A Dream Fulfilled

By Richard Simon

One family member was a Jewish pioneer in gold rush San Francisco, selling dry goods down the block from fellow German immigrant Levi Strauss. Another family member was one of the wealthiest Jews in the 19th Century—a tobacco merchant, hotel owner, Wall Street banker and real estate investor who once met President Grant and hobnobbed with prominent Jews profiled in Stephen Birmingham’s “Our Crowd: The Great Jewish Families of New York.” Other family members included a pioneer in the silk business, a Russian Jew who fled persecution, a colorful Brooklyn merchant who was the first to display an ad on a trolley car that crossed the Brooklyn Bridge and a Palm Springs civic activist. Richard Simon, a retired Los Angeles Times reporter, writes about the lives of his family members, including the adversities they overcame, in “A Dream Fulfilled.’’

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: May 27, 2016
• ISBN: 9781483449739

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Copyright © 2016 Richard J. Simon.

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ISBN: 978-1-4834-4973-9 (e)

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Lulu Publishing Services rev. date: 5/6/2016

T HE YEAR WAS 1845.

James K. Polk

was president. Texas became the 28th state. A clean-shaven 36-year-old Abraham Lincoln was practicing law in Illinois.

And Ulrich Simon, my great-great-grandfather, left Germany for the United States.

Ulrich and his wife Karoline were among the first Jews in San Francisco during the gold rush, arriving shortly after the U.S. flag was hoisted in the town's plaza.

The Simon family's story is typical of immigrants who arrived in the United States with dreams of a better life.

Family members braved disease, financial calamities and other hardships. One family member died at age 17 from pneumonia. Another died in her 20s from typhoid fever.

But they overcame adversities.

Albert S. Rosenbaum, my other great-great-grandfather, was a German immigrant who built a fortune in the tobacco business to become one of the wealthiest Jews in the 19th Century.

Rosenbaum, whose daughter Virginia married my great-grandfather Jacques R. Simon, met President Ulysses S. Grant and hobnobbed with prominent Jewish businessmen profiled in Stephen Birmingham's "Our Crowd: The Great Jewish Families of New York.''

Rosenbaum was a hotel owner, Wall Street banker, investor in real estate and the Western expansion of the railroad and early patron of New York's Mount Sinai Hospital.

Ulrich ran a dry goods store in San Francisco, operating near a business run by another German Jewish immigrant: Levi Strauss.

Karoline, a mother of nine, was one of the first Jewish women in San Francisco.

Jacques, one of Ulrich and Karoline's children, was a pioneer silk merchant heading "one of the leading and most successful houses in the silk importing business,'' according to the New York Times.

The firm was the subject of a high-profile investigation during the Grover Cleveland administration over whether it undervalued imported goods. It was cleared of any wrongdoing.

Joseph Michaels, my other great-grandfather, was a colorful Brooklyn furniture store owner -- the first to display an ad on a trolley car that crossed the Brooklyn Bridge.

He was a Brooklyn booster who raised funds for the Jewish Hospital, contributed money to buy a "magnificent specimen of a male black leopard and a pair of zebras'' for the Prospect Park Zoo and served on the board of Brooklyn Trust Co. when it ran the Brooklyn Dodgers.

He also was a Democratic Party activist who hosted Gov. Franklin D. Roosevelt at dinner.

Lloyd Simon, my grandfather who married Amy Michaels, was a civic activist in Palm Springs, arriving there in the 1930s and serving as a spark plug for many affairs of the village, the Desert Sun wrote.

The "well-known villager,'' as the paper described him, worked for cityhood at a time when Palm Springs had only 910 registered voters and was a leader in efforts to build a hospital, the Desert Museum and the Boys Club.

He also was active politically -- as a Republican.

Nathan LeKashman, my other grandfather, was a Russian Jewish immigrant who fled the pogroms under the last tsar and entered the United States through Ellis Island. He was a self-educated man who achieved success in New York's garment business but also endured hard times during the Great Depression.

And the second Jacques R. Simon, my dad, grew up in Palm Springs, served in World War II, married Claire LeKashman and raised three children, Lloyd, Nancy --- and me.

Relatives included the first Jewish Republican U.S. senator and a prominent economist who wrote "Greed is Not Enough: Reaganomics.''

Here is the family story:

T HE SIMON FAMILY'S ROOTS CAN be traced back to Germany before Germany became a unified nation.

Ulrich was born Jan. 24, 1824 in Bechtheim, a small village in the Grand Duchy of Hesse-Darmstadt west of the Rhine.

He joined a wave of German Jews who immigrated to the United States after enduring virulent anti-Semitism and economic and political upheaval, including crop failures.

In Europe they had been shackled by a multitude of prohibitions and discriminatory regulations -- they could not marry without the state's permission, could not engage in most aspects of industry, agriculture and even commerce, could not own their own homes or land,'' Irena Penzik Narell wrote in The Jewish 49ers in the New Land of Milk & Honey.''

Like everyone else making the difficult journey to California, Jews sought riches---but they also hungered for something more: the opportunity to shape a new life for their families and their people,'' according to American Jerusalem: Jews and the Making of San Francisco.''

Ulrich traveled up the Rhine to Amsterdam where he boarded a ship to America.

He endured a long, arduous journey across the Atlantic, including crowding, unsanitary conditions, poor food, rough seas and long stretches of monotony. After weeks at sea, the main source of excitement was a change in the weather or the sight of another ship.

Immigrants like Ulrich left behind families and friends, uncertain whether they would ever see the old country again. They arrived in a strange new land, often alone with little money and without knowing English, in need of a job and unsure what to expect.

Ulrich entered the United States through New Orleans.

In 1848, he married Karoline Moritz, a 17-year-old immigrant from Essingen, Bavaria.

The young couple briefly lived in Louisiana. After the birth of their first child, they joined the stampede to California after gold was discovered there.

Ulrich, Karoline and baby Samuel arrived in San Francisco in the early 1850s, a few months before California became the 31st state.

Isaac Markens' 1888 book "The Hebrews in America'' lists Ulrich Simon among the first Jews to arrive in San Francisco.

Ulrich, Karoline and Samuel probably traveled to San Francisco by ship around Cape Horn or across the Isthmus of Panama (before the canal was built).

If they crossed Panama -- the fastest route -- they traveled in a canoe through swampy jungle and on the backs of mules across mountains. They risked disease and endured bugs, stifling heat, torrential rains and