Missing JACOBOWSKY found!

One of my first articles was about my great-great-grandmother, Helena JACOBOWSKY LEVY (1838-1915). She had arrived in the US in 1857, following her older brother, Simon, and moved to Portsmouth, Virginia circa 1868, where she lived her remaining years. What I did not know is that there was a third JACOBOWSKY in town.

Simon (1828-1879) had arrived with his wife (or perhaps fiancée; she traveled WITH Simon but under her maiden name) in 1853. He had moved to Portsmouth in 1866, until he died shy of his 52nd birthday of a rare bladder disease.

I also knew of brother Moshe (Moritz), born in 1831. Moritz arrived in 1856, and had a daughter, Theresa, in 1861 Manhattan. Simon and Helena had also named their first daughter “Theresa”, presumably after their late mother, Taube WOLFF JAKUBOWSKI. Unlike those cousins, however, Moritz’s Theresa died at the age of one year. And that was the last record I found of Moritz JACOBOWSKY.

Fast-forward to today, when I found a number of Norfolk, Virginia newspapers which had previously not been available online. One of the articles I found covered the 1902 marriage of Henry LEVY, my great-grandmother’s brother, and Helena’s only son. Deep within the coverage was this nugget of unexpected information:

Who is Mr. Morris?

I had seen Henry MORRIS in various articles before, but assumed he was a family friend. Before now, there was nothing connect him as family. So who was he, and how was he connected? I assume from the “Mr. H. Morris, Sr” as uncle meant that Henry MORRIS must be a first cousin to Henry LEVY. Therefore, “Senior” was a brother to Helena or her late husband, Morris LEVY, or perhaps his wife had been.

However, now that I knew the name to look for, it did not take long to track him down:

Jacob Henry MORRIS obituary, 1912

Right there, in black-and-white, his sister was Helena. Likewise, his brother would have been Simon, and I see he also had a son named “Simon”, presumably in tribute to his late brother. I strongly suspect that Jacob Americanized his name by taking the “Jacob” from JACOBOWSKY and “Morris” from his given name, Moshe. The “Henry” was probably to honor his father, Hirsch, as he also named his son.

So Simon and Helena had had a brother living nearby in Virginia for decades, and we had never known. A whole unexpected family to research! Amazing what I can still find when I’m not really even looking in that direction.