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Celia Lipson’s birthday is essentially unknown. Her daughter Haikie said (email of Oct. 3, 2006): “My mother’s birth date is unknown because, as I hear it, my grandmother was afraid that my mother, who was the oldest, would have to get her own passport if she were older than 18 or 19, so she claimed that she was younger and there is no record of her birth date. Even my mother did not know the date except she thought she was born in 1901. Jerusalem is where she was born.”
Her official birthdate became 11 January, 1901. Her parents were Isak Jacob Lipson and Peske (Pauline) Levy Lipson. She had 3 sisters (Libe, Bella and Tsivia) and one brother (Leo). The family emigrated to Minneapolis in 1920 and eventually settled in Los Angeles. Celia married Melach Levy in 25 Nov, 1925 in Los Angeles. She was a skilled seamstress and dressmaker. She also worked in the family’s meat market. She had 3 children. She died 26 July, 1991 in Reseda, California.
Below is a ship manifest for May 5 1920, the ship Noordan, sailing from Boulogne Sur Mer to NY. I want to take you through some of the mysteries that come to the surface. There are two families of interest on this manifest, 2 women traveling with their children: Sarah Levi and Peche (Pauline) Lipson. Peche is Libe Lipson’s mother, ie my great grandmother. Sarah Levi is her sister-in-law.
Sarah Hinde Cohen married Peske Levy’s brother Zvi Arye Levy, and is traveling with 5 of her 7 daughters. One daughter Dina, who was born in 1905 may have died before 1920 and therefore was not present, Naomi (Nachama) had not been born yet, she was born in New York about a year and a half after Sarah had been united with her husband Harris Zvi Levi.
Peche Levy Lipson was traveling with all of her 5 children: Simei (Celia), Libe, Bayle (Bella), Lebe (Leo) (although he is marked as female!), and Siria (Tsivia or Sylvia).
You will note that in the case for both families they are traveling as US citizens. How was that accomplished? Pesche’s father and Sarah Hinda’s father-in-law, was Reb Shmuel Levy (he went by Simon Levi in the US) had arrived in the US in February of 1881 and was naturalized April 3 of 1893. But his children, all of whom were born in Jerusalem were not naturalized. So he did what he had to do…he claimed they were all born in Chicago. The story handed down to me was that the mayor of Chicago called for all those with birth records destroyed by the fire, to claim new ones. Supposedly that is why Shmuel did this for all of his children. You can see on many documents that they claimed their birthplace as Chicago, rather than what it really was, Jerusalem.
Also look to the far right of the document and you can see who they were coming to stay with in the U.S. In Sarah’s case…she is coming to stay with her husband, Mr. Harris Levy, living at 623-27 Stone Ave in Brooklyn. In Pesche’s case she is going to her brother-in-law, Mr. A. Lipson 2035 Berger Street in Brooklyn. This was most likely because her husband, Isak J. Lipson was living in Minneapolis at the time. They would eventually join him there but were staying for a bit in New York with Isak’s brother Alex (Elias) Lipson.
