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Abner Robinson (1851 - 1943)
Abner Robinson was born about 1851 in Russia (Kretinga or Taurage in Lithuania). According to Adele Wolpert Greil, Abner studied for the rabbinate in Vilna (Vilnius), the capital of Lithuania (eastern part near Poland) and a renowned center of Jewish learning. He did not get his "smicha" (ordination) because he had doubts. Learning and Torah study were of tremendous importance. Abner and Minda often bragged about their elite status or "Yichus" because there were supposedly ninety-nine rabbis in the family.
Also, Adele remembered:
Little is known of Zaida's (Abner's) family. He related the story that he had loaned a brother my grandmother's (Minda's) dowry, but when he asked for its return so that he could go to America, he was rebuffed. The brother was said to be a "doctor" (a professor, perhaps). Abner had a niece who came to visit named Chava (Fanny) Berman, who was married to Shapsa (Samuel) Berman, and Chava's mother (Abner's sister) was probably Etta (see Sister: Etta Robinson). The Bermans lived in Baltimore near Belvedere Avenue. Once when we were small, around 8 or 9, two nieces came to visit from Indianapolis. They offered to send a car and driver for my grandparents, but I don't think we ever heard from them again. I don't know whose daughters they were. We heard that they were very wealthy and that their husbands were in the junk and metal business.
From grandson Herb Robinson (Morris' son):
Abner and Minda came from a town in Lithuania now known as Taurage, then under Russian occupation. It was a very small town; people keep turning up who are from there. The Goldmans and Friedbergs, whose sons were fraternity brothers of Ellis, George and me, were among them; and so were the Benjamins, my in-laws. In fact when Abner was told of our engagement, he grinned from ear to ear and commented, "From a good tree you get a fine apple." They lived near what was then the German border. Their big city was Memel, which at that time was German (or Prussian). Abner had difficulty making a living in Europe, earning money as a teacher. To supplement their income, Minda knitted gloves, mittens, and socks.
Abner Robinson was a slender, fairly short man, with a short, gray beard when Adele knew him. "All I remember about Abner is his beard," said grandson Charles Robinson.
Herb Robinson tells of being introduced to an aged rabbi in Boca Raton many years ago, and the conversation went like this:
He: Robinson? What kind of name is that for a good Jewish boy?
Me: My grandfather said it was Rabinovitz in the old country.
He: That's better. Robinson would be a literal translation for "son of a rabbi."
Granddaughter Rosalind Robinson Bernstein is sure Abner's original last name was Rabinovitz. (So far, no records in the U.S. have this name.)
Esther Minda Holtzberg Robinson (1851 - 1940)
Abner's wife Esther Minda Holtzberg was born in Salant (Salantai) (north of Kretinga), Lithuania, about 1851. According to Minda, the people of Salant were very proud people. In readings at the synagogue, "Salanter Rebbe" enjoined the people not to be proud or haughty. Her parents were Hirsch and Zeesa (Zezia on Minda's death certificate) (maiden name unknown). They did not immigrate to the U.S. Minda also had a brother Leibe, who had six children, two of whom married Robinson brothers (not related to Abner) in Luray, Virginia. According to Adele Greil, during World War I, the family in the U.S. did not hear from Hirsch. Because of his age, he was presumed dead, so Morris and Celya Robinson's son Herbert was named after him. After the war, he got in touch with the family again. The other Herbert, Annie Holtzberg Robinson's son, was named after him, but this was sometime after the war.
Minda Holtzberg Robinson also told about her family living in Salant in a double house with her cousins on the other side. Her first cousin was a young rabbi named David Esterman (his mother was the sister of Hirsch who married an Esterman). He married and had a child named Shifra. The wife died and the grandmother helped raise Shifra. The Rabbi remarried Etta Karg, and their child was Elisheva (Sheva). Then the Rabbi died in the 1870s.
The old grandmother was to raise the two daughters after the rabbi died. Since Minda's mother was younger, she helped raise them so that Minda, Shifra and Sheva were raised as though they were sisters. Even some of the grandchildren thought that they were.
Descendants of the sister of Hirsch Holtzberg are through Shifra, who married Nathan Silberman, and Sheva, who married Moshe Shapiro (Bassan). Other descendants are in a separate narrative of Holtzberg Descendants.
Minda had red hair in her youth but by the time she had grandchildren, her hair had turned almost platinum blonde. She evidently had very high coloring with rosy cheeks, according to Adele Greil, because she said that as a young girl she fasted one day a week so that she would have a paler complexion, which was considered more attractive. She was always dressed most modestly, in rather somber small printed silks or cottons of blue and black, hems at her ankles and with sleeves covering her elbows.
Minda stayed at home and raised her family. She never learned English, but could understand it to a degree. She could read her siddur and said daily prayers, but she couldn't read newspapers or books. The Robinsons were very observant Jews, and Minda kept the home strictly kosher: four sets of dishes, pots and pans and cutlery. After eating meat, it was necessary to wait four to six hours to have milk, although not the other way around. Minda "kashered" all meat and chickens used in the household, salting and soaking them before preparation. She was particular about looking for the "Chechshar" or stamp, indicating that the meat was kosher. In fact, Abner had the job of inspecting the meat in local stores to make sure that all meat sold was properly stamped.
Abner and Minda married about 1877 (by the 1900 census, they had been married 23 years). Their children were Abraham (1878-1899), Harry Monroe (Jan. 1881-1944), Louis B. (Dec. 1881-1958), Maurice (Moe) (1883-1965), Morris (1884-1965), Samuel (1885-1912), and Jennie (1893-1990). By the 1910 census, two of eight children had died: Abraham and another (who may have been born in the U.S.). Both Abe and Sam died of tuberculosis. Only Jennie was born in the United States.
Abner and Minda in the United States
Abner and Minda decided to immigrate to America because of Russian conscription, according to Adele Greil. They had six sons, and when a man was conscripted in the Czar's army, it was for a very, very long time, and besides being away from family, Judaism was usually forgotten. Abner had money only for his own passage and left his wife and children behind. He immigrated about 1886 or 1887 (according to 1910 and 1900 census data).
Since the Hamburg line came directly to Baltimore, Abner may have arrived at that port in the United States (although there is no record in the index of arrivals in Baltimore). In Baltimore, he stayed with his wife's cousins, Moshe and Sheva Shapiro (Bassan).
Abner was a peddler and sold and repaired umbrellas. He worked for six years before he could send for Minda and the boys, who must have arrived in the early 1890s. Jennie was their only child born in the U.S. Abner declared his intent to become a citizen on April 5, 1889 (Samuel Berman was the witness) and became a naturalized citizen on October 12, 1896.
According to Adele Greil:
Abner became a peddler in the U.S., travelling around the countryside with his wares. He learned to speak English, but in his later years preferred speaking Yiddish. The Yiddish that they spoke was much like German as they had lived so near to the German border. After some years, Abner opened an umbrella store, selling umbrellas with costly wooden and silver handles as well as ladies' elegant parasols. As he acquired more money, he also purchased houses to rent to others, always mortgaging one to buy another.
He used to tell us that the German-Jewish merchants in the area would tell him he could be the best Jew if only he didn't continue eating gefilte fish. The umbrella store was evidently in the proximity of a Catholic church because he often spoke of priests coming in to visit and to discuss the Bible and its meanings.
Abner would sometimes earn money by sitting with corpses before burial, as was the custom. But as he got older and feebler, he sat only for people without money, feeling that he was performing a mitzvah.
Grandson Herb Robinson remembered:
I remember Abner best by his good humor; he enjoyed a good joke (some were a shade off-color), a Chesterfield cigarette, and a game of penny-ante poker. Though he was deeply religious, he always made allowance for others' beliefs and respected their right to worship in their own way.
If you need to know the caliber of the man, Bernard Adler will tell you something along these lines. He grew up next door to the Robinson/Wolpert household in Baltimore, and his father was neither a good person nor good father. Abner would take Bernard by the hand to Sabbath services and talk to him at length about moral standards and personal character. Adler says that anything good that came of his life, he owes to that man, whom he deeply revered. (According to Adele, Abner also helped Bernard's brothers, arranging Albert's bar mitzvah and free Hebrew school for Sylvan.)
Granddaughter Rosalind Bernstein said that when she and Adele were young Abner would give them cigarettes. Abner and Minda "could not be kosher enough-they had three sets of dishes," according to granddaughter Shirley Robinson Feld.
According to Adele, Abner went to shul twice a day and wore a vest with fringes under his outer clothing (but not showing). In preparation for Passover, after the house had been immaculately cleaned, Abner went around with a chicken feather to make sure there were no crumbs. During Simchat Torah, Abner and the other men had their schnapps during the service.
In 1924, the Baltimore City directory gives Abner's occupation as sexton. The minutes of Beth Tfiloh congregation in the late 1920s indicate that Abner was appointed superintendent, the first paid official of the congregation. A 1981 document records that "the first sexton Abner Robinson retired in March 1927."
When the Robinson family first arrived in Baltimore, they lived in East Baltimore somewhere near Gay Street and near a fire station. Entries in the Baltimore City Directory between 1889 and 1895 list Abraham Robinson living at East Baltimore addresses and with occupations like Abner's. Later they moved to West Baltimore to Arlington Avenue and to Poppleton Street (by the 1900 census) and then still later to the 2420 McCullough Street (1919 City Directory)-almost in Druid Hill Park. In 1923, they moved to 4120 Dalrymple Avenue (later known as Fairview Avenue). Still later they moved to Bonner Road, in the 3900 block. Son-in-law Meyer Wolpert died while living on Bonner Road, and the family moved to a smaller house at 3132 Winfield Avenue (which later became known as Chelsea Terrace). According to Adele, "With a trace of snobbery, the family always said they were from West Baltimore and that they were not East Baltimore Jews." Jennie and her husband Meyer and their children (Adele, Elaine, and Sam) and her parents Abner and Minda always lived together, each helping to care for the other.
According to death certificates, Minda died July 24, 1940 (age 90), from chronic myocarditis and arteriosclerotic, cardiovascular renal disease, and Abner died of senility and cardiac exhaustion on March 29, 1943 (age 92).
Both Abner and Minda were buried from home, which was expected in those days. As a mark of respect, the doors of the synagogue were opened and the funeral procession would ride past. When Minda died, Abner wanted to hear the developments in Europe with Hitler so he allowed the radio to be played, saying that it was not a diversion or amusement.
They have a combined monument at Beth Tfiloh Cemetery (Windsor Mill Road, Baltimore), which was unveiled on May 7, 1944, as announced in the Jewish Times.
