Sarah Levison (1890-1977)

Sarah Levison was born 15 Feb 1890 in then Russia, now the Ukraine, daughter of Aron Levison and Fannie Brodie. I still have not been able to exactly find their place of origin, the closest I can come is Odessa, or  Kherson/Gherson. She is the great-grandaunt of my son-in-law.

Before the family came to the US, they had a long and convoluted journey behind them. We find them in the 1901 British census in the Stepney Green Buildings in Mile End Town in London (a very nice old map of Mile End can be found here). They are living with another family, Anna Korman and her daughter Edith, who most likely are related, but I still have not figured out how. The father Aron is not listed, neither is Anna’s husband.

The census does not indicate how long they were in London, but sister Mary was married to John/Jacob Finn in 1898 in the East London Synagogue in Mile End. Her father was deceased at that time. John/Jacob is not listed with them in the 1901 census, Mary and her six month old child are listed as boarders.  Sarah attended the Garden Street Temporary School, in London, starting on 4 March 1901⁽¹⁾.

The family apparently goes to South Africa after 1901, because the passenger lists list their last address as Johannesburg, South Africa. They do not travel all together: daughters Mary and Bessie arrive in New York on 24 Mar 1907 from Southampton;  son John arrived in New York on 1 Dec 1907 from Cherbourg; Fannie, Sarah, and Anna and Edith Korman come from Southampton on the “New York,” arriving on 12 Apr 1908. Mary is the US contact for John, and John for Fannie. Mary and Bessie’s contact was a Mrs. Annie Podolsky, who is listed as their cousin. Mary’s husband is supposed to arrive in San Francisco from Australia, according to the passenger list.

I did find all of them also in English incoming passenger lists, except John (who came through Cherbourg) and John Finn (who may have come via Australia.)

The Levison and Korman families are very much intertwined, but I still have not been able to totally disentangle them. When Edith Korman married in 1920, her mother is listed as Anita Levenson, making it at least plausible that she was a much younger sister of Fannie’s husband, but she could also be a daughter of yet another brother (there is a 20 year difference between Anna and Fannie.)

Edith married David Levi(n)son from Russia, making the tangle denser again. Sarah married in New York with a Russian Jew as well, but at least not a Levison.

(1) London, England, School Admissions and Discharges, 1840-1911 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010. Original data: School Admissions and Discharges, 1840-1911. London, England: London Metropolitan Archives