Nechama, Sol’s stepsister
Sol’s stepsister Nechama, the daughter of his step father and biological mother, eventually migrated to California. She never married. After Sol died, a social service organization in California asked the Felson family in Cincinnati to donate money needed for Nechama’s living expenses. They didn’t send anything. Sol didn’t get along with his stepsister, for understandable reasons (Nancy Brant, November 28, 2002). What Nancy Brant is referring to is the abuse Sol took from his step father and his step father’s favoritism shown toward his own biological child, Nechama. The step father may have been named Levine, since Nechama called herself Felson, Felshon and Levine.
Eva Busel Berman (1880-1934)
Eva (Rivel) Busel was the sister of Esther Busel Felson. Their birthdates were both in 1880, so they were likely to have been twins. Eva married Joseph Berman when she was still in Lithuania. Joe was a Jew and a hatter. He listed his occupation as a tailor on the passenger list when entering the US.
The couple emigrated to the US in 1904 (on different ships for some reason) and lived in New York City for six years, from 1904 to 1909. During this time they had three children, a boy, Sam, born in 1904, and two girls, Annie, born in 1905, and Gussie, born in 1906.
On May 7, 1909 Joe Berman and his family left NYC for Louisville Kentucky. Like Sol six years earlier, Joe was relocated to Kentucky by The Removal Office of the Jewish Agricultural Society. The reassignment was based on his skill as a hatter and tailor.
Shortly after arriving in Louisville, Kentucky, the Bermans had a fourth child, Joe (Isedor) B. Berman (born in 1910). In that very same year Joseph, the father, contracted tuberculosis and was sent for treatment to Denver, Colorado to the National Jewish Medical and Research Center an institution founded ten years earlier in 1899 to treat tuberculosis.
Upon Joseph’s departure Eva was left in Louisville with the four children and no financial or social support. She must have had a breakdown at that time, because she was institutionalized on December 16, 1910. She remained at the Central State Hospital in Louisville for 23 years, until her death in 1934.
Her intake records from the hospital indicate that she was of “unsound mind” and was diagnosed as a “lunatic”. The causes for her behavior were listed as “unknown” Under the category “support” she was identified as “indigent.” Her symptoms (periodic) were “hearing voices” and “making noises.” She was described as: “doesn’t speak English and is well nourished.” Throughout the records she was cast as problematic and non-communicative because she did not speak English. She would have manic episodes and on occasion they used water hoses to calm her down.
Even though divorcing someone who was in a mental hospital was illegal at the time, Joseph Berman did remarry and moved to South Bend, Indiana with his new wife, Ida, and their combined family. The census of 1920 has Joseph and Ida living at 1702 Bruce Street in South Bend.
Joseph had two children with Ida: Ralph and Louis. They may have been twins, since both were born in 1918. Ida also brought two older children to her new marriage, Minnie Kushelefsky (b. 1905) and Esther Kushelefsky (b. 1909). Joe and Ida’s household in the 1920 census lists Joe and Eva’s four children, Ida’s own two children, and Joe and Ida’s two children— eight children in all. The children ranged in age from 17 year old Samuel to the two year old twins.
What contact did Eva’s family have with the Felson family over the years? Beth remembers her mother Louise talking about being good friends with her first cousins, the Berman girls (probably Ann and Gussie). Louise hitch-hiked around the country with them. And Alan Travis recalls that his mother Sophie visited a child of Eva in St. Louis.
According to Felson family lore, Esther was unhappy with her mother and probably wanted no contact with her, though it is not clear whether this family directed animosity would have included her sister Eva. The story we cousins knew is that Esther was disaffected from her mother because she didn’t want Esther to move to America to be with Sol. Her mother did not approve of Sol because of his political activity and his atheism.
The Felson Family 