Great-Grandparents Aaron and Sarah Handler

I have shared a few tidbits from the Mishpacha Tape Helen and Esther 1988 at YouTube since a cousin reached out to me last November:

Connecting With A Handler Cousin - Blog as Cousin Bait
Great-Grandmother Sarah or Sally Handler
Rose Handler - An Older Sister
Cousin and Athlete Art Handler
More Information on Bubbie Lena Handler

This is only the tip of the proverbial iceberg.

Since I have been writing about my husband's great-grandmother, Sally Handler (see Handler Family-Another Generation Back), I thought I'd mention a bit more about what Aunt Helen and Aunt Esther had to say about her and her husband, Aaron Handler.

Esther and Helen

At just before 19 minutes into the Mishpacha Tape, Helen starts talking about her grandparents, Aaron Handler and Sarah Handler.

I already shared what they (mostly Helen) remembered about Aaron here.

After Helen describes what she remembers about the older half brothers of their mother, she is asked about Aaron's second wife, their grandmother. After some confusion about which grandma they're referring to (the cousin's or Helen's and Esther's), Helen responds to the question by stating: "He [Aaron] had a niece whose name was Sarah." [23:32] Sarah was the child of Aaron's brother, whose name Helen and Esther do not know. They also don't know anything about Sarah's mother.

The only siblings they know of in that generation are Aaron and Sarah's (unnamed) father. Sarah's father, an extremely devout Jew, felt that it was a mitzvah to provide a wife for his brother, who had lost his first wife, to ensure that his brother would have more children. Sarah had been "going with" a butcher's son at the time, but he wasn't religious enough in the eyes of her family, so she wasn't permitted to marry him.

So Sarah, 20 or 21 at the time according to Helen, married a much older man, her uncle Aaron. Click here to see the point in the film where Helen describes her mother, Regina (Handler) Solomon, remembering her father as an "old, old man, with a long white beard." Regina was four years old when her father, Aaron, died. I have two different sources for Regina's birth showing that she was born on February 20, in 1891 or 1892, placing Aaron's death in the mid-1890s.

~~~~~~~

At Great-Grandmother Handler Married Twice, I shared a Cuyahoga County marriage record for "Rosalie Hendler" and Samuel Goodman. With information found on her death certificate (here), I believe this is the same woman, who, on her second marriage record, lists her parents as Harry Hendler and Anna Stern.

And my most recent post, I shared what JewishGen indicates is on her gravestone: "Chaya Sara bat Zvi," and note that "Zvi" is often "Harry" in America.

~~~~~~~

I just want to note that I have added a label to every post where I mention the Mishpacha Tape: Helen and Esther so that they will be easier to find (especially for me). Scroll down the left-hand side of my blog until you see the list of Labels, click on that label, and you will see the blog posts that reference this wonderful tape.