised two children: Avram Zalman HaLevy MANSBACH (Solomon Arthur MANSBACH) (the father of Robert) and Rachmeale HaLevy MANSBACH (Raymond) (the father of Paul MANSBACH).
Solomon Arthur MANSBACH, Robert's father, was born on December 26, 1917. He attended Morris High School, graduating in June 1936. From his high school re
Oyzer and Bertha raised two children: Avram Zalman HaLevy MANSBACH (Solomon Arthur MANSBACH) (the father of Robert) and Rachmeale HaLevy MANSBACH (Raymond) (the father of Paul MANSBACH).
Solomon Arthur MANSBACH, Robert's father, was born on December 26, 1917. He attended Morris High School, graduating in June 1936. From his high school report card, I would say his grades were middling at best, he seemed to do better in science, which he was always interested in later in life.
Solomon Arthur Mansbach (Avram Zalman Ha Levy Mansbach) (1917-2009)
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After high school, Sol found a job with a company that made artillery shells. Apparently, he convinced his employer that he had some mechanical familiarity with the process that included measuring the shell or the fuse with calipers. This did not work out well. Sometime thereafter Sol enlisted in the U.S. army. He served in first in a unit that guarded prisoners of war in Laramie, Wyoming. Thereafter, he was attached to a unit that repaired trucks and other vehicles. He landed in Marseilles not too long before the end of the war in Europe. He saw no action except that one day, while sitting/sleeping on a pile of logs, he heard German aircraft overhead and sprained his knee while running away. He later received a small pension from the VA for his injury.
Sol met Pearl Moskowitz calling herself “Moss” which her family used from time to time to avoid anti-Semitism, at a U.S.O. dance.
For more information about Sol, see the Memoirs of Sol Mansbach in the More Section
Sol and Ray MANSBACH c. 1930.
Raymond Mansbach (Rachmeale Ha Levy Mansbach) (1927-1997)
Oyzer's youngest son was Raymond (Rachmeal HaLevy MANSBACH)
Raymond MANSBACH, was born January 20, 1927 on the kitchen table of Oyzer/Irving and Bertha MANSBACH, his parents, in the Bronx, NY. He grew up with his brother Sol at 506 E. 176 Street. He served in the Army, eventually becoming a private first class. In 1952, Raymond married Elaine Lowen, who was also from the Bronx. In 1958, Paul Jehudah HaLevy MANSBACH) was born. Passover was always special. Irving and Bertha were quite religious, and Irving did not miss a word from the Seder Haggadah. Paul remembers opening the door for Elijah to come in and drink from the wine cup. He really thought he saw the wine disappear. Robert helped convince Paul that Elijah was in the room drinking from the cup.
Raymond retired and moved to Century Village in West Palm Beach in 1992. He unfortunately passed in 1997 at the age of 70.
Above from left to right, Bertha Mansbach, Ray Mansbach, Elaine Mansbach and Elaine’s mom, Mrs. Lowen. c.1955.
Pinchas Elimelehch Ha Levy Mansbach (c.1875-1932)
Pinchas Elimelech HaLevy MANSBACH was born around 1875. This means the family of Solomon Peretz MANSBACH was living in Olpiny for at least twenty-five years (between 1850, the birth of Jehudah and 1875, the birth of Pinchas Elemelech) . As noted above, the family of Joseph Dawid MANSBACH were also living in Olpiny in this time frame.
Sometime after 1875, Pinchas and Jehudah MANSBACH moved to Judlowa from Olpiny. Apparently, Pinchas went into business as a glazier with his father, Jehudah. Pinchas was married to Liebe Spett and had daughters named Devorah and Cipporah, the latter after his deceased mother. He died on November 5, 1932. The Jewish Records Indexing records show that Jehudah and Pinchas contributed to charity in 1926. These men, who were of very humble means, were pious and charitable by nature, which says a lot about them. Imagine that 100 years after they gave to charity, their good deed came to light---courtesy of the internet!!
Pinchas Elimelech is buried in Judlowa in close proximity to Jehudah MANSBACH.
Oddly enough the picture to the right is is a composite picture. Three different individual pictures of these three men were melded into one picture around 1920. The man on the far left may be Pinchas Elemelech MANSBACH. He has a "modern" tie which seems to place him in the twentieth century. Seated next to him is Oyzer, which may have been taken at the time of his Bar Mitzvah. Standing to the right is Jehudah MANSBACH, looking aged but actually with a false beard to make him seem older and wise.
This picture was one of two which hung in Oyzer's Bronx apartment. The man on the left must have been an important MANSBACH family member. I'm guessing he was Pinchas Elimelech who would have been the Oyzer's oldest brother. In the Bronx, the picture would have reminded Oyzer daily about his brother and father living in Poland (whom he knew he would never be seeing again)!
Pinchas Elimelech MANSBACH is buried in Judlowa, Poland in close proximity to his father and mother, Jehudah and Cipporah MANSBACH
Sima or Sadie MANSBACH: Jehudah and Cipporah MANSBACH had a daughter named Sima or Sadie who married Sam Orner in the U.S. and had one child. A second daughter, Feiga Siegfried MANSBACH remained in Poland and perished in the Holocaust._
Jehudah HaLevy MANSBACH apparently lived with three daughters and one son of his second wife, Malka Fenichel by her first marriage:
Daughters: Cyrla MANSBUCH Szuman; 2) Hanna MANSBUCH Wallach; and Lea or Lena MANSBACH. These first two women and their families likely perished in the Holocaust; Pages of Testimony for them and their families are recorded at Yad Vashem.
There is some small chance that Hana "Wallach" may have emigrated to the U.S. and may have been known as Lena Rubinson.
A third daughter named Lea or Lena MANSBACH came to the U.S. and married Samuel Leibowitz.
Malka's son, Isaac [MANSBACH] remained in Poland until his death in 1934.
Finally, a question for posterity: Jehudah MANSBACH had five sons between roughly 1885 and 1906. He named none of them after his father, Shlomo Peretz MANSBACH (born circa 1820). Why? I have no real reason, unless perhaps his father died in 1858, when he was eight years old and he had no memory of him. But I note that Oyzer/Irving MANSBACH named his first born son Avram Zalman MANSBACH. It is possible that Oyzer named his son Avram Zalman after Oyser's grandfather, Shomo or Solomon [or Zalman] Peretz MANNSBACH.