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Family history thread:
Here's a picture of my great grandfather Jake during the brief stint he tried working at the Homestake Gold Mine in Lead South Dakota after arriving in the US from his shtetl in Russia.
Here's a picture of my great grandfather Jake during the brief stint he tried working at the Homestake Gold Mine in Lead South Dakota after arriving in the US from his shtetl in Russia.
According to my grandmother, he soon realized he was not cut out for mine work and ended up taking over his brother-in-law's Saloon in Lead: the Lobby Liquor House.
A few more shots from the liquor house which had two different sections operating as a liquor store and a saloon, where the patrons evidentially had very poor spittoon aim.
Through this whole era, more of the family fled the pogroms and arrived in SD, and many of them homesteading in an area that the locals took to calling "the Jew flats." This is my great grandmother Ruth who was said to be one of the best riders in Pennington County.
Some more images from life on the "Jew flats":
My great grandmother's youngest brother, Louis, rode broncos and was billed a "Bronco Lou" though in stories, my grandmother has also said that he was called "Lou the Jew" which I always thought had a nice ring to it. Here he is:
Of course the history of this region is fraught with horrible violence and exploitation committed against tribes like the Lakota. Grandma's somewhat rosy handed down stories and pictures like this one of Uncle Jack with Minniconjou Chief White Bull can't tell the whole story.
(Side note - my brilliant cousin @RebeccaClarren is writing a book about this exact topic that is going to be amazing.)
Most of the family ended up leaving SD, with my branch relocating to St. Paul. Here's a snippet from a book about Pennington County in this period that references the family and the flats, and a few other photos that have been uncovered at grandma's house lately.
Bonus: A letter from great grandpa jake to his to-be wife Ruth in a mix of English and Yiddish (he has lovely Yiddish handwriting imo). Can anyone here translate Yiddish?
