Tsivia “Sylvia” Lipson was born in Jerusalem on March 31, 1913. Her parents were Isak Jacob Lipson and Peske Levy Lipson. She had 3 sisters (Celia, Bella and Libe) and one brother (Leo). The family emigrated to Minneapolis in around 1920 and finally settled in Los Angeles. Sylvia married Peter Toben on July 2, 1939, in Los Angeles. She was more “modern” than her sisters. She took Annette to a drivein and introduced her to caramel sundays which changed Annette’s life. Bea and Annette stayed over night and Sylvia scrambled the eggs in butter (Bea didn’t like it). She did lots of projects, knitting, sewing, beading but had trouble finishing them. She had 3 children. She died 27 September, 1987 in Los Angeles of liver cancer.
Here 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 interesting information that comes 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 for all of his children. You can see on many documents that their birthplace was Chicago, rather than 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.
Note that one of the witnesses to the wedding was Irving Benveniste, who was a Los Angeles physician. Peter Toben was best man at Irving’s wedding in September of 1944. Also, Sylvia’s father, Isak Jacob Lipson, officiated at the wedding, as rabbi. The other witness, Alexander “Sender” Gratz who was Sylvia’s mother’s first cousin, son of Moshe and Hinda Goldschmidt Gratz. I also found it interesting that Sylvia was working as a stenographer in a physician’s office, maybe Peter’s? was that how they met?
