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 1920 via NY. When they arrived in NY from Jerusalem, they were staying with relatives in NY and the first morning she was served an egg for breakfast and she looked up and asked “is the whole egg for me?”. Later somebody took her out for the day and bought her a chocolate bar but she wanted to share it with her brother Leo so she put half of it into the pocket of the coat she was wearing and it melted and ruined the coat. 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.
From her daughter Judy: “In Los Angeles she was active in the young Poale Zion (which later became Habonim – labor zionist group). She was active in Hadassah and was president of her chapter at one time. She started a business called the Holiday Paper House which she later renamed as the Hebrew Decorations company. She designed and had manufactured and sold all kinds of decorations for Jewish Holidays to Jewish organizations all over the US. Streamers, gift cards, ribbon, stickers etc. She did really well. In 1954 they moved from Boyle Heights to Fairfax area of Los Angeles.
Peter was very involved in the business. He was pre-engineer before he went to Medical School (started at USC but they closed during the depression and he went to Temple University where he met Irving Benveniste – Peter called him “Ben” and Ben called Peter “Toby”). Peter invented a silk screen thing to put the glitter on the streamers. He invented a hand crank that would turn to unspool the ribbon that said “Happy Hanuka” it wound it into lengths of 6 feet. Also a metal coated piece that pressed down to crimp the corners of an ash tray. There were paper dolls for every holiday. She was doing everything out of the living room and the whole family was involved in it. When sitting shiva for Bubbe Lipson they were counting out items for packaging. The family moved to Fairfax area, and she didn’t want to continue to do business in living room because she wanted it to be “nice”. She was going to find a place, and she said she was going to be president and her husband said she couldn’t be because she was a woman, that he had to be president and so she quit and sold everything to Moshe Cohen who had a store called “House of Israel”. She used to have napkins for every Jewish Holiday and also for graduation. They never sold. Moshe didn’t buy them from her. So there were boxes of them in the garage.
She made all the decorations in the living room and glitter got into the carpet so she didn’t want to get the new house carpets full of glitter.
The two of them bought bungalow courts as an investment and she lived on that income after he died.
Peter developed ALS and she took care of him. This was a really hard time for all of the family. She was 49 when he died. She got involved with Boy Scouts and she played cards “Pan” with the other mothers.
It always amazed her that she grew up in a place with no electricity and no running water in Jerusalem and that she ended up living in Los Angeles in a nice neighborhood in a beautiful house. “
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?
