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Adler Family
To view the Adler Photo's please select the link at the top of the page.
Our cousin Harry Adler has been graciously provided to me invaluable information within the past couple of months. Obviously fresh eyes doing this research seems to uncover plenty more information. So here is what I now know thank to Harry.
Ber Barg, most likely was born in the Radyvyliv /(Radzivilov) area of Russia sometime in the 1790's. He had two sons that we know of, Itzik Barg (b. 1819) and Mendel (b. 1831). Looks like Mendel ended up in the Tsar's Army according to the 1850 Russian census. Itzik Bărg (born circa. 1819, died circa 1890) was married to a woman named Hannah (Hannah died June 1900), they had three children who we know of. Family members are all descendent of one of these children. The oldest was Ada who married Benjamin Adler, Then Yachad (Yetta?) who married Beryle Steinberg and then came Moshe Aryeh. All of the Adler, Barg, and Steinberg descendants are from these three people.
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Ada Bărg who was the oldest known daughter of Itzik Bărg and Hannah Bărg, married Benjamin Adler. The Adler List of Names starts with Ada and Benjamin Adler.
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Ada and Benjamin Adler with son Abraham standing behind them. circa 1890.
The history which you are about to read starts solely with BENJAMIN AND ADA ADLER, nee BARG. The ADLER COUSINS CLUB owes its very existence to them.
As Adler Cousins, we should know about this remarkable couple and the fascinating history that unfolded as they set about to create our vast and varied, and always fascinating...ADLER FAMILY.
In 1882, Benjamin Adler arrived in America, accompanied by one of his sons, young Julius. Because the German Lloyd Line had its terminus in Baltimore, at Locust Point, they landed and settled here, first finding employment with the firm of Schloss-Raynor Clothing Company. These were the days of the "sweat shop", when hours were long, work was hard, working conditions miserable, and the pay very poor. By 1885, sheer persistence and perspiration, Benjamin and Julius finally accumulated enough money to send for Ada and the remainder of their family, whom he had left behind in Gorachov, Vilna.
Upon hearing from Benjamin at last, Ada gathered together her young family - Wolf, his wife Dora and their baby Rose, David, Joseph, Morris, and her only daughter, little Ida. They packed their bedding and few precious possessions on their backs and started out for America, via Bremen, Germany. On the way they stopped to bid farewell to her oldest son, Abraham, who had already married and was settled with his family in Vitkov, Austria.
Travelling between Vilna, Poland (which fluctuated between independence and being Russian-dominated) and the port of departure in Bremen was never an easy one, at best. When time ran out on the motley crew and Sabbath descended, Ada's odyssey was put on hold until while she and her crew disembarked from the train and made Sabbath right there in the fields - with children Wolf and his wife, David, Morris, Joseph, Ida, and grandchild Rose all in her watchful eye. When Sabbath passed, she quickly packed up her brood, boarded the train, and resumed their journey westward. The adventurous group finally boarded the ship at Bremen, celebrated Morris' Bar Mitzvah somewhere on the North Atlantic, and finally landed safely at Locust Point, in Maryland.
Benjamin Adler had provided quarters for his wife and family at Baltimore and Harrison Streets. From here, our enterprising Ada took charge of our forbearers. In a short while, she moved her family to 225 N. High Street, using the first floor as a dwelling and the second floor as a "sweat shop" with the tailoring skills of her husband and young family This firm of Benjamin's and Ada's manufactured men's coats only - no pants. Ada handled all the money and budgeted all the expenses for all in the family. In this house,. in the year 1889, Julius died of tuberculosis, at the young age of 19 years. After Julius' death, Benjamin and Ada moved their shop and family to 140 N. Exeter Street. At this house, some of the children were married, and there brought their brides.
In the year of 1902, at the approximate age of 60 years, Benjamin died. Ada, together with her youngest child and only daughter Ida, moved to lived with her son Abraham and family.
Abraham has immigrated to America in 1898, brought his wife Dfora and children here in 1900, and by 1902, had established a home of his own at 285 N. Exeter Street. Ada and Ida occupied two rooms in this house - "bed room and kitchen" - on the second floor.
Ida was married in 1905. Ada continued living alone at her son Abraham's house, until his death, in 1920. Abraham's family moved from Exeter Street, and Ada then rented a room of her own on Washington Street. This was her legal residence only, for although the rent was paid from 1921 to 1923, the room was never occupied. In 1923, she officially accepted the home of her son Morris as her legal residence, at 2440 East Baltimore Street, and remained there with his family until her death in the year 1938, at the approximate age of 100 years.
Our Ada will long be remembered. Even in her 80's and 90's, travelling alone by trolley, she visited all her children, one by one. The conductors, spotting this spry 90-pound fire- ball, four and one-half feet tall, knew immediately that they only fare they would receive from her would be a crumpled transfer, sometimes outdated by more than a year. No degree of persuasion, no amount of argument would induce her to either leave the car or pay fare in cash currency. Her transfers were carefully sorted and stored, and we must report their secure place of storage - deep within the pockets of her petticoats, under the pockets of her aprons, beneath the pockets of her skirts. There they remained, safe and secure through the years, until the time of use required their careful removal, one by one.
She was a walking filing system. Perhaps the charioteer who transported her soul to her eternal Valhalla residence from where she still looks over us all, received as his final fare for the journey, an especially valuable - if outdated - transfer from the Baltimore Transit Company.
Max Krieger, 1961
This history was gathered from notes made by Joseph Berkow during his research of our Adler family history and, upon his death, left in the care of his sister, Fannie Berkow Wolfe.
Benjamin and Ada are buried side-by-side, in the Mount Carmel Cemetery, in Baltimore.
Benjamin Adler is buried at the original Anshe-Sphard Cementery at Bowley's Lane. His Tombstone is broken in half. Please see the Adler Photograph section to see.
Ada Adler is buried at the German Hill Road Anshe-Sphard Cemetery. Center Section same row as her nephew Simon Bark.
The German Hill Road Cemetery did not exist when Benjamin Adler died.
Remarks By: Benjamin J. Bark
Related Stories of Ada (Bărg) Adler:
Told by Isadore Bark to his son, Nathan Bark. Isadore was one of Ada's nephews.
Story One: "Ada got me my first job. I was making three dollars a week. She instructed me on how to allocate that fortune: take one dollar and send it home to Goldie (Isadore's wife, in Lutsk); one dollar you use to live on for the week, and the third dollar put into the bank."
Story Two: Ada's instructions on how to ride a Streetcar:
"Board the streetcar and find a seat next to a window. When the car starts to move you will hear the condutor call 'FARES, please, FARES, FARES,' becoming louder, but don't take your eyes from the window."
"The voice will come closer and closer until, it will be just behind you. DON'T MOVE, but keep looking out the window. The voice will say 'Mister, let me have the fare please', but you DON'T MOVE. When the conductor shakes your shoulder and says 'HEY MISTER, I MEAN YOU, I NEED YOUR FARE, PLEASE,' Then you turn around and give him the money!"
These two stories were told in yiddish and sound a lot better in Mame Loshen (mother's language).
Copyright 2010 Benjamin J. Bark. All Rights Reserved. Electronic redistribution of any part of this website is permitted as long as no alterations are made to the text and this notice appears at the beginning. Print reproductions for profit or use of this information for profit is not authorized without permission from the author.