52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks - Week 13 - Light a Candle

Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, 1931

A year or two ago, I ran across this 1931 newspaper clipping about Morris and Fannie Meyer's Golden Anniversary in a box of family photos. I didn't recognize their names. Who were they? They weren't in my family tree. I do have Meyers (with an 'S' at the end) so I thought maybe they're related.

In the fall of 2022, I visited Mt Hope cemetery in Rochester to take photos of the graves of some of my Wolff ancestors. I saw the gravestone of Morris and Fannie in the adjacent plot. Lightbulb! I took photos of all the graves in the adjacent plot and started researching this line. Spoiler alert - Morris is the brother of Benjamin Meyers, my 3rd great-grandfather (see the MEYERS chart in my Who's Who blog post).

The Rochester Genealogical Society and Friends of Mt Hope have digitized the cemetery's burial records. These records have details about who is buried in a plot including those without a visible headstone or marker.

My Wolff ancestors are in Section AA, Lot 3, North 1/2, while the burial plot with Morris and Fannie is Section AA, Lot 3, South 1/2. The cemetery records list the owners of this plot as Adler, Lewin, Meyer, and Simon.

Mt Hope burial record for Section AA, Lot 3, South 1/2

Morris and Fannie were the first two listed; I started researching them and the other names to determine their relationship. I was able to discover that Morris's father was Wolff Meyer, and that matched up with the father listed for my ancestor, Benjamin Meyers. Other matching clues have led me to confidently decide that Morris and Benjamin were brothers.

When I got to the burial record for Abey (or Abby) Meyer, I found she was just a toddler or baby when she passed in 1897. Who were her parents? How did she die? I hit some road blocks but persisted. I was determined to find out whose child she was. Based on the year of her birth, 1894, I suspected that Morris and Fannie were her parents. Their first child was born in 1881 and another born in 1890. Their Golden Wedding anniversary newspaper article said they had three children, only one who was still living.

I wrote to Monroe County vital statistics for Abey's death record. Unfortunately her parents names weren't listed. There were a few clues though. Her father was born in Germany and her mother in the US. She was residing at 89 Chatham St in the 6th Ward of Rochester NY when she died of croup at the age of 3 years.

Part of death record for Abby Meyer, age 3, listing father from Germany, mother from US

Second part of Abby's death record. She died Nov 1, after an illness of 10 days, place of death 89 N Chatham in Ward 6, certified by Dr. H. Koch.

I tried to find Chatham St on a map of Rochester but was unsuccessful. This blog post by the Rochester Public Library has some history about Chatham St, including that many Jewish families lived there in the late 1800s and that it was since renamed to Ormond St.

A section of an 1888 map of Rochester, showing Chatham St. The red circle indicates 89 N. Chatham St

1887 Rochester city directory, entry for Morris M. Meyer

My next step was to see if Morris and Fannie were living at 89 Chatham in 1887, the year of Abby's death. I searched Rochester NY city directories and in the 1887 directory, Morris M. Meyer's place of business was 77 N. St. Paul and his house was 89 Chatham. In the 1888 directory, Morris has moved a few blocks north to Vienna St.

So I'm pretty confident that Abby is Morris and Fannie's daughter. Morris was born in Germany and Fannie in New York. They married January 6, 1881. Their first child, a daughter Blanche, was born in December 1881. Abby was born 1884, and their last child, a third daughter, Julia, was born in 1890. Blanche married Barnett Hose. She passed away in 1921 and is in the grave next to her parents. Julia married Harry Rosenberg and they're buried in the plot adjacent. I find it comforting knowing that Morris, Fannie and their three daughters are close together.