Weinberg Siblings: Edith, Leon, Rebecca, and Bessie

In February 1919, within a week after the death of his wife, the former Mary Richter, William Weinberg admitted his four children to the Home: Edith (11), Leon (10), Rebecca (6), and Bessie (4). William, a native of Russia, was a hatter, albeit then unemployed.

During the children’s time in the Home, their father came to visit. On one of those visits, he met and later married Minnie Dubinski Meyers, a widow whose daughters, Henrietta and Sarah Meyers, and whose much younger brothers, Jacob and Israel Dubinski, were living in the Home for some of the same time. 

While in the Home, Edith excelled in her typewriting classes at Isidore Newman Manual Training School, winning certificates in 1924 from both the Underwood and Remington Typewriter Companies for her accuracy and speed. She also played piano, and later the same year performed at a Tea & Linen Shower given for the benefit of the Home by its honorary matrons. Edith left Newman before graduating, and instead attended Soule Business College from which she earned a certificate in shorthand in 1927. In 1929, Edith was fully discharged from the Home, having spent the prior two years in a nearby boarding house under the Home’s supervision as a non-resident ward. 

By 1940, Edith married Walter G. Baldenhofer, a brewmaster, with whom she lived in New Orleans and had two sons. Predeceased by her husband, Edith died at Willow Wood Home for the Aged in 1991.

Leon remained in the Home until 1924, when as a non-resident ward, he briefly lived with his father and step-mother before moving into a nearby boarding house. While in the Home, Leon was a member of the Home’s Boy Scout Troop. He was fully discharged from the Home’s care in 1927.

In 1940, Leon joined the Army where he served as a private first class. After earning a red & white good conduct ribbon, Leon was honorably discharged in 1945 and lived with his sister Edith and her family.

Rebecca lived in the Home until 1930, when she was discharged to her father and step-mother. While in the Home, she  was a member of the Home’s Girl Scout Troop, with whom she spent time at Camp Pruden near Covington, Louisiana. In 1935, she married Harold Jacques Queyrouze, a salesman, with whom she lived in New Orleans and raised four children. Following Harold’s death in 1952, Rebecca worked as a receptionist in a doctor’s office and as a landlord for several residential properties. 

Rebecca died in 2007 and was buried in St. Louis Cemetery No. 3,

Undated photo of Rebecca Weinberg, who went by the name “Jerry” after her marriage. Photo courtesy of Rebecca Weinberg’s grandson, Terrence O’Connor.

Bessie, the youngest sibling, remained in the Home until 1933. Before then, she celebrated her confirmation at Touro Synagogue, in a class that also included fellow Home kids Ida Beerman, Evelyn Lubow, and Edith Tannenbaum, and performed in the Home’s 1933 anniversary show, “Alice in Wonderland.” 

After her discharge, with the help of Mrs. A.I. Weil, one of the Home’s volunteer Honorary Matrons, Bessie found work at Maison Blanche Department Store, where she worked for four decades. Her marriage to David R. Smith ended in divorce. Bessie died in 1998 and was buried in New Orleans’s Hebrew Rest Cemetery No. 3.

Undated photo of Bessie Weinberg, preserved in scrapbook of fellow Home alumna Bessie Mashinka Rothstein. Courtesy of Debbie Wizig, Rothstein’s daughter.