Bertha Benioff was born 21 May, 1889 at 450 1/2 Broadway, in Cleveland, Ohio, the daughter of Isaac Benioff and his second wife, Anne Terkelman. I’m not sure what the family was doing in Ohio at that time.
Bertha was likely named after her grandmother Bertha Scheidt Benioff. Her mother, Anne Terkelman Benioff, died in NY in 1894. The 1900 census shows Bertha living in Delaware with her father, step-mother and family. I can’t find a census for her in 1910, but she is not living with her family in Delaware though she would have been 19 years old. The 1915 NY State Census shows her an inmate, doing housework, at the Manhattan State Hospital on Ward Island (a psychiatric hospital). And by 1920 she was an inmate at the Central Islip State Hospital (“Central Islip State Hospital is a partially abandoned and reused state hospital in New York. It began in 1887 as an experimental farm colony of the New York City Lunatic Asylum, which became the Manhattan State Hospital for the Insane in 1896 and finally Central Islip State Hospital in 1905. At its peak, Central Islip was the nation’s second-biggest psychiatric hospital”). She could read and write and worked in the dining room. The 1925 NY State Census, shows her there working as a stenographer. She was still there in 1930. She would have been 41, but they listed her as 50. In 1950 she was still there listed as a patient and inmate age 54.
Bertha died in Murray Hill, NY (most likely at the Murray Hill Hospital at 30 East 40th St.NYC, on May 15, 1963. She is mentioned as a surviving sister in her half-brother Alexander Benioff’s obituary in 1910. She was not mentioned as a survivor of her sister Ida Leah in Ida’s obituary in 1949, although her siblings were listed, nor in her father’s obituary…with her siblings, nor in her step-mothers obituary in 1954, nor in her other brothers obituaries. She was buried at Beth-El Memorial Park in Whitehall, Pennsylvania, near her father and stepmother, Ida Baylis Benioff. Her yarhtzeit is observed at Temple Beth-El in Allentown, PA.
What was her diagnosis? Why was she born in Ohio?
In the Birth Register above (Record of Births, Cuyahoga County, Ohio), you will notice two errors. One is in the upper right hand corner, on page 219, the date says May 31 1889. It should be May 21 1889…you can tell because the previous date, on page 218 is May 20. The second one is that the child is listed as female with the name Isaac Benioff….I think that bertha was unnamed at that point and they identified her by her father’s name.
Bertha lived at this hospital, located in central Long Islandwhich was initially named the Manhattan State Hospital for almost her entire life. In 1929 there were 7000 inmates (although the certified capacity was 4248) and 1000 employees. At this point I don’t know what Bertha’s diagnosis was. Until the depression, patients would arrive in a special hospital train with bars on the windows.
