ELKAN FAMILY ARCHIVE · THE FRANKELS OF URSPRINGEN
Marianne’s brothers
in St. Louis
A dancing establishment, a tailor’s trade, and the records that brought a branch of the family back into view.
In 1900, Nathan Frankel ran a dancing school or parlour in St. Louis. His younger brother Isak, a tailor when he arrived in America four years earlier, also made his home in the city. Their stories place Marianne’s family in an earlier chapter of migration, decades before the Nazi era. [1–3]
Emma and Nathan, identified in Martin Frankel’s family history, Volume 2, p. 40. Separate portraits; dates of sittings unknown. Reproduced with permission; source: Martin Frankel, The Frankels of Urspringen, Volume 2, p. 40.
THE FAMILY CONNECTION
Marianne, who married Moses Elkan, was one of nine children of Salomon Frankel and Breinla Klein. Nathan was her older brother; Isak, known in America as Irwin, was younger. Martin Frankel’s family history records that all nine siblings except Babette eventually left Urspringen. [1]
Selected children of Salomon Frankel and Breinla Klein [1]
A teenager crosses the Atlantic
According to Martin’s reconstruction of passenger records, Nathan arrived in New York aboard the America on 5 August 1867, aged fifteen. The book places his naturalization in 1876 and his marriage to Emma Lohmann in St. Louis in 1878. Their children were Tillie, Sol, Fred and Edmee. [2]
City directories, as summarized in the book, bring their working lives into view. Nathan was listed with a dancing school or parlour in 1900. By 1905, his establishment was on Chouteau Avenue, while Emma had opened a millinery business with Alva Spiro. Tillie had married Leon Spiro, linking the two families through marriage as well as work. [2]
Nathan died on 24 July 1909. His newspaper death notice named Emma, their four children and his brother Irvin. The following year’s records, as Martin summarizes them, place members of the Frankel and Spiro families together on Botanical Avenue. Later, some of the children moved to California. Emma remained in St. Louis with Edmee and made visits west. [2]
Another brother in the same city
Isak’s Atlantic crossing came nearly three decades after Nathan’s. Martin identifies a tailor named Isaac Frankel arriving in New York aboard the Galicia on 25 February 1896. He then finds Irwin with his wife and son in the 1900 St. Louis census. The family chart names his wife as Mariea Kress and their son as Dr. Sol Frankel. [3]
Finding their faces
For Martin, reconnecting the St. Louis branch took a long search. Nathan’s 1909 death notice supplied first names. A later California death certificate connected Fred Frankel to Nathan and Emma. On 22 September 2000, Martin received what he described as his first confirmed photographs of the couple. [2]
The names in the records now had faces: Emma and Nathan, Marianne’s sister-in-law and brother, whose family had made its life across the Atlantic.
Sources and further reading
Passenger, census and directory claims follow Martin Frankel’s summaries. The original record images have not been independently inspected for this chapter.
- [1] Volume 1, version 2.0 (2016), pp. 130–132: Salomon and Breinla’s nine children. Marianne’s marriage: Volume 2, pp. 44–45.
- [2] Volume 2, version 1.0 (2017), pp. 39–41: Nathan’s family, work and the research trail. The death notice is transcribed on p. 39; portraits appear on p. 40.
- [3] Volume 2, p. 57: Isak / Irwin’s arrival, household and family chart. Volume 1, p. 132 places him among Marianne’s siblings.