Joseph Jersowitz was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on the 10th of July 1892. He died on the 26th of November 1960 at the age of 68 at St. Luke’s Hospital in Cleveland, Ohio.
My grandfather Joseph was a Jewish orphan, the only male son of Jacob Jersowitz and Beatrice Oden, both from Lithuania.
Sometime after 1900 Joseph and several younger Jersowitz’s were placed in Jewish Orphan Asylum, 5000 Woodland Ave in Cleveland, Ohio.
Joseph had a hard time recovering after he finally was released from the orphanage he had been living in.
Some mistook his lack of ability to demonstrate affection as a lack of love, but if you read about all the orphans that came out of the place they were staying at – they all had that problem because that was the way they were treated in the orphanage – no affection to be shown lest they become attached to something or someone and then have more difficulty moving to the next place they were to stay at. Not good policy. Human wisdom never seems to get things right.
Joseph Jersowitz became Joseph Jersey and married Ethel Clipper(s) in Kalamazoo, Michigan on the 3rd of December 1914.
Later when my mother was born she was named “Beatrice” in honor of her paternal grandmother.
I never met Joseph. He lived in America, while I was in Italy, and died when I was eleven, before I could meet him.