We're Jew-ish.

I'm not the only one who has long suspected that the Heydrick girls have some Jewish blood in them. Now, that can be a dangerous thing depending on the decade and the country in which one is residing, but really, I thought we should know.

Growing up in a homogeneous, middle-class, white, post-war suburb of Denver I always thought just being Catholic was pretty exotic (the girls next door wore that plaid Catholic school-girl uniform and attended parochial school--seemed very exotic to me at the time!) I wasn't friends with anyone who was Jewish until I was in college, and even then this person was imported from Long Island (The University of Wyoming in Laramie in the 70's was definitely not the hub of cultural diversity.)

In hindsight I guess that Karen and Steven Kaufman, who were in my fifth grade class were probably Jewish, but I didn't know it. Later I was told that my fifth grade teacher was probably Jewish too--but I don't know if that was true. At any rate, once I knew what the word "ethnic" meant, I wanted to be ethnic. That didn't specifically mean I wanted to be Jewish, just that I wanted to be something other than an undifferentiated white Protestant. I wasn't even Irish Catholic; I just had a Scottish surname with no history to go with it.

I'm now married to a New York Jew and have glommed on to her cultural heritage as if my own. For the last 21 years we've been living in a homogeneous, middle-class, white--rural--community where the few members of the Jewish diaspora seek each other out. We always celebrate Passover with our dear friend Susi Erenthiel Learmonth (Jew married to a Scot) whose family escaped from Vienna in September of 1938--two steps ahead of the Nazis. So once I began really looking into my family history I went looking for the mysterious Jewish ancestor who I know MUST exist. I found him.

My mother's mother was Helen Esther Eyles Heydrick. She was born in Chicago to English immigrants. Her father, Arthur Eyles was an industrial chemist. (I will be posting all I know of the Eyles family eventually.) Helen Eyles' mother was Gertrude Freund. Now Freund is simply a German word that means "friend." But it could be a Jewish surname, or so I hoped. I had scant clues to go on:

My Aunt Margie told me that her grandmother had been "a real Cockney--born within the sound of Bow Bells in London. Their address had been 7 Finsbury Circus."

(Bow Bells are the bells of the church of St. Mary-le-Bow, Cheapside, London. To be 'born within the sound of Bow Bells' is the traditional definition of a Cockney. http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/72100.html)

I started by doing some searches with the address 7 Finsbury Circus, London which is, in fact, very near to the City of London and the church of St. Mary-le-Bow--so that part is true. Some additional information revealed that in the 19th century there had been a large Jewish community center in that area. Ah ha! Getting closer! A U.S. census search showed that on the 1920 census each respondent was asked the birth place and native language of their parents. Gertrude Freund Eyles' record shows that her mother was born in Germany and her father in Austria--ha ha! No Cockney at all and it seemed more and more likely that the Freunds were Jewish. It was my mother who provided the critical clue: she remembered that her grandmother's brother had been very prominent in the music publishing business in the early 20th century. That clue led me to a John C. Freund who in fact did publish a music trade journal in New York in the late 1890's. His parents were Dr. J.C.H. Freund and Amelia Rudiger. My mom also had a very, very vague recollection about someone being a doctor in the Crimean War or knowing Florence Nightingale, or some such tale. Eventually this turned out to be a keystone clue.

I admit that I have no British birth record for Gertrude Freund and so do not have absolute proof that she is the daughter of Dr. and Amelia Freund, but the last clue to pop it all into place for me was from my mother's uncle Arthur, my grandmother's eldest brother. He was quite a character and wrote a memoir of sorts that he called "The Spasmodic Gas Jets." He remembers that his family lived still in Chicago when the 1893 World's Columbia Exposition drew visitors from all over the country to see such marvels as the first ever so-called "Ferris Wheel." His uncle John Freund arrived from New York for the Exposition--and so this last puzzle piece links the Eyles family firmly to John Freund. Luckily John Christian Freund was so well-known that his biographies popped up after a few google searches. These biographies clearly state who his parents were and that he left England for New York with creditors nipping at his heels.

More on John Christian Freund later--now I really want to return to our Jew-ish roots and the famous, no really he was famous, Dr. J.C.H. Freund.

There is a great deal to be said about the distinguished life and career of Dr. J.C.H. Freund, my great-great grandfather. For this posting, though, his obituary from the British Medical Journal will suffice.

From the British Medical Journal of January 10, 1880 came a death notice of Dr. Jonas Charles Hermann Freund, who died 29 December 1879. His address was given as 7 West Street, Finsbury Circus, London. He died of chronic bronchitis.

http://www.bmj.com/cgi/issue_pdf/admin_pdf/1/993.pdf (BMJ death notice Dr. JCH Freund)

DR. HERMANN FREUND. It may be mentioned in connection with the death of this gentleman, which occurred last week, that until he started the idea in 1844, there was no hospital in London devoted to foreigners where they could be attended by medical men of their own nationality. With such a mixed and ever-changing population the want became so apparent that Dr. Freund some thirty-five years ago set to work to found an hospital for Germans, and mainly through his original suggestions, energy of purpose and devotion to the cause he had undertaken, this nationality has now in London a large and flourishing hospital, with a regular staff, and beds for 125 in-patients, which will compare in efficiency and good management very favourably with most of the larger institutions. Dr. Freund, though possessing Austrian degrees, held the position of Inspector-General of Hospitals in the British Forces during the Crimean campaign. Amongst the poor Germans in London he was a great favourite, from the interest he always took in their welfare, and the kindly disposition always evinced towards them; and his loss will be greatly felt by them. Dr. Freund had for a long past suffered from severe bronchial attacks, and the excessive cold and fogs of the present winter developed the complaint to which he succumbed last week at his residence in Finsbury Circus.

As far as I can tell J.C.H. Freund was born around 1808. A source that I'll go into more in the next post described him as from Bohemia---Bohemia, Austria, who knows? But there you have it--our bona fide Jewish ancestor. The question, though, is whether his wife was Jewish too? If so--because one is Jewish only if one's mother is--then Gertrude Freund was Jewish and so too was Helen Eyles and so too is my mother and then so too am I. Ahhh, but if Dr. Freund's wife was a gentile, well, then all bets are off and we end up being Protestants again!