1930s

According to the 1930 Census, Jacob Levy was 80 years old and living with his 48-year old daughter Matilda Levy (Aunt Tillie) and 26-year old granddaughter Hilda Goldberg. They still lived in the house at 1328 Pierce Street. Jacob died soon after the census was taken, on April 29, 1930. A newspaper article from 1928 reported that he had been injured in an automobile accident. Perhaps that precipitated his death.

Jacob was buried next to his wife in Salem Memorial Park in Colma. A large stone with his name on it marks the entire family plot.

The loss of her beloved Grandfather must have been traumatic for Hilda and left a huge hole in her life. For Aunt Tillie too. Although almost 50 years old, Tillie had never married. Had she had no suitors? Had she stayed home to take care of her father and help raise Hilda after Tillie’s mother died ten years earlier? Just a few months after her father’s death, Tillie married Julius Zentner (the same Uncle Julius who was married to Aunt Josie, who had died in 1929). They wed on June 9, 1930. Julius was almost 20 years her senior.

We saw in the last post that Hilda was a talented pianist. I don’t know whether music would have paid the bills after Grandfather died. It certainly allowed her to meet and and find community with the musicians in San Francisco. At some point, she met was Nathan Firestone, first violist of the San Francisco Symphony and a member of various chamber music groups. He was 41 and she was 26.

Hilda and Nathan’s engagement was announced in the July 25, 1930 issue of Emanu-El: “Friends are felicitating Miss Hilda Claire Goldberg upon her engagement to Nathan Firestone of this city. The couple will be married in September.” Their engagement was also announced in the San Francisco Chronicle:

They were married in late August 1930.

From Merriam-Webster: “BENEDICT is a newly married man who has long been a bachelor.”

This story was particularly interesting for my husband whose piano teacher decades after this announcement was Lev Shorr!

It appears that Nathan and Hilda had a wonderful marriage. She continued at least until the mid-1930s to give performances while her husband played in the symphony, chamber groups, and gave music lessons. Nathan’s playing with the San Francisco Symphony was often reviewed in the local newspapers. In addition I found a number of articles mentioning other performances.

Their social life appears to be as full of music as their professional lives were.

At this point they were living through the Great Depression. Unlike so many, Nathan and Hilda apparently were comfortable enough and worked to help others in need:

In the September 15, 1933 issue of Emanu-El, there was an announcement that Nathan had opened a studio for “the acquirement of knowledge in the art of ensemble playing.” I have a copy of his brochure in my archive:

In, Tillie and Julius Zentner took a 4-month trip to Europe.

I wonder whether this is when Tillie met my grandmother and her children in Vienna. The story I had always heard was that she had been charmed by young Harry and when world events made it clear that it was no longer safe to be in Vienna, she asked my grandmother to send him to safety in San Francisco.

In 1939, my family’s story joins Hilda’s. When my mother Eva and her brother Harry came to the U.S. in October 1939, they were split up and sent to live with different relatives. 15-year old Harry lived with Hilda and Nathan as he finished his last two years of high school.