Jacob, Ethel, & Louis Greenberg

“From ambuscade,” was the way the Fort Worth Record & Register described the December 1901 murder by shooting of Joe Greenberg, a farmer living near Fort Worth, Texas. His attacker, who had earlier claimed that Greenberg owed him money, hit his victim in the back at close range with eleven shots, killing the man almost instantly.

Greenberg, an Austrian immigrant, was buried in Fort Worth’s Hebrew Rest Cemetery. He was survived by his widow, Jennie, and their four children: Jacob (7), Ethel (5), Louis (2), and an infant, Joseph. According to the press, the Jewish community rallied to the family’s aid, forming a committee to raise funds for their benefit.

The reported support, however, was short-lived or insufficient. Within the year, Jennie was forced to bring suit against “the Fraternal Mystic Circle, with headquarters in Philadelphia” to recover the insurance on her husband’s life, with the insurer claiming that Greenberg had failed to make two payments before his death. Although it is unclear whether Jennie ultimately prevailed in her lawsuit, which the trial court took under advisement in December 1902, six months earlier she took drastic steps to admit her three oldest children to the Home. 

Joseph Magner, one of the Home’s founders who chaired the admission committee, described Jennie’s plight. Carrying a letter of recommendation from the Fort Worth Woman’s Council,  which had not provided any advance notice, Jennie appeared with her children on the doorstep of Home President Gabe Kahn “in a needy, nay starving condition.” Magner denounced the actions of the Fort Worth community in “dumping” the family upon the Home as a “callous ignoring of the duty they should have fulfilled but did not find it in their hearts to perform.” On June 5, 1902, after quickly vaccinating the children, the Home admitted Jacob, Ethel, and Louis. 

The children lived in the Home for less than a year.  In May 1903 they were discharged to their mother who had moved to New Orleans and married a man named Isaac Goldstein.

By 1920, Jacob was managing a dry goods store in New Orleans while living with his mother and younger brother Joseph.  Later the same year, Jacob married Ida Finkelstein. In 1924, they had a son, Nathan.