POLAK Joseph and Maryanne, born Mendelsohn


Maryanna Mendelsohn Pollak
Maryanne Mendelsohn in about 1890/1900
Yehuda Leib Poiliak was born in July 1839 in Riga, Baltic Port, Capital of Latvian S.S.R. (under Russian rule).  His father's name was Yohem Poiliak.  At the time of his birth Jews were allowed to register officially as inhabitants of the city.  By 1869 there were 5,254 Jews in Riga.  They were permitted to build synagogues, open schools (which became major institutes of learning), own real property and engage in commerce and trade.
Sora Riva Wasserman was born in Riga, Latvia in September 1841.  She married Leib Poiliak in Riga in 1859 when she was 18 and he was 20.
 
Leib was a capmaker.  He made fur hats and plain caps.  Leib was a very religious Jew, and his place was closed to business on the Sabbath.  On Saturday night people stood in line to buy hats until Leib opened his store after Shabbot was over.
 
 Sora Riva and Leib had nine children.  Only four survived infancy, two sons and two daughters.  They were:  Joseph (Yussie) born May 1867; Bluma, Fannie (Faga Leba), and Abraham, the youngest, born September 1872.  Abraham was the only child who went into the capmaking business with his father.  Joseph served in the Russian Army.  Joseph, Bluma, and Faga Leba were married in Riga.  Joseph married Maryianne Mendelsohn (born April 1871).  Fannie (Faga Leba) married Max (Mutta) Kraft.  Bluma was married - her husband’s name is unknown.
Joseph Polak
Joseph Pollak
Maryana Mendelsohn Pollak
Maryanne Pollak in about 1930
 When it was time for Abraham to go into the army, he decided to avoid the draft and go to America instead.  He came to the United States in 1890 and found a job in Baltimore working for a uniform cap-making company.  Abraham's father, Leib, had received on July 18,1892, from the Board of Trade of Vilna, on the assurances of the Board of the Jewish Culinary Guild of Vilna, a certificate as a Worthy Master of Culinary Trade.  Whether he gave up the cap-making business to go into the food business we will never know.  Or maybe the certificate I found was for a cousin or uncle or brother, etc, etc.  However, in 1894 when Abraham had made enough money to bring his family to the United States, they all came.  When Leib Poiliak entered the United States, he became Labin Polacko.
 
During these four years while Abraham was in the U.S. his sister Bluma, her husband and their unborn child had been killed in a Pogrom by the Cossacks.  Abraham sent for the remaining members of his family.  These consisted of his mother and  father, Sora Riva and Labin, his sister and her husband, Fannie and Max Kraft, and his brother and wife, Joseph and Maryianne with their baby daughter, Ida, who had been born in January l893.  In America Sora Riva became Sarah, and Labin became Louis.  The spelling of their last name changed from Polacko to Polack, and finally to Pollack.  Both Sarah and Louis could read and write.  Neither could speak English.


Photos and info submitted by  Bonnie Mogelever Pollack. USA