Rose & Emanuel Sherman
Living in New Orleans with their family, siblings Rose and Emanuel Sherman were the two youngest of seven children. Their mother died from appendicitis when Rose was one year and four days old. In 1925, shortly after their mother’s death, their father, Frank Sherman, admitted Rose (2) and Emanuel (7) to the Home.
During Emanuel’s time in the Home, he took part in “Alice in Wonderland,” a musical-pantomime performed at the Athenaeum to celebrate the Home’s 1933 anniversary. He was discharged in 1935. The Home’s registry notes that he died in 1980.
During her time in the Home, Rose’s name appeared more frequently in the news, particularly in connection with activities at Newman School. In 1931, her second grade class attracted attention for an exhibit of “things collected while on summer trips,” and the next year she performed in the school’s Mother Goose operetta, “The House That Jack Built.” In 1936, as a member of the school glee club, she played a Spanish soldier in the “Belle of Barcelona” operetta.
For high school, Rose attended Joseph Kohn Commercial School for Girls. Before her June 1940 graduation, Rose regularly competed in the Times-Picayune’s weekly “Biggest News” contest, occasionally earning recognition for her “meritorious” essays. After her discharge from the Home later that year, Rose attended Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. In 1946, she married Louis Albert Kaufman, a Newman School classmate who also attended LSU and made his career as a lieutenant colonel in the Army. Rose joined her husband for two years while he was stationed in Japan before relocating in Maryland. Together they raised children and were married for 31 years. The marriage ended in divorce.
Rose later married Sam Meadow. She died in 2015 and was buried alongside Sam, an Army veteran, in Arlington National Cemetery.
While Rose Sherman attended Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, she kept in touch with Home Superintendent “Uncle Harry” Ginsburg, as reflected by her February 3, 1943 letter. From Jewish Children’s Home Collection, Tulane University Special Collections.
In 2003, Rose Sherman Meadow was interviewed by Ned Goldberg, Executive Director of JCRS about her childhood in the Home. Watch the video here.
In 2004, Rose Sherman Meadow was interviewed by Al Stein of the Institute of Southern Jewish Life about her childhood in the Home. Also heard in the interview is fellow Home alumnus and lifelong friend, Albert Fox. Watch the video here.