Judith & Bella Ophirton

In 1910, Lithuanian immigrant Leon (Heifer) Ophirton married Ida Schmidt, a native of Riga, in New York. They later moved to Birmingham, Alabama, where their two daughters, Judith and Bella, were born. A third daughter, Miriam, was born and died fourteen months later in San Antonio. They finally settled in Corpus Christi, where Leon owned a dry goods store. In April 1922, just a few months after Ida died at age 40, Leon placed Judith (10) and Bella (9) in the Home.  

Ida Schmidt Ophirton, undated. From MyHeritage.com.

Less than two years passed when Judith and Bella were discharged to their newly remarried father and his wife, the former Alice Shanblum. During their time in the Home, Judith played piano in a duet with cornetist Isidore Kniez at B’nai B’rith’s 1923 convention. Bella contributed a chatty feature, “Bughouse Fables” (named for a popular comic strip), to the Children’s Page of the Golden City Messenger, in which she imagined Judith getting ten demerits, a nod to her older sister’s apparently well-known good behavior.

Once back in Texas, Judith and Bella finished high school, graduating from Corpus Christi High School in 1927 and 1929, respectively. 

Judith Ophirton, Corpus Christi High School Year Book, 1927. From Ancestry.com

In 1929, Judith married Albert Schmidt. By 1940, they had moved to New York City, where he worked as a commercial artist. They had a daughter, Ina, and shared their home with Bella, who was working as a sales girl in a department store. Judith died in 1999.

In 1942, in a ceremony at Corpus Christi’s Temple Beth El, Bella married Harry Pearlman. She died in 1998 in Redmond, Washington.